Another big seller returns gift cards to those who leave good reviews, and an Amazon lawsuit accuses the company of selling fake seller feedback
Shenzhen’s big sellers return gift cards to those who leave good reviews
Recently, someone exposed a request letter from a Shenzhen big seller on overseas social media, and the content of the letter is very similar to the Shenzhen Big Sales that was named by the Wall Street Journal in 2021 and used gift cards to guide consumers to leave comments. “Send screenshots of orders and reviews to the provided email address, and you can get a $20 gift card,” the Shenzhen seller wrote in the letter.
Once it was exposed, it instantly caused public opinion. Some sellers believe that it is not a violation of the rules that the content does not mention “reviews”, “full five-star gift card back” and “good reviews for cashback”. Other sellers believe it means that letters let buyers leave reviews to get paid. The seller did not mention any words “good reviews” or “five-star” in this letter, and it seems that he also intends to avoid the suspicion of “paying for reviews”. However, the Shenzhen model exposed by the American media last year sold well, and the copywriting in the request card did not mention that the buyer must leave the word “good reviews”. As long as it is considered to be possible to manipulate comments, Amazon will ruthlessly take action and close more than 300 stores before and after this big sale!
Amazon lawsuit accuses the company of selling fake seller feedback
For cracking down on fake reviews on its platform, Amazon accuses a Massachusetts company, saying it boosted seller feedback ratings by creating fake positive reviews and creating accounts for sellers who had been suspended.
In the case, Amazon sued Trey King, his company Auction Sentinel, and Sentinel Solutions, a Massachusetts-based company.
In the lawsuit, Amazon said the falsification of product reviews and seller feedback eroded consumer trust, unfairly competed with millions of honest sellers selling products in Amazon stores, and tarnished the Amazon brand. Auction Sentinel calls itself “the number one marketplace for third-party sellers,” serving sellers who sell on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Walmart. After the incident, Auction Sentinel did not shut down, but added a disclaimer on the homepage of the website, saying that it does not sell product evaluation services, and evaluation and feedback are two completely different products on Amazon.
The suit is Amazon’s first aimed at stopping “fake review brokers” who attempt to manipulate product reviews by posting fake seller feedback as part of a broader effort to crack down on deceitful practices across its retail site, per the company. However, although this is the first time that the agent has been targeted, Amazon has already made several strong crackdowns on this kind of behavior. In fact, in addition to Amazon’s concerns about fraud and other behaviors, investigation departments in many countries have also investigated and supervised Amazon’s supervision of these fraudulent behaviors, arguing that Amazon does not protect consumers well.
Therefore, under the pressure of both parties, the suppression of these behaviors will become more and more severe, and the living space of unreal sellers will be further squeezed.
