Key takeaways: 

• Amazon on Tuesday filed cases against two firms that allegedly served as fake-review agents.
• Third-party vendors allegedly spent AppSally and Rebatest for product reviews, expecting to juice their products’ ranking in Amazon search outcomes.
• Fake reviews have troubled Amazon’s online marketplace for years.

Fake reviews all over the Amazon site: 

Amazon on Tuesday filed a suit against two firms that allegedly worked as fake-review brokers.

The cases filed in King County Superior Court in Seattle blame the companies, AppSally and Rebatest for promoting fake reviews on Amazon’s online marketplace. The firms allegedly connected third-party vendors with clients who would positively review their products in dealings for complimentary products or payments.

The case means Amazon’s latest step to root out fake reviews on its sprawling third-party marketplace. The marketplace now accounts for almost half of e-commerce sales and has allowed the firm to bring in record income. But fake reviews have demonstrated to be an extremely complex issue for Amazon as the marketplace has expanded to have millions of third-party merchants.

Amazon stated in a statement the case aims “to close down two major fake-review brokers” that it declares “helped mislead shoppers by having their members attempt to post fake reviews in shops” like Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Etsy. The report added that AppSally and Rebatest state they have almost 900,000 users “willing to write fake reviews.”

Rebates refused to comment. Spokespeople from AppSally didn’t reply to a request for comment.

AppSally and Rebates have been in function since 2018, according to court filings. The complaint alleges AppSally directed a system wherein dealers would pay the firm a price, in some cases as little as $25, to get “verified reviews.”

According to the lawsuit, after providing AppSally with a connection to their product, the vendors would ship out empty boxes and provide AppSally with images to be had with a user’s review.