Also what they'll do is the product listing switcheroo, where they'll sell some commodity item that's not necessarily crap and get a ton of positive reviews generated for it, legitimate or otherwise. Then the seller will update the product listing to refer to a completely different item, but all the reviews from the old product are remain attached to it.

A lot of online retailers also filter out negative reviews for things. Sometimes this is because they're shyster bastards, but sometimes it's because the manufacturer(s) of said items bully them into doing it. Two I have personal experience with are Cyclegear/Revzilla, and Rocky Mountan ATVMC. Both of these retailers will refuse to publish negative or middling reviews for their private label "bands" in order to make themselves look better. That's Tusk for Rocky Mountain, and Bilt/Sedici for Cyclegear/Revzilla.

I wasn’t even in any program, but once I left a bad review on a screen protector for my phone, and the company offered me $45 to remove it. That’s how much they care.

At this point I only trust reviews that have pictures or videos of the product.

Monsanto had a whole ass "fusion center" with ex-intelligence agents doing research and attacks on people doing research into Monsanto or their products.

It goes so far beyond reputation management now.

probably by participating in seo spam

I'm homeless and my cat is gone, but the product works exactly as advertised. 4 out of 5 stars.

I had the same happen with TrustPilot. They asked me to substantiate my negative review, which I did. The vendor then claimed I wasn't even a customer so TrustPilot removed my review, despite receiving copies of my invoice and correspondence. These review websites seem to frequently be fraudulent at their core.