Amazon Review Practice - Amazon review fraud prevention guide.

1. Common evaluation methods

1. Leave a direct review without purchasing the product.

That is, you can write a review for a product directly without buying the product . I believe everyone knows that as long as Amazon buyers spend more than $50 on the platform, they can write a review for the product on the platform, even if they have never bought the product. In fact, the weight of direct reviews is not high, and the probability of Amazon direct reviews being deleted is very high, almost more than 90%.

2. Natural buyers purchase the product in full and leave a VP review.

Different from direct reviews, VP reviews have a higher weight on the listing, which is a very obvious reference for other buyers. It is a very important part of the listing improvement during the new product promotion period. Currently, the most common method is to post product news in Facebook groups to attract Reviewer cooperation.

2. Common fraud tactics

1. I just joined, so my account is very new.

Anyone who can provide the Amazon link as soon as you ask in the group is definitely not a novice, because a novice may not even know where the Amazon homepage link is.

2. Refusing to send the homepage link and only sending screenshots.

There are only two reasons why a reviewer refuses to post a link: one is that they have left too many negative reviews, and the other is that their account is too new and has no review history. So, when you encounter this situation, it is best not to cooperate with this reviewer.

3. Apply for return and refund before refund.

In the case of returns and refunds before refund, it may be that they do not have enough budget, but it may also be that the scammers want to refund the money after placing the order, and seeing that we refuse to refund the money after placing the order, they cancel the order.

4. Apply for return and refund after the refund.

After receiving the refund, the reviewer who applies for a return and refund without contacting the seller can be confirmed to be a scammer. There are two types of scammers, depending on their severity. One type is those who leave good reviews and simply want to get a refund. The other type, which is the worst, is those who, after applying for a refund, threaten the seller to pay extra money, otherwise they will file a complaint with Amazon.

5. The fraudulent intermediary maliciously placed the order and asked the buyer to return the goods.

The fraudulent intermediary who directly placed the order with them said that they could not contact the seller and could not refund the money, and asked the buyer to refuse to sign for the return and file a complaint against the seller. However, this fraudulent intermediary who directly placed the order with the customer was not the intermediary that the seller originally found.

6. The intermediary pretends to be the buyer and takes the initiative to come to the door to take the order.

The fraudulent intermediary takes orders from real sellers and gives them to buyers. After the buyer gives him the order number, the fraudulent intermediary takes the money from the seller and does not return it to the buyer, and then blocks the seller.

7. The intermediary requires the seller to pay the order money and commission in advance.

This is usually because the seller requires fake orders and reviews. The normal process should be to return the money after the review. Some sellers will trust the agent's routine and pay the order and commission in advance. As a result, the fraudulent agent did not post the review as required by the seller, and ran away with the money.

8. The intermediary acts as the buyer and charges a high price for deleting negative reviews.

A new trick that has emerged recently is that the intermediary acts as the buyer, purchases the seller's product and leaves a bad review, and then uses another buyer's account to contact the seller through an internal message on the site, saying that the review can be deleted, but the fee is nearly a thousand yuan.

3. Anti-fraud Guide

1. Post messages through closed groups.

In order to avoid scammers as much as possible, we can try to choose closed groups to post Review messages. It is easy for us to join open groups, and it is also easy for scammers to join. Therefore, it is recommended that you choose closed groups recommended by friends. Joining a closed group requires review and certification, which is safer than an open group.

2. Strictly review the Amazon homepage.

You can conduct an Amazon homepage audit from the following 6 aspects:

(1) Account ranking;

(2) Number of reviews left by an account per day;

(3) Account history;

(4) After the FB timeline is passed, keyword search is performed to confirm the purchase of the product;

(5) Refund after delivery or after leaving a review;

(6) It is safer for both sellers and buyers to submit a review 7-14 days after receiving the goods.

Amazon's homepage is the most important step for us to judge whether a Reviewer is worth cooperating with. The homepage has the user's ranking information. Generally speaking, Reviewers ranked in the top 1 million are relatively healthy, but we cannot simply refer to the ranking. On the contrary, accounts ranked too high are also very risky. Those who are able to manage Amazon's top rankings must be very professional. We tend to cooperate with ordinary buyers and try not to cooperate with too professional Reviewers . Because professional Reviewers can give a lot of good reviews, and they are also able to give a lot of bad reviews. If something goes wrong after cooperation, it will be very disadvantageous to the seller's account.

In the review history, accounts that leave more than three reviews a day are often monitored by Amazon as suspicious accounts. The account may not be dangerous in the short term, but the probability of being blocked for long-term intensive reviews is very high. Once the account is blocked, all their reviews will be deleted, the seller's store will also be implicated, and other reviews of the store will also be included in the monitoring.

3. Strictly review Facebook accounts.

Not only the Amazon homepage needs to be reviewed, but the Facebook page is equally important. Scammers need many small accounts, so the Facebook timeline content will be relatively small, or forwarded content. The real users are usually families or children. Just like the Amazon homepage, the longer the time span of the account, the higher the security and the more trustworthy it is.

4. Be wary of overly proactive reviewers.

Generally speaking, Reviewers will only contact sellers if they are interested in a product. If they are too proactive and are keen to buy no matter what the product is, sellers need to pay attention to the Reviewer's intentions.

5. Go to the sharing website to check.

This is an essential step. Before deciding whether to cooperate with a buyer, sellers can first go to some sharing websites to check information such as name and email address. There are scammers exposed by other peers here. Screening through web groups can effectively reduce the risk of being deceived.

6. Make friends with the Reviewer and don’t collaborate too many times.

Be friendly when communicating, so that it is easier to negotiate when there is a problem with the goods. For example, if the goods are damaged, you can negotiate not to return them, and just change the account and place a new order to reduce the return rate. However, even if you are a very friendly buyer, don't cooperate too many times, because once there is a problem with their account, it will be dangerous to cooperate with the seller's account many times.

7. Try to trade face to face.

If you cannot trade in person, please use Alipay or Taobao with real-name authentication.

8. Ask the other party to provide screenshots of the product.

9. Don’t believe in things that are too mythical.

10. Don’t be greedy for cheap things. You need to understand the principles behind some things.

IV. Precautions and preventive measures

1. Test submission process.

Email for testing: state the refund method, test products and pictures (different products should be numbered), testing requirements, attach multiple contact methods (Facebook, Snapchat, WhatsApp, WeChat, etc.), recommend and earn commissions, if the buyer is interested, ask them to send their own Profile link or screenshots, as well as favorite product pictures, numbers and other information.

2. Evaluation buyer’s email address, Paypal email address, and real buyer’s account email address.

Reach buyers from multiple dimensions. First, you need to get the Profile and review it. After passing it, continue to ask about the products you want to review, introduce in detail the process and precautions of the review and purchase, search for the main keywords to reach the review product, and use the Bitly link to let buyers see more pictures, browse more title descriptions, and reviews. You can ask experts to ask Q&A, forward, like or click No , add to the shopping cart or wish list, open other related products to browse, compare, purchase, give order numbers, fill in the new third review, PP review, or purchase the next day, and urge for reviews after payment is completed, refund, and arrival.

3. The buyer receives an order number after placing an order, but cancels the order before shipment, or returns the goods after receiving them.

Prevention method: For orders that do not require reviews, communicate with the influencer to refund the money after delivery or after the goods arrive. For orders that require reviews, communicate with the influencer to refund the money after delivery or after the reviews are left. Amazon generally will not approve the influencer’s cancellation of the order immediately after delivery, and the seller has also achieved a certain promotion effect after delivery.

Note: Payment in P ending status is definitely not safe, but the order can be cancelled even if the payment is successful but the goods have not been shipped, so payment in this status is not safe enough either.

4. Experts do not leave comments after receiving the goods.

Prevention methods: First, communicate before cooperation to see if the influencer is willing to share the shopping experience. The main thing is not to use sensitive words such as Review , Amazon, and Feedback . Then see if the influencer is active in cooperation. If the message is not replied for a long time during normal time period, it will be difficult to urge for reviews later. In addition, after the influencer has received the goods, you can use products that do not require reviews to attract the influencer to leave reviews, but it is recommended not to continue cooperation afterwards.

5. The expert leaves a negative review after receiving the product.

Prevention method: Give two more reminders after placing an order: 1- Let you know when the product has arrived, 2- You can contact you at any time if you have any questions, and you will do your best to solve them; if the influencer says that the product has arrived, first ask if he is satisfied with the product. If he is satisfied, ask if he is willing to share his shopping experience. If he is not satisfied, ask the reason first, and then try your best to solve it. At the same time, tell the influencer thank her for her feedback, you will try your best to improve, hope that you will not share her comments, look forward to the next cooperation, etc. This can effectively avoid bad reviews.

The language must be concise, accurate, tactful, polite and courteous. Avoid using a blunt, coercive tone.

5. How to identify the quality of a buyer’s account and decide whether to cooperate?

1. Read the Profile

(1) The review rate is too high. For example, three to five reviews a day are from abnormal accounts. Considering the 3-5% review rate on Amazon, this is definitely far beyond the warning line that Amazon monitors buyer accounts.

(2) Look at the types of products left in the reviews. Are they as diverse as a department store? If so, they have become standard professional fake order accounts. In the Amazon system, they have been marked as abnormal buyer accounts. In the case of minor violations, the reviews left by the buyers will be deleted for suspected manipulation of the reviews. In the case of serious violations, the accounts will be directly closed.

(3) Check whether there are any negative reviews. If there are negative reviews and they are obviously about products sold by Chinese sellers, it can be determined that the account is a scammer who is trying to collect commissions to prank his peers or threaten the sellers. In particular, if a negative review appears in a profile for products sold by the same store or brand, it can be determined that this is a buyer account that is trying to threaten the sellers. Please be careful.

(4) If you use various excuses to say that you are not allowed to view the Profile, you must be guilty of something, because it is untenable to say that your account was blocked by Amazon because someone viewed the Profile link.

(5) If you are not allowed to view the Profile, there is a possibility that the order is placed. There is no evaluation itself, but the order is placed through the seller to the order-brushing group formed by the seller. This practice is also extremely dangerous. First, you know nothing about the direct buyer's account. Second, the intermediary operation makes the evaluation process uncontrollable, which leads to a huge suspicion of cheating and causes obvious traces of manipulation of the seller's account data.

2. Check WeChat Moments

(1) Is it a WeChat account that is worth having and that the buyer would not want to throw away? Or is it just a small account that can be discarded at any time? Be wary of cooperation with small accounts. If the buyer violates the rules or threatens to make mistakes, the cost of throwing away this vest is too low.

(2) Is the WeChat Moments a normal and natural Moments? Can we see the buyer’s normal life scenes? If not, it is dangerous because the person we want to cooperate with is the one who can vote on the life and death of our store. If this person has problems, our store will also be in danger.

(3) If we sellers are directly closed to friends, we can refuse to cooperate. If we are unwilling to establish even the most basic trust, do you think the evaluation process will be carried out according to our pre-designed one? Not to mention the control of risks.

3. Look at the attitude of cooperation

(1) Can anything be faked? Without the buyers’ real needs, reviews have become fake orders, which greatly reduces the quality of buyers’ accounts and has a negative impact on Amazon’s data accumulation.

(2) There are explicit and implicit requirements to pay commissions. In fact, such accounts are the least valuable, and there is no reason to pay commissions. The best ones are the cheapest. Evaluations based on real needs are a sublimation of Listing data.

(3) Initial identification of a person’s character. You can only know a person’s face but not his heart. It is very difficult not to make mistakes if you only communicate through WeChat. There is only one way. Once you find a scumbag, everyone should contribute to it and create a blacklist. Those who sacrifice the moral character of the Chinese people for the sake of petty gains will be expelled from the circle forever.