New laws needed to protect people from an epidemic of scams, dangerous products and fake reviews online, Which? warns

24 September 2021

Which? is launching a campaign for new laws to protect people from an epidemic of scams, dangerous products and fake reviews online – as new research from the consumer champion shows tech giants are failing to adequately protect their users.

Which? believes urgent government action is needed to make online platforms legally responsible for the harmful content on their sites that leaves people seriously exposed to financial, emotional and even physical harm.

The consumer champion’s latest research, a survey of 2,000 UK adults, shows trust among consumers in the ability of tech giants like Amazon, eBay, Facebook and Google to protect them from either scams, unsafe products or fake reviews is shockingly low – with two thirds (68%) of people saying they have little or no trust that online platforms are taking effective steps to do so.

Which? has tracked these problems for several years and believes they are symptomatic of a broader issue – the failure of major online platforms to take enough responsibility. If left unchecked, this will likely lead to the problems consumers face online getting worse in years to come.

Which?’s survey found worrying indications of the presence of these issues on online platforms and the negative impact they have on victims.

One in five (18%) respondents reported having bought an unsafe product that posed a health or safety risk from an online marketplace in the last year.

A fifth (21%) said a product they had bought from Amazon Marketplace presented a health or safety risk and one in six (16%) who had bought a product from eBay reported this happening too.

Alan Christopher, 46, told Which? he bought an ‘iPosible’ power bank from Amazon Marketplace but that shortly after receiving it, the product – which carried a coveted Amazon’s Choice endorsement – caught fire in his home. He managed to get the product to his sink and cover it with water before it caused further damage.

He said: “This product could have killed me. It’s really worrying that these products are making their way into people’s homes and are still being sold despite having such a serious issue. It has made me distrustful of buying from Amazon.”

Eight per cent of survey respondents said they had been the victim of a scam as a result of using an online platform.

For scam victims, the knock-on effects were severe, with half (51%) saying it was negative for their financial situation, a third (33%) saying it negatively impacted their mental health and a quarter (23%) saying falling victim to the scam even impacted their physical health in a negative way.

David*, in his seventies, lost over £20,000 in an investment clone scam last year. After a Google search for the ‘best rate of interest for savings of £15,000’, he clicked on what he believed to be a legitimate website, and filled in his personal details. He was then contacted by a fraudster posing as a Standard Chartered bank employee. The fraudster convinced David to deposit his life savings and he has not yet received a refund.

He told Which?: “I feel very upset and shocked about the scam. I am an honest person, and wrongly expected others to be the same. It has been a rude awakening – I don’t trust anyone now. The money from the investment was to be used for a replacement joint operation – I will be in agony for months to come.”

Nearly nine in 10 (89%) respondents to Which?’s survey said they use online customer reviews to inform product purchases or choice of services.

However just six per cent trust ‘a great deal’ that online platforms like Amazon and Facebook are taking effective steps to protect consumers from fake reviews. Three times as many (18%) do not trust ‘at all’ that they are taking effective steps.

Around four in 10 (41%) people admitted to finding it difficult to work out if customer reviews are genuine and have been left by a real customer that truthfully describes their experience with the product or service. Just one in six (17%) said they found it easy to do so.

Which? investigations over the last two years have exposed a flood of harmful content, including scams, dangerous products and fake reviews, making its way onto the biggest online platforms. Tech giants have put measures in place to protect consumers but Which? research has repeatedly found evidence that suggests these problems are continuing on an industrial scale.

Which? has launched its new #JustNotBuyingIt campaign to make tech firms take responsibility for the harms taking place on their sites. Platforms not having enough legal responsibility allows unscrupulous individuals or businesses and criminals to sell unsafe products, mislead consumers and target potential scam victims with ease, causing serious harm to consumers and undermining trust in digital commerce.

Powerful tech companies often profit from this harmful activity – whether via investment adverts paid for by criminals or sales of unsafe products boosted by fake reviews – and the lack of a legal framework means they lack sufficiently strong incentives to shut down these practices.

Despite having some of the most sophisticated technology known to man, the voluntary solutions put forward to date to tackle these problems by the major online platforms have been inadequate.

Which? believes the government must now step in with laws giving regulators and other bodies the powers they need to make online platforms take responsibility for the serious consumer harms on their sites.

Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy, said:

“Millions of consumers are being exposed every day to scams, dangerous products and fake reviews. The world’s biggest tech companies have the ability to protect people from consumer harm but they are simply not taking enough responsibility.

“We are launching our new #JustNotBuyingIt campaign because it is time to stop just asking these platforms to do the right thing to protect consumers – instead the government and regulators must now step in and make them take responsibility by putting the right regulations in place.”

Notes to editors

Link to Which?’s #JustNotBuyingIt campaign at: https://campaigns.which.co.uk/tech-giants-responsibility/
Which? surveyed 2,000 adults in the UK between 10th and 13th September 2021. Fieldwork was carried out by Opinium and data has been weighted to be representative of the UK population (aged 18+).

Case studies

Alan Christopher, 46, bought an ‘iPosible’ power bank off Amazon Marketplace. However, shortly after receiving it, the Amazon’s Choice product caught fire while being used in his home. He managed to get the product to his sink and cover it with water before it caused further damage.

He told Which?: “This product could have killed me. It’s really worrying that these products are making their way into people’s homes and are still being sold despite having such a serious issue. It has made me distrustful of buying from Amazon.”

Amazon initially asked him to send the damaged lithium battery in the post in order to get a refund for the product which cost £24.95. However, after seeing Alan’s images of the damaged product, the online marketplace agreed to provide him with a full refund.

Which? has seen similar issues reported in customer reviews on iPosible power bank products on Amazon.

* David is not the real name of the case study

Carolyn, a filmmaker from London, was conned out of £110, after buying a bed that she had seen advertised on Facebook. Prior to making the purchase, Carolyn had checked the company’s customer reviews. Encouraged by several positive comments, Carolyn placed an order for the bed. Things quickly went awry – the company did not send a delivery confirmation, and her messages went unanswered. Carolyn never received her purchase.

She told Which?: “I checked the company’s customer reviews again, and there are now dozens of reviews from others who were scammed with the same ad. I went to find it on Facebook to report it, and discovered it does not come up as a regular ad, but as a post shared from a personal account. Facebook needs to stop people posting details of dubious companies.

“I wanted to share my story as people think that it is only those who are elderly, or extremely vulnerable, who are being scammed. Unfortunately, scams are becoming rife on social media, they can affect anyone of any age.”

Rights of reply

An Amazon spokesperson said:

“Last year, Amazon invested more than $700 million and employed more than 10,000 people to protect our customers from fraud and abuse. We are relentless in our efforts to innovate and have built robust programmes and industry-leading tools to ensure products are safe and compliant and to protect the integrity of customer reviews. We want customers to shop with confidence and if a customer ever has a concern, they can contact customer service and we will investigate.”

An eBay spokesperson said:

“eBay has a long-standing commitment to ensuring consumers have the confidence to shop online safely. As part of that commitment, we have automatic filters in place which block listings which are unsafe or do not comply with our safety policies. These blocked six million unsafe listings from making it onto site in 2020.

“As an additional layer of safety, our teams work around the clock to manually review and remove any listings which may not have been caught by our filters.

“And to further our continued work in consumer safety, eBay has established a regulatory portal that enables authorities, such as Trading Standards, to directly report and remove listings that do not comply with relevant laws and regulations.”

Facebook

“Scammers exploit people in a number of ways, both online and offline, including fake phone calls and text messages, phishing emails and internet scams. Facebook is dedicating significant resources to tackle the industry-wide issue of online scams by working to detect scam ads, block advertisers and, in some cases, take them to court.

“While no enforcement is perfect, we continue to invest in new technologies and methods to protect people on our service from these scams. We have also donated £3 million to Citizens Advice to deliver a UK Scam Action Programme to both raise awareness of online scams and help victims.” – A Facebook company spokesperson

A Google spokesperson said: “Protecting consumers and legitimate businesses operating in the financial sector is a priority for us. We have been working in consultation with the FCA for over a year to implement new measures and having now launched further restrictions requiring financial services advertisers to be authorised by the FCA with carefully controlled exceptions, we will be vigorously enforcing our new policy.”

iPosible

Which? was unable to find contact details for iPosible. It reached out to a seller through Amazon’s website but had not heard back by the time of publication.

Santander

“We have the utmost sympathy for all those who fall victim to the criminals who carry out these scams. Despite [David] being shown multiple investment scam warnings that cautioned against ‘spoof companies’; receiving an SMS to check the payment was genuine; and a Confirmation of Payee match to a different company name from who he was investing in, he unfortunately continued to make the payment.”

“When reviewing a claim under the Contingent Reimbursement Model, we always consider whether a customer was vulnerable at the time they fell victim to a scam. In this case, we have closely reviewed his case and do not consider him as vulnerable.”

About Which?

Which? is the UK’s consumer champion, here to make life simpler, fairer and safer for everyone. Our research gets to the heart of consumer issues, our advice is impartial, and our rigorous product tests lead to expert recommendations. We’re the independent consumer voice that influences politicians and lawmakers, investigates, holds businesses to account and makes change happen. As an organisation we’re not for profit and all for making consumers more powerful.

The information in this press release is for editorial use by journalists and media outlets only. Any business seeking to reproduce information in this release should contact the Which? Endorsement Scheme team at endorsementscheme@which.co.uk.

Press Release: Digital, Fake reviews, Online Scams, Rocio Concha