This, exactly. The massive flood of fake online reviews, not to mention the broken weighting systems that enhance the effect by grading products on a curve, has created a situation that's stacked against legitimate businesses. Not only are scammers filling their own products with fake positive reviews, they're also spamming real businesses with negative ones.

One of the weirdest things that happened to me this year: I received a book from Amazon I hadn't ordered. It was addressed to me at my house, apparently printed off an Amazon press in Poland, but listed by a "company" in Vietnam. It was called "Daily Business Plan" or something, with a generic stock photo on the cover. Inside, every page was the same - blank except for lined horizontal rules and the days of the week, Monday through Sunday. There were no dates, no year, no page numbers. No bibliographic page. I let Amazon know about it. I can only assume that the seller was trying some kind of scam to write "verified buyer" reviews for themselves...