Amazon's Top UK Reviewers Appear to Profit From Fake 5-Star Posts

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Amazon's top UK reviewers appear to profit from fake 5-star posts:

Amazon is investigating the most prolific reviewers on its UK website after a Financial Times investigation found evidence that they were profiting from posting thousands of five-star ratings.

Justin Fryer, the number one-ranked reviewer on Amazon.co.uk, reviewed 15,000 worth of products in August alone, from smartphones to electric scooters to gym equipment, giving his five-star approval on average once every four hours.

[...] Overwhelmingly, those products were from little-known Chinese brands, who often offer to send reviewers products for free in return for positive posts. Mr. Fryer then appears to have sold many of the goods on eBay, making nearly 20,000 since June.

When contacted by the FT, Mr. Fryer denied posting paid-for reviews-before deleting his review history from Amazon's website. Mr. Fryer said the eBay listings, which described products as "unused" and "unopened," were for duplicates.

At least two other top 10-ranked Amazon UK reviewers removed their history after Mr. Fryer. Another prominent reviewer, outside of the top 10, removed his name and reviews and changed his profile picture to display the words "please go away."

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