Amazon has permanently banned more than 600 Chinese brands from its platform because they allegedly tampered with product reviews.
Investigation
The e-commerce giant had already been conducting an internal investigation into several Chinese sellers for several months after The Wall Street Journal reported how companies such as RavPower offered gift vouchers in exchange for reviews. Popular gadget sellers such as Aukey, Mpow, Vava, TaoTronics and Choetech disappeared from the platform before the summer started.
The Verge now reports that Amazon has permanently banned a total of more than 600 Chinese brands for deliberately, repeatedly and substantially violating Amazon’s policies, particularly those governing the abuse of reviews.
Stricter rules
Amazon has already banned encouraging reviews with a reward on its platform since 2016. Still, it’s not easy to track down violators: some offers are hidden behind a VIP test programme or an extended warranty. Other companies only address buyers who have left negative feedback, promising to refund the product without having to send anything back, as long as they remove the negative review.
“Customers rely on the accuracy and authenticity of product reviews to make informed purchasing decisions, and we have clear policies for both reviewers and selling partners that prohibit abuse of our community features. We suspend, ban, and take legal action against those who violate these policies, wherever they are in the world”, Amazon said in a statement.
