According to US court papers, Amazon says its brand reputation is being tarnished by "false, misleading and inauthentic" reviews.

The company says the writers of the false reviews offer their services for as little as $US5 on website Fiverr.com and most are paid for writing five-star reviews for a product.

Amazon has tried to remove the adverts for reviewers on the website but it says that doing this does not address the "root cause" of the issue or provide a deterrent to others.

Amazon is not suing Fiverr, as the company says that advertising for services such as writing fake reviews is banned by its terms and conditions.

The company claimed it has found many of them request the review wording from the sellers and use multiple accounts and IP addresses to avoid being caught.

Some have even arranged for empty boxes to be sent to them so they could appear to have bought the products they reviewed, Amazon says.

The defendants were also aware that Amazon, which describes itself as "Earth's most customer-centric company", forbids fictional or paid-for reviews.

In the court papers, Amazon said it is bringing the action to "protect its customers from this misconduct, by stopping defendants and uprooting the ecosystem in which they participate."

"Although Amazon has successfully requested removal of similar listings from Fiverr in the past, the removal of individual listings does not address the root cause of the issue or serve as a sufficient deterrent to the bad actors engaged in creating and purchasing fraudulent product reviews," it added.