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Amazon's customer review system is being undermined by a flood of "fake" five-star reviews for products from unfamiliar brands, a new investigation claims.
The consumer group Which? badyzed the listings of hundreds of popular tech products in 14 online categories including headphones, dashcams, fitness trackers and smartwatches, checking for telltale signs of suspicious reviews.
Its researchers have been dominated by brands with names such as Itshiny, Vogek and Aitalk, which in many cases had been reviewed.
Many items also boasted a high number of five-star ratings posted in a short space of time.
With headphones, all of them are known to have been unverified purchasers.
Seventy-one per cent of the headphones had ratings, while others were not included. One set of headphones made by the brand Celebrat had 439 reviews. All were five-star, all unverified, and all arrived on the same day.
Which? found similar results when searching for smartwatches, with unverified reviews making up 99% of reviews for the top oven products.
"Our research suggests that Amazon is losing sight of the world," said Natalie Hitchins, head of products at Which?
"Amazon must do more to purge its websites of unreliable and fake reviews if it is to maintain the trust of its millions of customers. To avoid being misled and possibly buying a product, it should be a good idea to buy a product. "
Neither Which? The Guardian has been quoted in the report, or to identify the source of the suspicious reviews.
Amazon said in a statement: "[We] investing significant resources to protect the integrity of our lives. We have clear participation guidelines for both reviewers and sell partners and we suspend, ban and take legal action on those who violate our policies. "
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