Fake Amazon Reviews: How to Spot Them Before You Buy

Before you buy a new air fryer, robot vacuum or set of cookware on Amazon, you probably scroll down to the reviews. Most of us do. A product with thousands of five-star ratings feels like a safe bet.

The trouble is that many of those stars were never earned. Behind the scenes, an entire industry exists to sell fake reviews to online sellers, and the same tactics turn up on Walmart, eBay, Etsy and nearly every other online store. Learning to read between the lines is now one of the most useful shopping skills you can have.

How big the problem is

Amazon says it blocked more than 275 million suspected fake reviews in 2024 alone (Amazon). That is only the number it caught. Plenty still slip through, which is why the company has been taking fake review sellers to court since 2015.

Those sellers, known as fake review brokers, run like real businesses. Amazon has said two brokers it sued claimed more than 900,000 members willing to write fake reviews, with reviews sold for as little as $20 each (Chain Store Age). In July 2025, Amazon won a lawsuit that let it shut down a network of 75 websites selling fake reviews and fake seller accounts (PYMNTS).

For shoppers, the cost is simple. A poor product propped up by invented praise means you pay for something that breaks, underperforms or never matches the photos. Honest sellers lose too, because a brand that earns its reviews one customer at a time cannot compete with a rival that buys a thousand overnight. Every fake review makes the genuine ones harder to trust.

How fake Amazon reviews are made

Most fake reviews are arranged off Amazon, not on it. Brokers recruit reviewers through websites, Facebook groups and messaging apps. The reviewer buys the product with their own money, posts five stars, and then receives a full refund from the seller once the review goes live. Because a real purchase took place, the review carries the Verified Purchase badge.

Some schemes never ship the product at all. Amazon has said one broker told sellers to mail empty boxes to reviewers and to supply photos for them to upload (Chain Store Age). The order looks real, the photo looks real, and the review looks like it came from a happy customer.

Other tricks arrive inside the box. Many inexpensive products come with a card offering a free gift or an extended warranty in exchange for a five-star review. Amazon prohibits this, but it remains common.

Artificial intelligence has made all of this easier. Text generators can produce hundreds of believable reviews in minutes, each worded a little differently, so they are harder for Amazon’s filters to catch.

Not every fake review is positive. Brokers also sell one-star attacks on competitors’ listings. Some sellers use review hijacking instead, merging a new and unproven product into an older listing so it inherits ratings written about something else entirely.

Red flags on an Amazon listing

No single sign proves a review is fake. When several show up together, slow down.

Start with the star breakdown beside the overall rating. Real products have a spread of ratings. A listing with a huge bar at five stars, almost nothing in the middle and a cluster of one-star complaints is a classic pattern. The five-star reviews were often bought, while the one-star reviews came from real buyers who were let down.

Next, check that the reviews match the product. Each review shows the variation the reviewer bought, such as colour or size. If reviews mention a colour the item does not come in, or describe a different product altogether, the listing has likely been hijacked. Praise for a phone case on a listing for a blender is a dead giveaway.

Look at the dates. Sort by most recent and scroll back. A burst of reviews within a few days, especially soon after a product appears, often points to a paid campaign. So does a product with thousands of glowing reviews from a brand you have never heard of and cannot find anywhere else.

Read the words themselves. "Great product, highly recommend!" tells you nothing. Real owners mention how long they have used it and what went wrong. Be wary when several reviewers share the same unusual phrases, or when a review repeats the full product name and recites features like a spec sheet.

Click the reviewer’s name. Amazon profiles show their other reviews. A profile full of five-star ratings for cheap, unrelated items, often posted in clusters on the same day, is a warning sign.

Finally, do not lean on the Verified Purchase badge alone. It only proves the item was bought on Amazon, and refund schemes are built to earn it. The same caution applies to the AI-written summary at the top of the reviews. It is built from the reviews on the page, so if those are fake, the summary is too.

How to shop smarter online

The most useful habit is to read the three- and four-star reviews first. They tend to be the most honest, because they weigh the good against the bad. Then read the one-star reviews to see whether the same complaint keeps coming up. One broken unit is bad luck. Twenty reports of the same failure is a pattern.

Filter for reviews with customer photos and videos, and look for ones taken in a real kitchen or living room rather than a bright studio. Favour reviews written after weeks or months of use, since many people post the day the box arrives. Reviews marked as Amazon Vine come from a programme where reviewers receive the product free. They are allowed and clearly labelled, but remember that the reviewer did not pay for it.

Look up the brand away from Amazon. A real company usually has its own website, a support address and a presence beyond one marketplace. If the brand name is a random string of capital letters that exists nowhere else, be cautious.

Lastly, compare sources. Check the same product at other retailers, on independent review sites and in videos from people who show it in use. When the details line up across all of them, you can buy with confidence.

What is being done about it

Fake reviews are not only dishonest. In many cases they are illegal.

In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission’s rule on consumer reviews took effect on October 21, 2024. It bans fake reviews, including AI-generated ones, along with buying reviews and hiding negative ones (Franchising.com). In December 2025 the FTC sent warning letters to 10 companies, signalling that active enforcement has begun (Crowell).

In Canada, the Competition Bureau treats fake reviews as misleading advertising and has fined companies over them, including a $1.25 million penalty against Bell in 2015 for employee-written reviews of its own apps (RCI). Amazon continues its own fight in court, including a 2025 lawsuit filed jointly with the Better Business Bureau against a site selling "verified" Amazon reviews (Amazon).

If a review looks fake, use the Report link beside it on Amazon. In Canada, you can also report fake reviews to the Competition Bureau.

How we review at Better Home Living

We hold our own reviews to the same standard we just described.

We use what we review. Our freeze dryer review comes from running one in our own home, and our suit reviews come from wearing them almost daily for two years. The photos you see are ones we took ourselves, not images borrowed from the manufacturer.

We also tell you what goes wrong. Wear, flaws and frustrations belong in a review, and if something disappointed us, you will read about it. Some links on this site earn us a small commission, and we are open about that. It never changes what we say about a product.

The bottom line

A star rating is a starting point, not a verdict. Read the middle reviews. Check the reviewer. Look for real details and honest complaints. Compare more than one source.

The few minutes it takes can save you money, a return trip and a lot of frustration. Shop slowly, and let the real owners do the talking.