Competitor buy themselves 5 star review and 1 star review for us, desperate

[snailchaser]

Hi everyone,

We are now used to copycats who copy almost everything from us. But in the past year 2016-2017 things and competition just got more ugly.

For example this guy,

Amazon.com : [Full HD]Wireless Security Camera System, SMONET 4CH 1080P Wireless Video Security System with 2TB HDD(WIFI NVR KIT), 4pcs 1080P Indoor/Outdoor Wireless IP Cameras, P2P, 65ft Night Vision, Easy Remote View : Camera & Photo

It adds 2-3 5-star reviews almost daily; within 6 months the listing becomes a 500+ review listing with 4.2 stars. In fact it’s almost impossible because our listing was once the best seller for at least 12 months and we had less than a hundred reviews in 12 months, and wireless stuff never is possible to get 4+ stars.

If you click the profile of buyer accounts who post those good reviews, you will find they all post a lot reviews daily. Some post 69 5-star reviews in one day; some 30+; some 10+. Do actual buyers post that many 5 star review in ONE SINGLE DAY?

We reported to Amazon about this but they never really took care of it. I guess it’s because all the reviews have “Verified Purchase” sign. It seems the legendary Amazon algorithm comes clueless when the reviews have the VP icon.

We had to let it go. It seems the only thing is to do our job better. Let the manipulator manipulate the search rank. Hopefully one day Amazon suddenly find this and do something about it.

Then one day we found the manipulators not only 5-star themselves, they also 1-star any competitor that competes them. Lately this becomes even worse, may because the peak season is approaching.

See the latest reviews of this,

Amazon.com : [Audio & Video] xmartO 8 Channel 960p HD Wireless Security Camera System with 8 HD Infrared Outdoor WiFi Cameras and 1TB Hard Drive, Dream Liner WiFi Relay, NVR Built-in Router, Auto-Pair : Camera & Photo

Again, reviews with “Verified Purchase”. Again, they are posted by the “buyers” who “work so hard” to leave 10-30 reviews daily.

I am not indicating they were controlled by a certain seller but this is happening.
After all, the investment could be worthwhile for them if they rank on top they can sell maybe 10-20k USD more daily. With that control tool, they can top rank their listings within 2-3 weeks no matter what they are selling; they can sink the competitors’ listings within the same time since they can label them 1 star endlessly as long as the reviews come with VP sign.

Instead, if you are investing in, say Amazon sponsored products campaigns, the ACoS could be 5-20%. Investment in buying fake reviews could be much lower than Amazon advertisement.

Does it simply change the Amazon game rules here? As long as the reviews have VP, they will be considered “origin”?

If this continues like another quarter, we might simply lose any faith of Amazon at all.

Please help if you have any suggestion. Thank you!

[Uncle_Charlie]

This is terribly unfortunate. I feel very sad for you. Its hard enough to steer clear of bad reviews on the merits, but to have to deal with sabotage is frustrating and almost unthinkable. The world has changed so much in the last 4 or 5 decades. Reputation, character, ethics, fairness and decency, these things mattered. People cared about their own actions and behaviors. I hope you are able to sort this out and work this out. Uncle Charlie

[candyi]

Maybe you can report abuse for review. It takes a lot of time.
Report a violation in seller central may be useless but we should try.
We have the same situation now. Some customers ordered the item and they returned it and got refund after 2 days. Also they left us 1 star review and feedback.
There are non VP review too.
Very annoying. The dumb things people do to ruin people.

[book_seller_19117]

I don’t have an answer to your question, other than to report a violation, but I completely agree with your concern.

I almost wish that amazon did away with the entire review system. I see so many ASINs that have all 5 star reviews (sometimes unverified) with great sales ranks. And it’s such a bummer because that means that buyers are being tricked into these scams.

There’s a market for verified reviews, and there’s a market for verified negative reviews on competitors. i dont know what amz’s solution should/will be, but as a person who kinda keeps an eye on things like this, it seems that the criminals are REALLY getting away with it.

[MG85]

I just wanted to drop by and say that this is awful.
If what you’re saying is true and you are working hard and abiding by the rules while someone came on recently and took advantage of the system to this extent…then it’s just sad and horrendous.

I wish I had answers for you but violations to this extent just don’t seem manageable. It’s all in Amazons hand at this point - I would continue reporting them, send emails to Amazon and not let this slide! Make a case for this…make a clear, detailed, concisely written case…

It’s unfortunate it’s coming to this. I know electronics is cutthroat but stuff like this ruins it for Everyone. Including Amazon, in the long run.

[snailchaser]

I really hope that’s true and hope for the “eventually” comes soon because we’ve been suffering the issue for like a whole year. Report abuse of the review and open case about this never did anything to them, and the bad reviews against us. Amazon feels like to maintain the review system a free place so they never do much about it. But behind that manipulation it’s huge money for the manipulator.

Yesterday we found a buyer account who left us terrible review posted 107 reviews on a single day. How insane and how clearly is that? We reported abuse of the review and so far nothing. Today we just received another 2 bad reviews by that kind of frequent reviewers.

Review rating matters just so much for Amazon search rank, almost much than any other factor.

BTW could you please kindly let me know “sue for lost revenue”? Are you talking about open a case with Amazon customer support? Thank you WSA!

[maurahowe20]

Its worse than you think on this example. If you click through some of the reviews , you will see that many of the same reviewers also bought a set of cabinet locks

[wsa]

Amazon’s algo is pretty decent on this and they will get what’s coming to them eventually. Also, if you can prove it’s him messing with your channel, you can always sue for lost revenue.

[west_coast_curbs]

Amazon doesn’t care about you plain and simple. You are nothing to them just like the rest of us. Invest your time and efforts in your own website. Do not put all your eggs in one basket.
Good luck, you need it.

[PERNNLA]

too many tricks, too complicated, here is another link:

https://www.amazon.com/Sunrise-Sunset-Simulation-Brightness-Function/dp/B076BDZ94Y/ref=sr_1_6?s=furniture&ie=UTF8&qid=1510886885&sr=1-6&keywords=clock

this listing is created on October 9, 2017

you know what I mean.

The arithmetic of Amazon is too stiff and dull for this trick, needs to be changed soon

[wsa]

Hello again, I ran this listing on fakespot, and it detected 230 fake reviews on this product alone. If a third party freeware is capable of finding this out, I can without a shadow of a doubt tell you that Amazon is aware. They’ll get a warning pretty soon if not outright banned. You can use software like this to build a case. It also showed that about 15% of his seller reviews are also BS. I’m willing to guess this is fairly recent or at the very least he’s selective about how often he uses blackhat tactics.

[snailchaser]

You are absolutely right about investing in seller’s own website. Amazon is absolutely in favor of buyers which is fine for me. 'cause that is the core value of Amazon and that makes Amazon popular. As a result it brings in so many sellers. But Amazon does need better and faster response to this kind of terrible trick that hurts the ecosystem, to tell who are the real customers and who are the market manipulators. If Amazon turns to an easy manipulated marketplace just like the former eBay, it could be screwed in just a year or two.

We are considering to reduce our investment on Amazon, starting from the sponsored product campaign.

Edited by: xmartO on Nov 16, 2017 7:25 PM

[AmazonsellerD]

See this, you will be more desperate

[https://www.amazon.com/sp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B075V3KVK3&isAmazonFulfilled=0&isCBA=&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&orderID=&seller=AI0PGTDI15XEU&tab=&vasStoreID=]

Listings launched in late september, got hundreds of 5-star reviews so far, above 98% without VP.
Those reviews are obviously fake, but why still do that?
If you have no idea about this, following links will help you to understand:

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B075V3KVK3/ref=sr_1_1_olp?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1510887686&sr=1-1&keywords=KITOOL&condition=new]

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B075WVB82K/ref=dp_olp_new_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=new]

There are two similar accounts selling under these listings, one named “KITOOL”, another “KITOOL DIRECT” which was just launched.
Most likely, the purpose of KITOOL is to obtain as many 5-star reviews as possible, and then use another new account to sell under these listings.
Even KITOOL dies some day, KITOOL DIRECT is still safe, and reviews are still there.

I already found several accounts like KITOOL, if I was right about above mentioned, that will be very disgusting!
Why listings cannot be exclusive to one seller?!

[snailchaser]

Thank you for the info add-up.
For those listings with too many reviews without VP icon, I believe it’s lower level of manipulation. If you keep on reporting the listings to Amazon, I believe Amazon will at least delete those fake reviews without VP sign.

Then for the really scary manipulation I mentioned in the question, it’s way harder to handle. They buy 5 star reviews every single day, they buy 1 star reviews for competitors, with orders info in Amazon system, with VP sign on reviews. To Amazon, this is hard to decide whether they are fake; to customers who are viewing the items, it takes too many turns in their brain to doubt the 5 star reviews and the terrible 1 star on competitors’ listings.

You know what’s worst finally?
After that kind of manipulation for months, sellers following rules like us, our listings simply disappear from buyers search results. Because not many buyers see behind page 3. And the manipulator sellers, they are laughing you as losers though they started their business copying every bit of your products and listings. They become the top sellers and they will last because they “maintain” and decorate their listings every single day.

[NiceGuy]

If you are absolutely certain it is them, there is what to do…

Of course it is very hard to know for sure, and it would be terrible to target the wrong seller…

[beauty_music]

If you play by the rules, and competitors are not - you will always be in a worse situation. Only Amazon can help.

[NiceGuy]

The cabinets are from the same seller!

[SDC]

If what you’re saying is true, it is absolutely despicable what this other seller is doing.

If you have reported this numerous times and nothing has been done… I would stop reporting, take a step back and try to come up with a game plan.

I went through some of the feedback’s… If they are somehow setting this up, they are doing a great job because I cannot tell which are fake and which ones are real. I’m thinking if I cant tell, no way Amazon will go through IP addresses, transaction records and feedback history of the reviewers unless its blatantly obvious.

That being said… you will need to gather enough proof so Amazon will at least look into it (they probably receive hundreds or thousands of reports a day.)

I would go through every single feedback not just theirs and yours but other competitors, If they are doing this to you they must be doing it to others as well.
I noticed one buyer left you a 1 star and also left another competitor a 1 star on a similar product, I would look into these and try to link them even to go as far as contacting other sellers (maybe they are trying to collect evidence as well)

I also noticed the feedback’s they receive often times mention how great and easy it is to set up but then refers to great customer service like (Barbara from CS was great for example) Why do you need CS if it was so easy to set up?

Either the feedback’s are real or they offer their buyers an incentive to leave very detailed
5 star reviews, I do not think they are stupid enough to do this through amazon messaging (maybe through the mail… 5 star review for an extra camera to follow or something like that)

Have someone do a couple of test buys and see if they are contacted (worth a shot,
I’m sure you know not to leave feedback or reviews on your purchase or collude with other sellers to shut them down.)

You will need to prove these discrepancies to Amazon so they will at least look into it. imho you should not bombard them with please investigate reports, they will ignore your complaints after awhile.

Sorry this is all I can come up with at the moment.
Good Luck

[chenyun]

I have also encountered unfair comments, one of my products are not sold, even received a bad review, I do not know what the commentator based on what to give a bad review

[fbtb]

Book Seller,

VERY WELL SAID!!!

These reviews are being manipulated by so many people that they are basically worthless to the customer.

Feedback, consisting of how quickly the customer got the product and the condition it arrived, is fine.

Reviews are so subjective and Amazon itself claims that it doesn’t really affect your Metrix, so I ask…why is it there?

If people can leave reviews on products they purchased on eBay or at their local Walmart on an Amazon listing, there is no value to the review system because there is no control or accountability.

Thank you for your great comment and we can only hope that Amazon somehow realizes the fraud of people buying reviews(both good for them selves and bad for their competitors).

Happy selling!

KH