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Gaming Amazon's review system

by Seller_3tuFszqwtO2LW

I’m interested to hear from the community how everyone feels about this and how it can be stopped:

I’ve come across a number of sellers (mostly sellers from China) who will hijack a dead listing with tons of reviews, of let’s say, an antenna made by a company called “AnTech”. They’ll create a logo under the same company name and launch a bluetooth speaker. Now this new bluetooth speaker will launch Feb 1, 2019 and have 350 reviews dating back to 2014.

I’ve reported these to SC and they do nothing about it. I’m curious how Amazon could spend so much time taking down honest seller’s legitimate reviews, but let this egregious gaming of their review system slide without so much as batting an eye.

Tags: Fees, Listing hijack, Listings
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Seller_zeEON0ft1xm2V
In reply to: Seller_3tuFszqwtO2LW's post

That’s not just Chinese sellers. It’s across the board.

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Seller_3tuFszqwtO2LW
In reply to: Seller_3tuFszqwtO2LW's post

I didn’t say it was just Chinese sellers, just the one’s I’ve come across (90%) seemed to be from sellers in China (i.e. nothing to lose). But, I don’t want to make that the focal point of the conversation. How is Amazon letting this slide, and more importantly how can this be stopped or curtailed?

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Seller_rVKk37FKfCbAK
In reply to: Seller_3tuFszqwtO2LW's post

The abuse is very frustrating and its hard to get a live person on the line to explain it to. And there are other ways that the review system is being gamed egregiously:
I’ve come across products that have huge numbers of 5 star reviews from the same day (making up more than half of their total reviews) and all unverified. Which can only come from some type of promotion outside of Amazon that incentivizes people to post an Amazon review in exchange for a benefit. You would think that Amazon technology would flag those anomalies.
Also, there is abuse of the Parent/Child (product variation) feature. Where the seller lists different products under one parent such that each product looks like it has a large number of reviews when in reality the individual products may have as little as one or even zero.

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Seller_6XSiPqg4VTwhh
In reply to: Seller_3tuFszqwtO2LW's post

Not only the complaint you voiced, but the way the listings read, these items appear on almost any search a buyer tries to make.

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Seller_gQjXgjX9G2EwR
In reply to: Seller_3tuFszqwtO2LW's post

They should ban all Chinese sellers. At least until they honor intellectual property rights. That makes sense doesn’t it? All of our trouble with counterfeits and sabotage have been Chinese sellers. They supply crappy products, customer dissatisfaction with long shipping times, and manipulate our economy by getting subsidized shipping and not paying taxes.

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Seller_2ZicARQXjdUjO
In reply to: Seller_3tuFszqwtO2LW's post

Somebody needs to publish a best seller that opens everyone’s eyes to what really happens on Amazon, Maybe Jeff would actually do something about it then.

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Seller_XFj8akGqahG0f
In reply to: Seller_3tuFszqwtO2LW's post

I might sell here but I haven’t purchased anything on this site and never will. I do not make purchases on sites that treat me bad and amazon has repeated treated me bad as a seller. sellers need to put their money to work and that means use it strategically to help benefit those companies that care for both sellers and buyers when it comes to online purchases.

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Seller_MaNu1nsSEfLRw
In reply to: Seller_3tuFszqwtO2LW's post

Try opening a case in seller central, selecting Other issues>Report a violation>Report listing abuse

Use this template to paste into the body of your case:

Seller ________ is manipulating Product Reviews through various methods of co-opting / hijacking an old, unused, or previously branded ASIN by substituting a new product, completely unrelated to the original product.

Seller name:
ASIN:
Listing detail page:

Within a few days, you should receive an email from listing-abuse@amazon.com saying “Thank you for your report of a suspected policy violation. We investigated the issue that you brought to our attention and took appropriate action.” Assuming what you reported is accurate, the seller will be removed, account will be flagged and possibly suspended. Works for me every time.

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Seller_PAykMwxwo3wmJ
In reply to: Seller_3tuFszqwtO2LW's post
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Seller_KhkhAd29RiF55
In reply to: Seller_3tuFszqwtO2LW's post

Reviews are a broken system. There is no way that you can implement reviews without someone manipulating it to their advantage. They should have a serious think about whether reviews are even necessary.

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