1x1-Illustration-by-Fernando-Capeto-for-Forbes;-Photo-by-Epoxydude-Getty-Images There's a decent chance you've been duped by fake reviews, written by people who received free products, gift cards or money in exchange for putting a finger on the scale in favor of certain unscrupulous brands. These reviews proliferate during the holiday shopping season on popular gifts like slippers, watches and sweaters, according to Saoud Khalifah, CEO of Fakespot, which uses artificial intelligence to identify fraudulent and untrustworthy reviews on sites like Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy. The product category with the highest percentage of fake reviews on Amazon after Black Friday is slippers, according to Fakespot, which says a whopping 71% of those reviews can't be trusted. Other popular holiday items that are flooded with fake reviews include sweaters, smartwatch bands, Christmas trees, watches, back massagers and earbud headphones, where more than one third of reviews are unreliable, according to Fakespot. The number of fake reviews posted ahead of the holiday season dwarfs the little spikes in activity on other gift-giving occasions like Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Father's Day, according to Khalifah. Buyer's remorse often follows. The biggest surge in bad reviews comes after the holidays, for products that were purchased in November and December, Hollenbeck said. Amazon is working to curb fake reviews, which are banned on its site. It uses a combination of technology and human investigators to analyze reviews before they go live on the site, and an Amazon spokesperson says the company has kept millions of suspected fake reviews from being published. More than 99% of products viewed on its site contain only authentic reviews, said the spokesperson. Sellers who are found to have violated its policies are kicked off the platform. It has also filed lawsuits against brokers who coordinate fake reviews on Facebook. Last year alone, Amazon said it invested more than $900 million and had 12,000 employees working to counter fraud and other forms of abuse, like fake reviews. "It's really, really hard to compete with those kinds of games," Khalifah said. "A fly-by-night company that creates a game that's trash and tries to push it with fake reviews? Impossible." camera bag cyber mondayburberry ashby bag replica
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