Italians Stay Afloat By Faking It On Amazon – IOTW Report

Italians Stay Afloat By Faking It On Amazon

I’ve always assumed at least half of the reviews are fake anyway.

MILAN (Reuters) – A 40-year-old mother from Rome used to have no problem providing for her two young children until the coronavirus struck last year and she lost her job, pushing her into the murky, multi-million-euro business of fake Amazon reviews.

She stumbled across the booming industry whilst searching online for ways to make money.

Tens of thousands of people have joined dedicated Amazon channels on the Telegram instant messaging site where anonymous intermediaries sign people up to write glowing five-star reviews for products in return for financial reward.

“It might not be very ethical or legal, but it has allowed me to indulge in a few things … that I couldn’t otherwise afford,” said the mother in Rome, declining to give her name to prevent being chased off Amazon’s Italian site.

Amazon has become increasingly popular in Italy, as elsewhere, as the country went into repeated lockdowns. While specific sales figures are not available, e-commerce in goods in Italy was estimated to have risen 31% over the past year by Milan Politecnico University.

Amazon said it went to great efforts to try to prevent false reviews from being published and monitored all existing comments for signs of abuse. It added that it was ready to ban or take legal action against anyone caught violating its rules. read more

21 Comments on Italians Stay Afloat By Faking It On Amazon

  1. Just like the fake news the MSM is spewing now. Fake reviews are every where. I left a negative review at Tractor Supply. They called and tried to get me to fix my review. I paid extra for a better product, got the cheaper one, never fixed it, didn’t keep my post. IMDB, fake reviews.
    Lying explicate explicate Democrat Commies.

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  2. If you think Fiat 500 is a POS you should try the ALFA ROMEO Gulietta. My Father has one.
    A.nother
    L.ousy
    F.uckin
    A.utomobile
    It never runs the same way twice. If it runs poorly on day 1 they say take it for a long hard drive. It will run better the next time. The 3rd time it wont start. You leave it for 1 week, get up early to dig in and before you touch your tools it starts just to make you look like an imbechille (Italian) Absolutely possessed. Three inches of dead space in the steering. Brakes? Power? Not even downhill with the wind behind you.

    I call it: “The Italian Princess, looks good, dresses well, and has a breakdown every time you go out in public.”

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  3. A friend of mine had a FIAT 126 which was the worst POS I ever saw as an excuse for a car (with maybe the exception of Yugo’s). Underneath the hood there was no splash cover on the bottom side of the coil which controlled the electrical system in this piece of Italian crap so that every time it rained heavily his car would short out when the water splashed up from below and caused this crap mobile to stall out in the middle of traffic. His wife made him get rid of it.

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  4. Oh man, my father had an Alfa Romeo in the late 1970s. An absolute blast to drive but what a finicky and unreliable car! He’d start it up, drive it one block to the bank and then he’d have to leave it there and take the train to work because it wouldn’t start again.

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  5. @aardvark

    I had a serious discussion with the owner of “The Guild” a very high end restorer while checking out an all black Detomaso Pantera. (cousin wanted to buy it but lived 2000 Km away) I was getting detailed photos for him. He said that this particular one had caught fire & been fully restored.
    His claim was that the Guidos would copper coat aluminum connectors for wiring harnesses which would expand & contract, generate heat & cause everything from intermittent problems to fires. He said it was common to almost all of the Italian cars.

    Within a week I moved the Alfa that I was storing for my dad out of my garage. He still owns it!

  6. Kcir from Toronto MARCH 27, 2021 AT 8:47 AM

    “…I call it: “The Italian Princess, looks good, dresses well, and has a breakdown every time you go out in public.””

    …so this commercial for the Fiat Abarth accurately characterizes Italian car attitudes, then…

    https://youtu.be/dtAEXHeU9Aw

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  7. SNS – I bemember that ad!
    However… no matter whut color you paint it, or how many stripes you put on it or turbos you put in it, a 500 is still a butt-ugly, homely looking lump of a car!

    Then there’s that reliability… their slogan should be: “You can pay more, but you can’t get less”

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  8. Yugo’s were Yugoslavian FIAT’s and were worse POS’s. The old joke about Yugo’s was, How do you double the price of a Yugo? Fill it up with gas. And then there was Paul Shanklin’s parody song In A Yugo which was probably and still is the funniest parody of any song on Rush’s program ever.

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