The issue is that reviews affect ranking. And ranking can have a huge impact on sales. Attackers only have to get through a few times to create enough damage

The issue is that reviews affect ranking. And ranking can have a huge impact on sales. Attackers only have to get through a few times to create enough damage to require hundreds or thousands of 5 star reviews to fix. It's a matter of very simple math. The only reviews that should be permitted should be from actual Amazon customers. They should also be weighted based on what I am going to call "karma". By this I mean that it should not be possible for someone to setup an account, buy a product and then leave a 1 star negative review within a few days. We have seen reviews posted before the product was delivered to the buyer! In addition to this, the buyer's "karma" needs to have an element of seniority validation. Someone who has been on Amazon for ten years and regularly buys products is not likely to post face reviews. Someone who just joined Amazon 30 days ago and only bought a handful of products should not be trusted. Non verified reviews should not be allowed at all. The key word here is "review", which should mean "I bought one, I used it for a reasonable period of time and this is what I think of the product.". Reviews also need to have a certain amount of minimum time from purchase built in. Say, 30 days. And, within this time, sellers ought to have access to buyers in order to try and make it right. In other words, just like a Walmart customer would when buying something from the store and don't like it. There's an opportunity for excellent customer service here and Amazon is not allowing it to happen. That's a review. An unverified review is a fairy tale. It's fake. And it can be fake both in a positive or negative direction. Amazon needs to put in basic provisions in order to ensure that reviews are from actual buyers with enough "karma" to be trusted.