Amazon fake reviews bought for £3 | The Bookseller

The practice was uncovered after the newspaper published a fake e-book called Everything Bonsai! written over a single weekend and littered with errors. The newspaper's journalist then paid the scammers a total of £56 to give the book five-star reviews and take advantage of Amazon's e-book deals to earn it a place at the top of the gardening category of Amazon UK's Kindle chart.

The newspaper subsequently went on to find that identities of those leaving the ‘reviews' had been stolen from youngsters on Facebook.

Amazon has since closed the accounts of e-book reviewers who were found to be posting fake reviews in exchange for cash.