Don’t you get annoyed? When you’re looking for products on websites and you find a product which you want to buy but you’re not sure if you should trust them or not? This is because people know how easy it is for sellers to get “Fake Reviews” for their products.
Most of these cases trace back to 2014 where it was revealed that there are a few Facebook groups and Twitter accounts where you can go and find people who want to exchange fake reviews for free products. There have been reports that these groups are still functioning and are still offering users free products if they give them a fake 5 star rating.
Facebook had promised the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that they will hold a crackdown so that they are able to get rid of these accounts that are committing these frauds. It was found by researchers at WHICH that there were more than 18 groups who were running this racket and it involved more than 200,000 accounts.
It was seen that whenever someone would create a new Facebook account, they would get an invite to a group where they were offered free Amazon items in exchange for fake reviews.
Rocio Concha is the Director of Policy and Advocacy. He said that, “Facebook has failed to show that they are taking any kind of initiatives onto what will they do in order to create a care free zone for them”.
Another report has shown that these problems are also seen on Twitter. People have seen a few posts where users comment and promote their policy to users. If you search for “Free Amazon Items”, or “Free Amazon Products In exchange of review”, you will find in front of yourselves a place where these trades take place. Around 132 brands and 53,065 listings were seen in these comments sections.
The reports say that most of these accounts belong to China. Some of them are from India, Pakistan and the U.S. These people are on a lookout for people from countries like Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the UAE who would provide them these kinds of services.
Concha said that, “While Facebook and Twitter have failed to come up with any kind of strategy to tackle these scammers; it is becoming more and more difficult for customers to trust any seller as they can turn out to be a fraud in the end”.
Last year, the CMA specifically told Facebook to delete these groups that they knew were supporting this kind of agenda and well in response to the request made by CMA, Facebook went on and deleted around 16,000 accounts from its website.
It seems that these frauds are being brought into existence so that these scammers can take advantage of customers. It is the responsibility of Facebook and Twitter that they ensure nothing like this happens again in the future or else people will stop using these websites to buy anything.
Read next: American Congress Members Push for Easy to Read Terms of Service For Online Platforms
Most of these cases trace back to 2014 where it was revealed that there are a few Facebook groups and Twitter accounts where you can go and find people who want to exchange fake reviews for free products. There have been reports that these groups are still functioning and are still offering users free products if they give them a fake 5 star rating.
Facebook had promised the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that they will hold a crackdown so that they are able to get rid of these accounts that are committing these frauds. It was found by researchers at WHICH that there were more than 18 groups who were running this racket and it involved more than 200,000 accounts.
It was seen that whenever someone would create a new Facebook account, they would get an invite to a group where they were offered free Amazon items in exchange for fake reviews.
Rocio Concha is the Director of Policy and Advocacy. He said that, “Facebook has failed to show that they are taking any kind of initiatives onto what will they do in order to create a care free zone for them”.
Another report has shown that these problems are also seen on Twitter. People have seen a few posts where users comment and promote their policy to users. If you search for “Free Amazon Items”, or “Free Amazon Products In exchange of review”, you will find in front of yourselves a place where these trades take place. Around 132 brands and 53,065 listings were seen in these comments sections.
The reports say that most of these accounts belong to China. Some of them are from India, Pakistan and the U.S. These people are on a lookout for people from countries like Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the UAE who would provide them these kinds of services.
Concha said that, “While Facebook and Twitter have failed to come up with any kind of strategy to tackle these scammers; it is becoming more and more difficult for customers to trust any seller as they can turn out to be a fraud in the end”.
Last year, the CMA specifically told Facebook to delete these groups that they knew were supporting this kind of agenda and well in response to the request made by CMA, Facebook went on and deleted around 16,000 accounts from its website.
It seems that these frauds are being brought into existence so that these scammers can take advantage of customers. It is the responsibility of Facebook and Twitter that they ensure nothing like this happens again in the future or else people will stop using these websites to buy anything.
Read next: American Congress Members Push for Easy to Read Terms of Service For Online Platforms