Amazon customers look out for fake reviews for Prime Day
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (NBC, KYMA/KECY) - It's Amazon Prime Day!The annual sales event runs through Wednesday. It offers deep discounts on thousands of products in the Amazon marketplace.
But if you read the reviews to decide whether to buy something, there is a way to help sort out the legit ones!
Amazon Prime Day scored $12 billion in sales last year for the online retail giant. Shoppers often relying on reviews, but are they all reliable?
"If I see there are very few reviews, five or 10 reviews, I'll look at them cautiously," said Pat Scutero, a White Plains resident.
"I look for how many people have reviewed and what is the star?" said Behnam Ashjari, another White Plains resident.
"Safety in numbers. Trust when many many people are saying something," said Gregory Weiss, a purchaser.
Free tools
Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal says as many as 40% of online reviews are fake. As a result, Amazon says it uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to hunt for fake reviews and tells us it blocked 200 million last year alone.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is proposing a rule to stop marketers from paying for positive reviews. If they do, they could face civil penalties. In the meantime, there are free tools consumers can use to spot fake reviews.
ReviewMeta combs through Amazon, and Fakespot analyzes billions of reviews across several retail sites.
"We provide a grading system. It's an A to F kind of grading system. The A grade means there's a majority of trustworthy reviews. F means that there's a majority of reviews that you should look at with a closer eye," said Saoud Khalifah, founder and CEO of Fakespot.
Khalifah says certain products tend to be targets.
"Things like USB cables have a very high preponderance of fake reviews. And last I checked, it was about 45% of the reviews in that category would be unreliable," Khalifah explained.
What you can do
So what can you do to spot a potentially fake review? The FTC says, "Look for information on a product from a variety of sources. Watch out if there's a sudden burst of reviews on a particular item, and keep in mind that a negative review could also be fake to harm a competitor."
Also, when reviews are mostly positive, Khalifah has this suggestion.
"Take a look at the negative reviews or even the three-star mid-level reviews and try to see what the problems are with the product. The price may be really good, but if it breaks within one week you're not going to be really satisfied with that," Khalifah detailed.
If you spot a fake review on a product, you can use the Report link on Amazon when you log into your account.
