Buy Amazon reviews Fiverr

Less than a weekafter Amazon cracked down on fake reviewsby filinga lawsuit, the sale of fakereviews at Fiverr.com still seems to be occurring. And people still appear to be buying the services. But the lawsuit has started toput a dent in the fake review activity.

Amazon sued 1,114reviewers in Washington state court on October 16, 2015.

Before filing the lawsuit, Amazon conducted an undercover sting operation by purchasing reviewsfor products and communicating directly with some of the defendants, the complaint states. The reviewers who were sued are ones that Amazon claims sold fake reviews for as little as$5.00 each on the services marketplace site called Fiverr [so named because every service is $5.00].

Review Services Thrive on Fiverr

Each of the reviewers who was sued was named by their Fiverr handle in Exhibit A attached to the lawsuit [embedded below].

The lawsuit is not against the Fiverr site itself. No wrongdoing has been claimed against Fiverr.com. The lawsuit is against the named sellers of fake reviews.

While Fiverr has its share of spammy services such as fake reviews, the site also has millions of sellers of legitimate services. For instance, many freelancers who are new will start at Fiverr. They sell services at low ratesuntil they build up a portfolio. For them, Fiverr is a marketing platform and a place to find customers in the vast ocean of the Web.

Fiverr is also a great place if you need a very small service for your business, such as a single image edited. It would be impossible tohire a traditional design agency to edit just oneimage for $5.00.

Fiverr uses a system of badges, reviews and reputation pointsto rate sellers. The system is designed to use community reputation to help buyers choose reputable sellers.

Still,for the most part, Fiverr is an example of the free market in action. It is possible for almost anyoneto set up a seller account on Fiverr.

That means theres no barrier to entry for sellers to sell spammy services other than buyers good sense.

This is the second Amazon fake reviews lawsuit. Back in April 2015, the eCommerce giant filed suit against independent websites and businesses selling fake reviewsforthe Amazon site. Those websites have since been shut down.

Fake Activity Slowing Down

When our editorial team visitedFiverr.com earlier this week, we found an entire category dedicated to review services. It had over 4,000 gigs or service offerings around providing reviews.

We spot checked the list ofthe sellers named in the lawsuit. The profile pages for alltwo dozenwe spot-checked are no longer active. [See image above.]

Yetthere are many reviewers still openly advertising that they will post positive Amazon reviews for $5.00. One brazenly uses a photo of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to advertise his fake reviews service.

Some sellers offer to postnegative reviews, as the profile image below shows. Negative reviews are used to sabotage ones competition by making their product look bad.

Both positive and negativepaid reviews are against Amazons review guidelines. Amazons prohibitions are broad enough that any kind of review in exchange for compensation [other than a free copy of the product] isin violation even if the review is anhonest opinion.

One thing we noticed as the week progressed is that fewer fakereview services showed up prominently inFiverr searches. Whether that lesser visibility is due tosellers hearing about the lawsuit and deciding to voluntarily keep a low profile, or some other reason, is not clear.

Of course, not all sellers on Fiverr offer reviews that are blatantly fake. Some sellers go to great pains to describe that they will not guarantee a positive review. Rather, they offer only to give their honest opinions.

However, there still seem to beplenty of others willing to sell their soulsfor $5.00.

Risky for Buyers of Amazon Fake Reviews, Too

Its not just sellers who should be running scared. Buyers of fake reviews such as authors and product sellers run risks, too.

At the very least, fakereviews getremoved. Your money iswasted. Amazons algorithms are sophisticated enough to track patterns of activity. Once a fakereviewer is outed,its easy to trace other paidreviewsand delete them.

The consequences could be even greater than a removed review and waste of time and money. More serious consequences could come from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission pursuing the parties for deceptive trade practices.

For an author caught buying reviews, it also can lead to a public relationsnightmare. Author Anne R. Allen advised other authors strongly against buying fake reviewsearlier this year on her blog, warning, you could get in big trouble. Soon.

If you think you will never get caught, think again.

Amazon plans to use the lawsuit to ferret out the identities of the buyers of Amazon fake reviews. The Amazon lawsuit demandsthat the Fiverr reviewers provide information sufficient to identify each Amazon reviewcreated in exchange for payment, and the accounts and persons who paid for suchreviews.

Who knows what Amazon will do once it gets that information?

Image: Small Business Trends