http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/10/19/amazon-cracks-down-fake-reviews/74213892/

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon is continuing its fight against fake reviews, filing a lawsuit on Friday against more than 1,000 people who allegedly offered to hire themselves out as fake reviewers at $5 a review.

All of the defendants were selling their services on Fiverr.com, a website where people can sell such services as designing a logo, editing a resume, creating a fan web page or transcribing audio. The lowest price per job is $5, hence the name "fiver."

An Amazon investigation allegedly found more than 1,000 people on Fiverr offering to create fake Amazon reviews. Most promised positive or five-star reviews.

"I will post awesome review on your amazon product, kindle book, ebook etc," read one offer cited in the suit. That person, whose screen name was bess98, allegedly described themself as having more than 30 different accounts and offering 24/7 support.

Some allegedly offered to have the seller write their own review, which the person would then post.

"You know your product better than me. So please provide your product review, it will be better," one poster was quoted in the suit as saying.

In order to post a "verified review," in which Amazon verifies that the poster actually purchased the item on Amazon, some of the reviewers allegedly ask for a promo code so they could get the product for free.

"Amazon has a particular challenge with fake reviews, as it marks confirmed purchases on the site as 'verified.' This is a false sense of security, as even verified reviews can easily be hacked," said Daniel Lemin, author of a book out next month called ManipuRATED: How Businesses Can Fight Fraudulent Online Ratings and Reviews.

At least one poster, according to the complaint, suggested the seller ship an empty envelope to create a shipping record, allowing the poster to make a verified review without getting the product.

Amazon's suit, filed in King County Superior court in Seattle on Friday, said the fake reviews mislead Amazon customers and tarnish Amazon's brand.

The suit is not against Fiverr but against individuals providing fake reviews, said Amazon spokeswoman Julie Law.

The vast majority of reviews on Amazon are authentic, helping millions of customers make informed buying decisions and Amazon's goal is to make reviews as useful as possible for customers, she said.

"We continue to use a number of mechanisms to detect and remove the small fraction of reviews that violate our guidelines.  We terminate accounts that abuse the system and we take legal action," Law said.

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“Fake reviews are far more common than most people might think. Yelp itself discloses that about 25 percent of the reviews it receives are fake and never published,” said Lemin.

The lawsuit might help slow down the flow of fake reviews, said Jenny Sussin, a research director with Gartner, a technology research firm.

“I think it instills a little bit of fear in people, in that you could get caught and have to pay a fine,” she said.

Amazon filed its first suit against fake review writers in April. In that instance, a California man was allegedly operating several review selling websites including one called buyamazonreviews.com.

While this is only the second suit Amazon has brought over fake reviews, the Federal Trade Commission has filed several.

And in 2013, the New York state Office of the Attorney General got 19 companies to pay more than $350,000 for posting fake reviews online.

In the end though, lawsuits need to be filed against the manufactures who are hiring people to create the faked reviews in the first place, Sussin said.

“What they’re doing is deceptive. Fivver has a site that enabled them to contract for it, but they’re the ones doing the thing that’s inherently wrong,” she said.