I posted this on an Amazon specific sub last week but after seeing how you guys liked the BBC article about fake reviews, I think you will find the info below interesting.
Long post ahead. I could have made it even longer with more examples and proof but I figured most people reading this will be able to continue with their own research if they want. I know QB will see this post and end up trying to run damage control as they already did from my 1st post.
I made a post on reddit a couple weeks ago which can be found here. When I made the post I didn't have as much info as what I have now. I also didn't feel safe throwing out the actual company name. I put together as many details as I could over the last couple weeks (another redditor reached out with some really good info) and I wanted to share that info and timeline below.
My company sells on Amazon and we have sold some items before that are in a niche that makes these items a "preference" item. Think of clothing, cushions, bedding. This basically means no matter how good the quality of the item is, you can't satisfy every customer and the reviews naturally come out to about a 4. So when I saw a competitor roll out an item with a 4.8 rating while the top voted reviews show mold on the product, I became suspicious. The item in question is a 2 pack of pillows sold by Beckham Luxury and can be found here. As of a week ago, all of the top reviews showed mold on the product. As of now, a recent review has been heavily upvoted to show a genuine review. Since this review was not done until this year, we can assume most of the upvotes were manipulated to push this review to the top.
Nothing crazy yet. Let's start looking at some of the reviewers now. Go ahead and click some review profiles that leave a 5 star review. Let's take a look at this customer first:
Purchases listed from newest to oldest
Phone Case (B078WHWH5S) sold by Mobility Technologies
Duvet Set (B073FRZMJJ) sold by Restoration Goods
Mattress Topper (B076B3DQ2T) sold by Zen Home Brands
Pillows (B073XWPMW1) sold by Restoration Goods
Pillows (B0758H3V9D) sold by Restoration Goods
Pillows (B01LYNW421) sold by Beckham Luxury
Duvet Set (B072FQBRJC) sold by Beckham Luxury
Sheet Set (B06XTS9QLB) sold by Beckham Luxury
Pillow Cases (B06XSWTZX5) sold by Beckham Luxury
Mattress Protector (B01LXD05U4) sold by Restoration Goods
Bed Sheets (B01FKNEPXE) sold by Zen Home Brands
Bed Skirt (B01NAJ8W0T) sold by Restoration Goods
Phone Case (B01KMWC7O2) sold by Mobility Technologies
Phone Case (B01CO4BALC) sold by Mobility Technologies
Sleep Mask (B01FR8A4RI) sold by Restoration Goods
For some people that don't understand what is going on above, basically this reviewer has reviewed the 15 items above in the last 2 years. These items all have 5 stars. Well that isn't a big deal in it's own. Maybe they like these brands? I agree that could be the case BUT the issue is why is every seller account above (Beckham Luxury, Zen Home Brands, Restoration Goods and Mobility Technologies) have the same mailing address? Okay, so what this is one customer, not a huge deal. Next, let's take a look at another listing offered by Restoration Goods. This listing has just launched and the reviews can be found here. I recommend you go through and click the reviewer profile of every single person. I recommend you start with this reviewer. Notice the reviewer has a history of leaving 5 stars for items from the same sellers. Click on to another reviewer to see the same thing. You will notice HUNDREDS of reviewers that have the same items reviewed 5 stars by the same "random" sellers.
Recap
By this point we now know the accounts Restoration Goods, Beckham Luxury, Mobility Technologies and Zen Home Brands are at least linked in some way and somehow customers are purchasing random items from these sellers and look to be very happy with their purchases. All these reviews are verified so there is NO WAY they can be offering discounts, right? Okay, let's dive in deeper :)
Continuing...
I decided to check who owns some of the trademarks. I decided to use the USPTO website and start with "Beckham Luxury". The results returned this. Okay, that isn't much. Maybe I will search the address. Google returned this. Hmm... That is interesting. Quibids is the top result. Ehh, maybe I will search "Quibids owner" on google. I've just finished reading a bunch of shady stuff about them so maybe they are just the type of company to do this. Ahh, look at that. The owner's last name just so happens to be Beckham.
Now for the hell of it I decide to go back to the USPTO database and plug the mailing address (must be EXACT address) in so see what other Trademarks they own. Many of the brands sold by the sellers listed above just so happen to have trademarks registered using the corporate address of Quibids. On top of this, you can also find the registrant name shown right before the address and then paste that name into a USPTO search. You will then begin to see more trademarks like this one. You can now paste this address in a USPTO search and see even MORE trademarks. Many of them use UPS stores as their addresses but all these brands still end up coming back to having the same Amazon Customers reviewing all the products.
Recap #2
So we now know there are a bunch of customers purchasing completely different products from completely different Amazon sellers and those sellers all happen to be linked to the same address which just so happens to be the headquarters of Quibids. You can also go on Quibids' website and find most of the items sold by these accounts on Amazon. But how are the reviews verified?
On we go!
Why are they not kicked off Amazon? I wondered the same thing and another redditor helped me do some digging. For anyone that does not sell much on Amazon - Sellers used to create coupon codes on Amazon and they would give them to customers to get 50-90% off. These customers would then leave a review which would usually be 4 or 5 stars. Amazon started making it so these reviews would not count as verified or would not show up at all. They even banned some sellers. This is CLEARLY against Amazon TOS. Sellers cannot give any incentive for a review. If the sellers we have talked about above still have verified reviews rolling in, that must mean they are using another way. It could be a facebook group but that would be dumb as other sellers comb these groups also.
Until 7 days ago, Quibids used a private website (quipals.com). This site could only be accessed by getting an invite from a reviewer currently in their program. I believe my first post on here was picked up by someone on Quibids' team and they changed the URL to a new site. No worries though, we have screenshots!
You are sent an invite from a current Quipals customer and then given access to their hidden portal as you can see here. Notice this item is sold on Amazon here by seller Denali Goods who also happens to sell brands whose trademark points back to the corporate address of Quibids. Also notice this item currently has 3 reviews as of today. You should see many 5 star reviews roll through within the next week unless Quibids finds this post and tries to do damage control.
After the 1st post from a couple weeks ago someone at Quipals must have come across it and they changed their URL to delighteddeal.com to most likely separate themselves from the Quipals/Quibids link. Below are screenshots of that portal:
Screenshot 1 Setting up a method for reimbusement. You can use Paypal or even your own bank account. They chose these methods because this is against Amazon TOS and if you did this through Amazon the reviews would not be verified and your account would at risk of being removed.
Screenshot 2 This is their FAQ page explaining how customers are reimbursed.
Screenshot 3 This shows the page where customers can request a deal.
Screenshot 4 This shows current promotions customers have applied for.
Screenshot 5 This shows how they want the customer to copy and paste the link into their browser. They do this because it does not link their website to Amazon which could raise flags. By copying and pasting the link, Amazon is unable to see the URL customers are coming from.
Screenshot 6 This screenshot shows Quipals (delighteddeal) telling you how to make your review profile public. They do this because they must be able to verify reviews the customer leaves.
Final Recap and more info
You can find some the URLs linked to Quibids here. Thanks to /u/whatznext28.
Quibids is 100% involved with companies that have THOUSANDS of fake reviews on Amazon.
This is a business doing more than 100M+ a year on Amazon so I am sure someone working for them is going to reach out to me or try to downvote this post with bots.
They take the same items (sheets, toppers, etc) and sell them under different brands to clog the search results.
Good chance this is shady as hell. They tried to keep all of their Amazon stuff separate but someone slipped up.
This could be them trying to sell the business.
At the end of the day not only does shady stuff like this hurt legit sellers on Amazon, tons of customers purchase these products based on thousands and thousands of fake reviews. I am working on some more proof and will repost once I have collected more. I wanted to make this public because customers need to know Amazon is ignoring stuff like this. Customers think because Amazon sued some sellers a year ago, everything is fine and dandy but it isn't and maybe this will draw attention to the issue when a nationally known company is shown tricking customers with shady reviews.
TL; DR
Company Quibids is linked to 7+ Amazon accounts that do over 100M total a year.
by jordanwilson23 https://ift.tt/2HBghGe
No comments:
Post a Comment