Quick answer. Amazon has a zero-tolerance policy for review manipulation. Writing reviews of your own or a competitor’s products, paying or rewarding anyone for a review, asking customers to change or remove reviews, diverting negative reviews, and misusing variations to pool ratings are all violations, even when an employee, family member or outside agency does it without your knowledge. Amazon can permanently remove your selling privileges, withhold funds, delete a product’s reviews, delist the product, take legal action and publicly name the seller. In the US, the FTC’s rule on consumer reviews also allows civil penalties against knowing violators, and the UK and EU ban fake reviews in their consumer protection law.

Reviews drive sales on Amazon, which is why Amazon polices them so strictly. Many sellers lose accounts over practices they did not recognize as violations, such as a package insert asking for a five-star review, a refund offered in exchange for removing a bad one, or an agency that promised “organic” reviews and delivered paid ones. The rules below come from Amazon’s own policies and from the regulators that now treat fake reviews as unlawful.

What Amazon Counts as Review Manipulation

Amazon’s Customer product reviews policies list violations including, but not limited to, the following.

• A seller reviewing their own product or a competitor’s product.
• Offering a financial reward, discount, free product, or other compensation in exchange for a review, including through review services, websites, or social media groups.
• Offering a refund or reimbursement after a buyer writes a review and asking the buyer to change or remove it.
• Using a third-party service that gives free or discounted products tied to a review.
• A family member or employee reviewing the seller’s product or a competitor’s product.
• Asking a reviewer to change or remove a review.
• Diverting negative reviews to the seller or another channel while sending positive reviews to Amazon.
• Creating a variation relationship to manipulate reviews and boost a star rating through review aggregation.
• Putting a request for a positive review, or an incentive for a review, in packaging or the shipping box.
• Using a customer account to write or change a review.

Amazon’s seller code of conduct adds that you may not solicit reviews only from customers who had a positive experience. Amazon’s seller-facing review guidance states the same rule from the other side. Sellers must not attempt to influence customer ratings, feedback and reviews, and must not ask customers to remove negative reviews or post positive ones.

The tactics that catch sellers off guard

Most of the cases we see do not start with a seller buying reviews outright. They start with a tactic that looked like customer service or marketing.

• The insert card. A card that says “Love it? Leave five stars. Problem? Email us first” both asks for a positive review and diverts negative experiences away from Amazon. It breaks two rules at once.
• The refund for removal. A seller refunds an unhappy buyer and asks them to take down the review as a courtesy. The refund is compensation tied to the review.
• The warranty registration funnel. A registration page off Amazon that asks satisfied buyers to post on Amazon and unsatisfied buyers to contact the seller is review diversion.
• The friends-and-family launch. Staff, relatives and business partners buy and review a new product. Amazon lists both family and employee reviews as violations.
• The variation merge. An unrelated product is added to a parent ASIN with strong ratings so the new product inherits the star average.
• The rebate group. A product is pushed through a social media deal group that refunds the purchase after the buyer posts a review.

You Are Responsible for Everyone Who Works for You

Amazon states that “seller” includes all of the seller’s employees and third-party partners, and that infractions by business partners, employees, or agencies result in enforcement even if they happened without your knowledge or consent. Amazon urges sellers to educate everyone they work with about these policies.

This rule changes how you hire. A launch agency, a freelance marketer, a virtual assistant with Seller Central access, a manufacturer that also sells your product, and a wholesaler running promotions all act as “the seller” for review policy purposes. If any of them buys reviews, runs a rebate group or contacts buyers off Amazon, the violation is recorded on your account. “We did not know” is not a defense under this rule. What you can show is that you had written rules in place, that you checked compliance, and that you ended the relationship and removed the person’s access once you found the problem.

Put review policy terms into every contract with a service provider. The contract should forbid incentivized or solicited reviews, contact with buyers outside Buyer-Seller Messaging, and the use of review services, and it should require the provider to disclose every tactic it uses on your listings. Keep a list of everyone with access to your account and review it every quarter.

How Amazon Detects Review Abuse

Amazon says it uses machine learning models that analyze thousands of data points before a review is published, including account relationships, sign-in patterns and review history. The aim is to block suspicious reviews before customers see them. Amazon reports that it blocked more than 250 million suspected fake reviews in 2023 and more than 275 million in 2024.

That detection model has a direct consequence for sellers. Amazon is not only looking at the review text. It is looking at who wrote it, how that account connects to other accounts, how the purchase happened, and what else that reviewer has reviewed. A cluster of reviews from accounts that also review the same set of unrelated products, or from accounts linked to your business, shows up in that data whether or not the reviews read as genuine.

The broker side of the problem

Amazon says fake review brokers are the source of most fake reviews, and it pursues them in court. Its published actions include lawsuits against sites that sold fake reviews, fake seller feedback and fake “Helpful” votes, a 2025 judgment that transferred more than 75 fraud websites to Amazon, and joint lawsuits with the Better Business Bureau. Amazon describes how brokers present themselves as legitimate businesses, recruit reviewers through websites, social media and encrypted messaging, and pay with money, free products or refunds. Some offered replacements if reviews were removed, and some tried to sell fraudulent seller accounts to sellers who had already been suspended.

When Amazon takes a broker to court, it gains access to that broker’s records. A seller who used the service can be identified from the broker’s side long after the reviews were posted. Review manipulation is not a risk that expires when the campaign ends.

What Amazon Does When It Finds Review Manipulation

Amazon can apply these actions together. A seller can lose the account, the funds in it, and the product’s review history in one decision. Removing reviews and blocking new ones also damages any brand that relied on that ASIN, so the commercial harm continues even if the account is later reinstated.

Fake Reviews Are Also a Legal Issue

Review manipulation is no longer only a marketplace policy matter. The US, the UK and the EU each treat fake reviews as unlawful in their consumer protection rules.

United States

In August 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced a final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials, approved by a 5 to 0 vote. The rule is codified at 16 CFR Part 465, was published on August 22, 2024, and took effect 60 days later. The FTC says the rule lets it seek civil penalties against knowing violators.

• Fake or false reviews. Section 465.2 bars writing, creating or selling reviews that misrepresent that the reviewer exists or had experience with the product, including AI-generated fake reviews, and bars buying or spreading them when the business knew or should have known.
• Buying reviews by sentiment. Section 465.4 bars paying or offering any incentive conditioned, expressly or by implication, on a review expressing a particular sentiment, positive or negative.
• Insider reviews. Section 465.5 bars officers and managers from writing reviews without clearly disclosing their relationship, and covers soliciting reviews from relatives and employees without disclosure.
• Company-controlled review sites. Section 465.6 bars presenting a site you control as an independent source of reviews in your own product category.
• Review suppression. Section 465.7 bars unfounded legal threats, physical threats, intimidation and certain false public accusations used to stop or remove a review.
• Fake social media indicators. Section 465.8 bars buying or selling fake followers, views and similar metrics used to misrepresent influence for a commercial purpose.

The federal rule and Amazon’s policy overlap but are not identical. Amazon’s policy is stricter on one point that matters in practice. The FTC rule targets incentives tied to a particular sentiment, while Amazon prohibits compensation for any review at all, positive or not, outside its own programs.

United Kingdom

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 lists fake reviews as a commercial practice that is always unfair. Paragraph 13 of Schedule 20 makes it unfair to submit, or commission someone to submit, a fake consumer review or a review that conceals that it was incentivised, and requires publishers of reviews to take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent and remove them. The Act defines a fake consumer review as one that purports to be, but is not, based on a person’s genuine experience. These provisions came into force on 6 April 2025.

European Union

Directive (EU) 2019/2161 amended the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive to add fake reviews to the list of practices that are always banned. Point 23c of Annex I covers submitting or commissioning another person to submit false consumer reviews or endorsements. Point 23b covers stating that reviews come from consumers who used or purchased the product without taking reasonable steps to check. A new Article 7(6) requires traders who give access to reviews to say whether and how they check that published reviews come from real consumers. Each member state enforces these rules through its own consumer authority.

Related guide. Brushing Scams on Amazon.

How to Get Reviews the Right Way

Ask neutrally, and ask everyone

Amazon’s code of conduct allows you to request feedback and reviews from your own customers in a neutral manner. You may not ask only for positive reviews or only ask customers who had a good experience. A neutral request asks for an honest review and says nothing about stars, satisfaction or what to write.

Use Buyer-Seller Messaging or the Request a Review button

All communication with customers must go through Buyer-Seller Messaging and be necessary for fulfilling the order or providing customer service. Contacting customers by other means violates the code of conduct. The Request a Review button on the Order details page in Seller Central sends a standard, Amazon-written review request for you. Because Amazon writes the message, it removes the risk of wording that leans toward a positive review.

Use Amazon Vine for new products

Amazon Vine is the sanctioned way to get early reviews from trusted reviewers. Amazon invites reviewers called Vine Voices to receive products and share honest, unbiased opinions. To enroll, you need a Professional selling account, a Brand Registry role or generic products, and an eligible FBA offer with fewer than 30 reviews, an image and a description. Adult, digital and bundled products are not eligible. You can offer up to 30 units per enrollment. In the US, Amazon lists no charge for up to 2 units, $75 for 3 to 10 units and $200 for 11 to 30 units per parent product. You are not charged until 30 days after enrollment and after your first review is published, and if no Vine review arrives within 90 days you are not charged. Amazon fulfills all Vine products through FBA so reviewers stay anonymous, which means you cannot contact them and should not try.

Respond to negative reviews by fixing the problem

You can resolve a customer’s issue, but you cannot ask them to change or remove a review, or offer anything in exchange for doing so. Sellers cannot edit reviews. If a review breaks Amazon’s community guidelines, for example because it is about shipping rather than the product, or contains abusive content, report it to Amazon and let Amazon decide. Amazon says it removes reviews that violate its policies.

Audit your inserts, variations and partners

Check package inserts for review requests or incentives. Make sure variations group truly related products. Confirm that agencies, freelancers, and staff understand the rules, because their actions count as yours.

Amazon’s guidance puts customer service first. Delivering on the product and delivery promise and answering problems fast is what earns reviews over time, and it is the only approach that carries no policy risk.

See also Can Amazon Delete Your Reviews? Why Product Reviews and Seller Feedback Disappear, and What Sellers Can Do and Can I Buy Amazon Product Reviews? No, and Here Is What You Can Do Instead.

Mistakes That Make a Review Case Worse

Once Amazon has flagged review activity, the next moves decide whether the account has a path back. These are the errors we see most often.

• Denying what the data shows. Amazon’s decision rests on account relationships and purchase patterns. An appeal that says “we never did anything” when a rebate group or agency was involved reads as a refusal to take responsibility.
• Blaming a competitor without evidence. Sabotage by competitors does happen. Claiming it without records of when the reviews appeared, why they could not have come from you, and what you reported to Amazon at the time does not persuade anyone.
• Contacting reviewers. Messaging buyers to ask whether they were paid, or asking them to remove reviews, adds a new violation to the original one.
• Keeping the agency. Continuing to work with the provider that ran the campaign undercuts any plan of action that says the cause has been removed.
• Opening a new account. Starting a second account to keep selling while the first is deactivated creates a separate and more serious problem under Amazon’s rules on multiple accounts.
• Sending a generic plan of action. A template that promises to “follow all policies” without naming who did what, when, and what changed gives the reviewer nothing to approve.

If Your Account Was Flagged for Review Manipulation

Because Amazon describes a zero-tolerance policy, review cases are among the hardest to reverse. An appeal has to show exactly what happened, who was involved, how it was stopped, and what controls prevent it from happening again. If you were wrongly flagged, for example because of reviews you did not solicit, the appeal must show that clearly with evidence.

How we work a review case

1. Read the notice. We identify the policy cited, the ASINs named, whether the action is a warning, a listing action or a deactivation, and what Amazon asks you to provide.
2. Reconstruct the timeline. We map every review-related activity on the named ASINs, including inserts, messages, launch campaigns, giveaways, agencies, deal groups and variation changes, against the dates the flagged reviews appeared.
3. Find the cause. The cause has to be specific. “Our launch agency ran a rebate program through a social media group from March to May” is a cause. “A misunderstanding of policy” is not.
4. Remove it. End the relationship, revoke access, pull non-compliant inserts from stock, and undo improper variation merges before you write the appeal.
5. Write the plan of action. The plan names the cause, the actions already taken and the controls going forward, such as written policies for staff and vendors, approval for any buyer messaging, and regular audits of inserts and listings.

The documents that matter

Useful evidence includes contracts and correspondence with any agency or freelancer, termination notices, copies of current and old package inserts, screenshots of Buyer-Seller Messaging templates, records of when variation relationships changed, and the list of users with Seller Central access. If you believe a competitor posted the reviews, include the dates and content of the suspicious reviews, your sales on those dates, and any reports you filed with Amazon when they appeared.

First-time versus repeat cases

A first warning that concerns one tactic, such as an insert card, is a different case from a deactivation that follows earlier warnings. With a first warning, the job is to remove the tactic, document the fix and show the controls. With a repeat case, Amazon has already seen a promise to comply that did not hold, so the plan has to show what changed in the business, not only in the listing. Repeat review violations are where permanent closure becomes most likely.

Our Amazon suspension and reinstatement team handles review policy cases. To keep your account clear of review risk going forward, see our Amazon account health maintenance service.

Preventing Review Violations Across Your Business

Prevention is a matter of controls you can show. If Amazon ever reviews your account, written rules and audit records are the evidence that a violation was an exception and not a practice.

Train new staff and vendors on the policy before they get account access, and keep a dated record of that training. When a vendor proposes a tactic you have not seen before, check it against Amazon’s policy page before it runs, not after reviews start to appear.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I give a free product in exchange for an Amazon review?

No. Amazon prohibits offering free products, discounts, refunds, or any compensation in exchange for a review. Amazon Vine is the only sanctioned way to provide free units to reviewers, and Amazon runs it.

Can I ask a customer to remove a negative review?

No. Amazon prohibits asking reviewers to change or remove reviews, with or without an offer of a refund or compensation. You can fix the customer’s problem, and you can report a review that breaks Amazon’s guidelines.

Am I responsible if my marketing agency bought reviews?

Yes. Amazon says violations by business partners, employees, or third-party agencies result in enforcement even without your knowledge or consent.

Is it allowed to put a review request card in the package?

Not if it asks for a positive review or offers an incentive. Amazon specifically lists that as a violation, and a card that sends unhappy buyers to you instead of Amazon is review diversion.

Are fake reviews illegal in the United States?

The FTC’s final rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, at 16 CFR Part 465, bans fake reviews and buying reviews tied to a particular sentiment, and allows civil penalties against knowing violators.

Get Help With a Review Policy Case

If you have received a review policy warning or deactivation, submit your case for a free assessment, or book a consultation before you respond.

You can also see all our marketplace suspension services.

Sources

• Amazon Seller Central, Customer product reviews policies
• Amazon Seller Central, Selling policies and seller code of conduct
• Sell on Amazon, Customer reviews
• Sell on Amazon, Amazon Vine
• About Amazon, Amazon’s latest actions against fake review brokers
• About Amazon, Second joint lawsuit with Better Business Bureau targets fake review brokers
• Federal Trade Commission, Federal Trade Commission Announces Final Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials
• Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 16 CFR Part 465, Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials
• legislation.gov.uk, Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Schedule 20
• GOV.UK, Online endorsements, being open and honest with your audience
• EUR-Lex, Directive (EU) 2019/2161