  While human factors in fraud have been studied by the HCI and security
communities, most research has been directed to understanding either the
victims' perspectives or prevention strategies, and not on fraudsters, their
motivations and operation techniques. Additionally, the focus has been on a
narrow set of problems: phishing, spam and bullying. In this work, we seek to
understand review fraud on e-commerce platforms through an HCI lens. Through
surveys with real fraudsters (N=36 agents and N=38 reviewers), we uncover
sophisticated recruitment, execution, and reporting mechanisms fraudsters use
to scale their operation while resisting takedown attempts, including the use
of AI tools like ChatGPT. We find that countermeasures that crack down on
communication channels through which these services operate are effective in
combating incentivized reviews. This research sheds light on the complex
landscape of incentivized reviews, providing insights into the mechanics of
underground services and their resilience to removal efforts.
