Fake Negative Reviews on Amazon, Flipkart: What Sellers Can Do

You cannot get a negative review deleted just because it hurts sales. Amazon and Flipkart take down reviews that break their own rules, such as one posted by a competitor or one that is about delivery rather than the product. So collect evidence, report the exact rule broken, reply calmly in public and fix any real complaint.

Is the review fake, or is the buyer just unhappy?

Start here, because the answer decides everything else. A one-star review from a real buyer is feedback, however unfair it feels. Reporting it as fake wastes your effort and can make the marketplace trust your later reports less.

Signs that point to a fake review:

• It describes a feature, colour or size your product does not have.
• It names or praises a rival brand.
• Several low ratings arrive within a day or two, with similar wording, after weeks of steady reviews.
• You cannot match it to any order or return in your reports.

Signs that point to a real complaint: the review matches a return reason in your returns report, or several unrelated buyers mention the same defect over weeks. Fix the product or the listing first in that case. That is the only thing that moves the rating for good.

What do the marketplace rules say?

We read both pages today. Meesho's supplier site blocked our request, so it is not in the table; look for the review or rating policy in your supplier panel.

Notice what both lists have in common. Neither lets you remove a review because it is negative. Both remove reviews that break a stated rule. Your report has to name that rule.

How to report a fake review, step by step

1. Take a screenshot of the review, with the date, the reviewer name as shown and the product page.
2. Check your order and returns reports for a matching order. Note whether one exists.
3. Write down which rule it breaks: competitor content, wrong product, delivery complaint, repeated wording, or a burst of ratings in a short time.
4. Report it through the route in the table. On Amazon, use the review's Report link and, for a pattern, the seller route in Seller Central.
5. Write the report in three short lines: what the review says, why it breaks the rule, and the evidence. Attach the screenshots.
6. Reply in public once, politely, if the platform allows seller replies on that page.
7. Keep a dated log of every report and its outcome. If the attack continues, the log is your case.

How should you reply in public?

Write for the next buyer, not the reviewer. Something like: "We are sorry to read this. This listing is for a 750 ml steel box, and the photos in this review show a different product. If you bought from us, please contact us through your order page and we will help." Facts, no anger, no accusation, and no buyer details.

A worked example

Sana sells steel lunch boxes at Rs 649. The product has 120 ratings and an average of 4.3. In two days it gets five one-star ratings saying the box rusted, and two of them praise another brand. None match a return.

Flipkart's terms say a product rating is the plain average of valid ratings, so the arithmetic is simple. Before: 120 x 4.3 = 516 stars. After: 516 + 5 = 521 stars over 125 ratings, an average of 4.17, which shows as 4.2.

How many genuine five-star ratings bring it back to 4.3? Solve 521 + 5x = 4.3 x (125 + x). That gives x of about 24. Five fake ratings cost her roughly 24 happy buyers' worth of goodwill. If her orders also slip from 20 to 16 a day for a month, that is 120 fewer boxes, or Rs 77,880 of sales.

So Sana reports all five, citing the competitor mentions and the absence of matching orders, replies once in public, and keeps her log. Each review removed takes back a fifth of the damage.

The mistake people usually make

They offer the reviewer a refund or a free product to delete or change the review. Amazon's guidelines name this as a violation even where the seller only offers a refund, and it puts your account at risk, not the reviewer's.

The second mistake is fighting back with your own fake five-star reviews from friends or family. Amazon bars reviews from relatives and business associates, Flipkart removes high ratings from buyers linked to the seller, and rule 6(2) of the E-Commerce Rules forbids a seller from posing as a consumer. One bad week becomes an account problem.

The third is arguing in public. A long, angry reply does more harm than the review itself. Reasons to get help: a coordinated attack you can document across many listings, or a notice from the marketplace about your own review activity. Both are worth a written appeal drafted with care. Our guide to a suspended seller account appeal covers how to write one.

Where does GST come in?

Review attacks often come with returns, and returns change your tax. Returned orders reduce the sales you report in GSTR-1 and the TCS the marketplace collects. Keep your returns report for the month with your review log, and make sure your return is built from the marketplace's sales and returns data, not from your payouts. Review problems are among the issues sellers report in our Seller Intelligence report.

Frequently asked questions

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