How Scammers in China Manipulate Amazon | WSJ 

Funny the chinese guy speaks english as perfectly as the israeli guy and they still need to put the subtitles

I didn't realize how "dirty" the business practices were just to get ahead of competitors. Everything can easily be faked. What a scary world we live in now.

Interview him as entrepreneur. Report him as scammer. What a double face news channel

Chinese - scammer American - marketing and B2C optimization consultant

As a web-redactor, I've been asked tons of times to do fake Amazon reviews. And none of them was coming from China, this is something sellers from the whole world are doing and they also often ask local redactors to do it.

Howard's English is better than the narrator. Why do we need subtitles for him but not the narrator?

Amazon Rule number one: only read 3 stars reviews, these are the most honest and real ones

So basically.... White-consumer Chinese-manufacture Indian-customer service

These tactics are not unique to China. They are used globally.

I sold on amazon for a year and a bit before I quit. I had the review scam and someone bought all my products and returned them after Christmas( which cost me money per item). I contacted amazon daily for like a a month and nothing was done I packed up paid my losses and now have over 1000 pairs of headphone sitting at home.

This just makes me not want to buy from Amazon and just walk into the store instead.

Amazon: *Pays employees pitiful wages, keeping them desparate and destitute* Amazon Employees: *take bribes* Amazon: *shocked pikachu meme*

Why do only the Chinese speakers have subtitles when they speak? The dude from Israel had a stronger accent than that Chinese entrepreneur.

Amazon seller here. My business was destroyed by the kind of attack from competitors described in this video. Amazon does not respond to these cases and never took any retribution against the company attacking me. I am no longer selling on Amazon because there is no protection for legitimate sellers and fraud is the norm across the entire platform.

Lol "Everyday I wake up to check reviews to see if I'm in business" Amazon basically owns you and your "business" and do whatever they please with you.

This is why I don’t buy from Amazon. I prefer to go to the actual site itself for the product.

It's funny there is cc when Chinese guy speaks and not when Israel guy lol

asian man spoke more eloquently than the israeli guy but the former needed subtitles, dafuq.

The fake reviews often get called out by people like me who actually look at the reviewers to see how long they’ve been online.

They did not say how this man does it

As a buyer I’ve noticed the experience on amazon has deteriorated significantly because of this issue, to the point where I’d rather just pay more in person and save myself the time and sanity.

So why does the Chinese guy with a fluent American accent need subtitles and the Israeli guy not need subtitles when he clearly has a thicker accent. Smh.

I very rarely trust third party sellers of Amazon. Many many of them are so obvious scams especially with flash USB drives and SD cards. Even when an item is sold by a third party seller and delivered by Amazon that doesn't mean that the Amazon has the knowledge or the responsibility to check what is exactly delivering. I trust and love Amazon when something is sold and delivered by Amazon. eBay is by far better with individual sellers.

This is old news. You should really look into the ongoing speculation from thousands of online retail businesses, who buy really cheap fake products on Aliexpress/Alibaba etc, brand and resell it on Ebay and Amazon. Their level of automation is extreme. They heavily promote this scheme as a fast way of doing money. Advertising apps/algorithms and database software through which you reduce number of transactions, practically buying cheap products, branding and reselling without having to even check the product. You see these kind of ads everywhere on Facebook, Instagram or any social media platform out there. It's a disease really!

This happened to me so many times I was convinced Amazon was complicit and didn't want me to sell on their platform.

At the end of the day I think Amazon doesn’t care much when they get commissions

That Chinese guy seems to have no sense of shame about his business practice. He sounds very proud of what he is doing. He even called himself a ‘Professor of Amazon’

BREAKING NEWS; This just in, companies use fake reviews to gain sales! Did they seriously claim to have spent actual months investigating this 🤣😂💀

This explains partly why most of the reviews on Amazon are garbage.

don't always trust reviews, i was offered a refund for a good review

*Same thing is happening for app reviews.* When we look at the most negative OR the most positive reviews. They are often fake. Ratings and reviews is like the currency of reputation on the Internet.

I was asked to do reviews on a Amazon but that stopped once I gave honest 3* reviews. They keep on pestering me to give them 5*. I refused.

Not really scammers in China.... alot of people do it all over the world. All those tactics can be done anywhere... thats the harmful side of online businesses. As Amazon marketplace gets more saturated, no doubt sellers would do anything they can to drive up sales. The title is misleading, and should just say how scammers manipulate Amz marketplace and not specify 'China'. Thats discrimination, at least back it up with statistics if you want to mention China.

It's been my experience as an Amazon consumer that, when I give a very bad review because a product is totally misrepresented, my reviews are immediately removed. For example, a Kindle version of a cookbook in French. I read enough French and have been cooking long enough that I frequently buy books like this is they aren't available in English. One such book I ordered, when I opened it on my Kindle, was only three pages long, and those were random photos that had little to do with the topic of the cookbook. Amazon had no explanation as to why my review was removed, nor, more significant, why they continued to sell these non-books. Somebody's got a friend in Amazon management. Ditto a DVD I ordered that had no DVD in the case. My review was removed, and I was offered neither a refund nor a replacement. This one is fairly common, if you watch reviews as closely as I do. Cheating at Amazon. You bet. Maybe they should be watching their employees more closely because sellers don't get away with these tactics without help from someone inside the company.

I'm done with Amazon!!!! Products have 5 🌟 reviews, but when I get the item - it looks completely different from the picture advertised! And the worst part is - Amazon uses returns against you!!! They have horrible customer service. They treated me like it was my fault that I received a defective product!

I order off of Amazon several times per week. Yes, it's a jungle sorting through all the reviews. Yes, companies all over the world are participating in these same scams, however, I've noticed it's more prolific among the Chinese companies. So, IMHO, this video is legit and is not just "picking on" Chinese companies. There's nothing wrong with letting the buyer beware!

I've had my Amazon account hacked before and used to post fake reviews for products I never bought.

"It's a Jungle" ... yeah man, youre selling on a site called Amazon lol try ebay

And i thought selling on eBay was cutthroat 😂

Amazon does not care about good or bad sellers, they need their customers and selling fee commission.

This video awwsome. Would buy again A+++

They need to make it so that only people who have bought at least a certain number of products and confirmed their purchases can leave reviews on products. Also make it so it's not too easy for one person at a certain IP to spam fake reviews. There needs to be an algorithm that filters through low reviews and sees if this person is just a bot or a person that bought only 1 item and is leaving negative reviews.

I think I learned enough ancient Chinese secrets for today.🤖🤖🤖👁️👌

Despite the click bait, I learn a few or two about online business. Thanks or no thanks WSJ.

My authentic negative review (with photos of the product attached) was rejected by Amazon for not abiding by their rules and regulations.

Wow! Actual investigative journalism in this day and age. on things we use. Wish we had more journalists that tested things and systems like this.

Have you notice that people who a little shady or straight up con They all find reasons to justify their action

i knew this was thing, when u get a poor quality product on amazon with great reviews, had to be fake. so hard to eshop

Means Amazon no longer get my biz. Sorry. Good to know.

"How All Successful Hard Working Online Businessmen Stay in Business"

And that is exactly why i love going to malls . Exercise , retail therapy , satisfaction , all in one . Lets bring our malls back instead of relying heavily on online scam artists and negligent companies.

Ok that’s it, I’m done with buying from amazon, walking around is healthier anyway

As a seller on Amazon you are constantly in fear of their heavy hand. They ban first and ask questions later. Even when the claims against the seller are false being shut down for days or weeks can cost you dearly and boost a competitors sales. I wish I had a solution but I'm just a little fish in a huge ocean of online sales.

Wow. What an amazing piece of investigative journalism. 🙄

Thank you!!! I have shopped Amazon products for awhile and trusted the positive product reviews in the beginning. After awhile buying Amazon products based on reviews I was baffled why products I purchased were substandard or discount Dollar Store worthy at above grade prices. I would post my reviews of my disappointing experiences. Then my phone rang late into the night from callers representing the China or Asian companies I had purchased my Amazon products from. Emotionally they invariably told me to remove my reviews. Then in exchange for removing reviews offered to refund my money. Sometimes reviewers of Amazon products I wished to buy warned products were knock offs (Yeti and others ), based on their own buying experiences. I went to Yeti website and purchased products there and advised Yeti of the knock offs sold through Amazon. I have been amazed at Amazon for allowing these scam-y practices.

I assume Americans also do this... but that wouldn’t be an attractive clickbait title would it?

I don’t understand this wsj why you need to put subtitle every time the guy speaks, I could hear every word that coming from his mouth.

About 3 years ago, my niece got lots of shipments from Amazon. I found we were supposed to go online and rate them. NOT! Thanks for the items though.

This is still true today. There are still a bunch of Chinese sellers offering free products for positive reviews over platforms like WeChat

Appreciate the long term research and production quality in this video. Contrary to some viewers' opinions, it doesn't show China or its people in a bad light. It just so happens that a LOT of Amazon's products are manufactured in China. There are companies in every country that participate in the manipulation.

I pay more attention to the negative reviews. Good reviews mean nothing. People ruin everything.

I have been contacted by Chinese sellers wanting to give me stuff in return for reviews. I said No to one. I told another that my positive review should be enough for him. One very active reviewer wrote about what they did to him, in his review. It was very telling. There certainly is corruption in Amazon reviews. But I am a semanticist and can read between the lines. The most important thing I take away from this video is to be wary of extremely short reviews that provide no clue about the writer's origin. I will look for an unusual percentage of such extremely short reviews, to discount the product rating. That's the thing about China. Apparently they hate English. You can tell by their writing or their lack of writing.

"The wall street journal investigated for months around the world" lol, investigated

Another way a company fights back is by reporting good reviews on protects of their competitors to get the good review taken down and then the reviewer barred from ever being able to make a review. It's happen to me three times now over the course of 2 years. I don't get an email or anything from Amazon, I am just told i broke community guidelines. Since the first time it happened, I have been taking screen shots of every review i make and sure enough, I am barred a few months later. I don't slander, nor do I take in products for free and then review them or receive compensation. I just love tech and try out lots of different items of one particular category and give an honest opinion. I believe this last time it was because I give 2 bad reviews for a iPad Pro 11 case that used horrible magnets and wasn't compatible to charge the Apple Pencil 2. I then gave a glowing review to one that didn't use magnets but cupped the corners of the iPad AND you are able to charge the Apple Pencil 2. A day later, banned.

So he is the one responsible for the extra long, everything in the title, nonsense titles and descriptions. What they really need is someone who is a native English speaker to tone down the repetitive nature of the descriptions.

That’s why I never buy on amazon

This video presentation I think was of a great quality especially it contains high definition and included was a free subtitles. Highly recommending

Never buy from third parties on Amazon. You can read where it's shipped from if you look in the description. Or look for the return address for the product. This will save you time and money as I was scammed this way!

*BREAKING NEWS.* *Wall Street Journal just did their 1,000th BLAME IT ON CHINA segment.*

Wish ALL of this was subtitled. I'm a deaf viewer, and I have a few (deaf) friends who might have gotten roped into this that I'd like to forward the video to.

I just wanted to let everyone know that i didn't know WSJ would make the video subject like this. I was told it was going to be a interview of me as a consultant.

'sophisticated technologies, like machine learning' why do I find this hilarious! Does this guy know what he's talking about?

Before buying anything on amazon i look up various reviews on RU-vid. Bingo, problem solved

Very interesting! How badly his shirt needs to be ironed at the 6 minute mark made me laugh.

80% of stuff I've bought on Amazon is JUNK!

its a risk reward thing. theres low risk, high reward. same as what bankers have in the financial industry. you just need to make it much more costly for them to do this.

Amazon knows well, but don't do much. they want to create other market revenue benefit from this which this vid didn't mention

Access to products is improved. Distribution is improving. markets are building. Quality is getting better. Hope for even better times becomes the directive: expect better times, demand better.

I am not surprised. When I do a search on Amazon to find Products Made in the USA; and try to buy an item that says in the product's description, 'Made in the United States. Then when the item arrives it has a Made in China Logo.

How about Amazon.com using drivers license or ID number to identify you as the seller. That may help with multiple Fake accounts.

Thats why I quit ordering in Amazon

To get the best product order thru Prime and Amazon fulfillment.Lowest risk with product!

6:29 see those battery bank phone cases in the right-bottom corner? I have the exact same case for my phone

hey you scammed professor amazon by pretending friendly then making him look bad.

I purchased a really cheap macbook Pro magsafe Power charger off Amazon. The vendor had some weird name like.. HJK312guf or something non-descript. The thing melted into itself like a burnt marshmellow. Hey- it was $7 vs the $80, and even melted it worked just long enough to get me by. The reviews? HORRIBLE. They all said the same thing with pictures that looked like mine. The shop wasn't shut down immediately because I was able to buy another cheap lame-o product until I could afford the $80 for my legit one, lol! And there were another 20 vendors with off names that sold the EXACT same product.

i dont buy the TOP item i always have 4 tabs open and i browse each item features, prices, and location

They also solicit customers who give low star ratings, if they change their rating, they will give you gift cards to their stores.

If all buyers were to more consistently post reviews, it would be harder to cheat the system with a few fake reviews. As consumers we should all pitch in a little harder to make the review system accurate.

Well known that this was going on Chinese sellers will stop at nothing to destroy competitors.

This happens even more frequently on Taobao. Amazon has a pretty good security system already.

I hated amazon the more I used it. Only so many times I can get ripped off and go back to buying from them. Worst purchase so far was buying an unlocked iPhone that after 2 months had lost connectivity and amazon did nothing to enforce a warranty. They always said we’re sorry but we tried and we can’t help but if they wanted to protect their customers they would’ve blocked the seller until they resolved the issues. 300$ on a phone that can only use WiFi was the last straw for me. I highly recommend not using amazon for ANYTHING.

Interesting

Amazon spreads the black market across the globe.

I try not to order from China but it was a few cases where I had no idea it was coming there. At least not until after I ordered and got a China Post tracking number. That pushes me to go to actual Websites and order instead of Amazon

I helped a small business owner list products and parts on his website some years ago. As the website grew, orders that customers received where constantly claimed to be not what they ordered and so they left negative reviews. Products were listed accurately but customers still made their arguments.

this has been going on since day one….

CHANGE THE TITLE. Amazon's customer review system is just not perfect enough to filter out fake reviews. Not on Chinese people.

I was about to report those fake 100% 5 star rating products. Good that I saw this clip.

I'd like to have an option when I shop on Amazon to be able to be shown only products Made In America!

Most of the fake reviews I have seen are from US sellers ;)