Posted on 02/27/2019 8:02:53 PM PST by aimhigh
The US Federal Trade Commission has successfully brought the first ever case against using fraudulent, paid Amazon reviews to falsely advertise an online product, the agency announced Tuesday evening. The company in question, named Cure Encapsulations, Inc. and owned by Naftula Jacobowitz, paid a third-party website to write five-star Amazon reviews for a weight-loss supplement called garcinia cambogia. The plant, native to Indonesia, is widely mischaracterized as contributing to weight loss, but is in fact known to cause acute liver failure.
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
Amazon knows about this practice and does nothing to stop it. The article is full of BS quotes from Amazon praising the FTC’s actions against Cure Encapsulations.
One certainly would expect them to praise the FTC.
I wish they would start cracking down on this in the apartment industry.
To many complexes pay their tenants for reviews.
When you see an apt. complex with 100’s of reviews and they all include the tenants apt number and their rating is 98% you know they are paying for reviews.
If anyone who purchased these pills had their health threatened or worse (the botanical garcinia cambogia is known to cause liver failure) the company should be held criminally liable. Not just civil penalties.
Correct. I know how this works as I have friends who sell on Amazon. They used to do this on Fiverr but AMZ went after the site so Fiverr shut them down. Now you can see the same on Craigslist.
It ALL begins with the Amazon gift card ;)
Anyone who purchased those pills should be charged with criminal stupidity.
The state of ignorance of GRAS is appalling. People who were harmed did it to themselves by not educating themselves (relying on freaking reviews? GMAFB).
No apologies for being harsh; the damage was self-inflicted, much like the current state of disease of the average person out there (T2 diabetes being just one example of many).
I’m getting rather tired of all the whining about health matters when juxtaposed against the unwillingness to take responsibility to do what it takes to be healthy.
I try to educate people; I now know the reason they don’t act without an impetus.
I have seen the same comments about a product on multiple sites like Amazon then I go to Target or any number of sites and see the same thing. The advertisers are buying “Likes” just like celebs do at Facebook or Twitter etc.. The internet is full of frauds and other crooks like below.
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Pharmaceuticals and social media are two swamps that somebody should drain sometime.
this is not pharma, this is health supplements...both are full of bad actors but the health supplement industry has a lot more frauds because of loose laws in the area of food supplements.
Maybe 1/3 of the sellers on Amazon are Chinese nationals. They have rings of fake reviewers and do plenty of other black hat.
As long as they bring in the money, Bezos lets it happen.
” a weight-loss supplement called garcinia cambogia. The plant, native to Indonesia, is widely mischaracterized as contributing to weight loss, but is in fact known to cause acute liver failure”
Class action lawyers are already writing the script for TV commercials.
I bought a bedding item on Amazon and received a free $10 gift card for my positive review. Sorry guys, ain’t happening. Tossed it.
You can tell when the reviews are phony. No product ever gets 100% 5 star ratings with the same kinds of breathless praise.
Bezos could greatly reduce the practice tomorrow by only letting actual buyers post a review.
Good enough reason to ignore them. I do. I do my own research and ignore any reviews. Amazon return policies are convenient enough that remedy for a bum product is easily obtained.
Even that is corrupted. When I limit the display to 4 stars, almost the entire listing is of products with only 4 to 5 reviews. Sellers are buying their own product to place good reviews. Then, once the bad reviews come in, they de-list the product for a day and start over.
Still, if Bezos really wanted to crack down, I’m sure he has talented people who could figure out a way. And blacklist vendors who try those games.
While they are at it, go after the fake Rotten Tomatoes reviews. Once a site that one could get honest reviews about how to spend your money and time, its now over run by SJWs who rate movies on what liberal narrative you must follow.
I bought a $20.00+ something EWETON wireless security type camera that said it worked on PCs, but it did not, for their software is only for smart phones. So I told them and they offered to send a better camera for free - if I would leave a positive (which I presume means at least 3 stars, but not necessary more) review. I said I would if it worked as they said.
Well, it also does not work remotely with a PC (unless you can figure out how to do it via I.P. configurations, for which they gave no instructions and no software). I have them both sitting unused on a shelf, and they did not get any positive review.
Some reviews are not hard to tell are not worthy of trust. One mentioned the products full name about 5 times, gushing about it. The thing is that the product may be good, but one fake one impugns the integrity of the rests.
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