Amazon employees are allegedly taking bribes for insider data and deletion of product...

[Greg S]

Why it matters: Sellers on Amazon are willing to take significant risks to beat the competition, including paying to have negative reviews removed. Such practices break the integrity of online reviews and manipulative practices can falsely give the impression that certain products are actually best sellers.

Amazon's vast marketplace is ripe with manipulation from unscrupulous third-party sellers trying to gain better rankings. Reports of Amazon employees accepting bribes to delete negative customer reviews and leaking data are now being investigated.

Middlemen are believed to be working with Amazon employees to sell confidential information that could allow merchants to gain an advantage over other sellers. Data can include sales figures and email addresses of reviewers. Banned accounts can also be reinstated and reviews can be deleted. Payments are alleged to range from $80 to over $2,000 for services rendered.

Sellers are prohibited from emailing customers directly in response to reviews. Should attempts to reconcile negative reviews fail, the market rate for removal services is around $300 per review with a typical minimum order of five take-down requests.

Although many incidents are isolated to Shenzhen, China, Amazon is looking into several cases involving bribes within the United States. A probe has been ongoing since May after the vice president looking over international marketplaces received a tip about suspected activity in China.

Executives working in Shenzhen have been moved around in attempt to try and find out who is responsible for leaks. Amazon's policies already place heavy restrictions on what information employees are able to access and include ethics clauses that strictly prohibit any employee from abusing their privileges.

For sellers trying to play the system and beat Amazon's algorithms, it is not without significant risk. "We have zero tolerance for abuse of our systems and if we find bad actors who have engaged in this behavior, we will take swift action against them." There is no hesitation in Amazon closing accounts, holding funds, deleting false reviews, and if necessary, pursuing legal action against sellers engaging in abusive practices.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/76465-amazon-employees-allegedly-taking-bribes-insider-data-deletion.html

 

[wiyosaya]

This reminds me of the bird feeder that I used to have in my back yard. There was plenty of food for all the birds, but the birds would fight each other for a spot at the feeder. Funny what things "plenty" brings.

If crApazon wants to stem this, they should pay their employees better.

 

[seeprime]

This reminds me of the bird feeder that I used to have in my back yard. There was plenty of food for all the birds, but the birds would fight each other for a spot at the feeder. Funny what things "plenty" brings.

If crApazon wants to stem this, they should pay their employees better.

The stock's P/E ratio has dropped from an absurd 418 last year to about 110 now, with stock prices near $2000. The stock price is the board's primary concern. They'll fire the "free thinking" employees before paying them more money. Then they'll lobby for more widespread government benefits for the underpaid workers. That's cheaper to do than increasing the payroll.

 

[wiyosaya]

This reminds me of the bird feeder that I used to have in my back yard. There was plenty of food for all the birds, but the birds would fight each other for a spot at the feeder. Funny what things "plenty" brings.

If crApazon wants to stem this, they should pay their employees better.

The stock's P/E ratio has dropped from an absurd 418 last year to about 110 now, with stock prices near $2000. The stock price is the board's primary concern. They'll fire the "free thinking" employees before paying them more money. Then they'll lobby for more widespread government benefits for the underpaid workers. That's cheaper to do than increasing the payroll.

I get "business" and who they are out to please. As I see it, the model has problems.

 

[Capaill]

I wonder if they will take bribes to fix the search engine so it only shows reviews for the model I selected instead of all possible versions of the model. The newegg reviews are better in that sense.

 

[cliffordcooley]

The Google/Bing search works far better.

 

[HyPeroxya]

Amazon are no longer the goto for the best price .. I've been stiffed on memory , ordered one 6 months ago , no sign , then when I ordered a full suite , cpu mobo and memory.. they sent the new and the old order (memory) .. and other stuff recently, approx 10-15% more expensive. Still good , but they haven't even reached LEo yet, and I try not to buy stuff from ppl who aren't going to the Outer Solar System.