Still brushing orders? Some Amazon sellers have already paid tens of millions of dollars in compensation for fake orders!

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Brushing orders is really a routine that all e-commerce sellers love to use. Why do sellers from China to abroad, no matter what their situation is, like to do it roughly? It’s because it works!

In the early days when Amazon was not strictly regulated, Amazon sellers enjoyed the bonus period. As long as they were willing to spend time and effort to fake orders, they could get orders and their product performance would get better and better. This also made everyone form a mindset that fake orders are enough. No traffic? Fake! Bad ranking? Fake!

However, since Amazon gradually tightened its review policy and began to crack down on fake orders, waves of sellers have been sanctioned and their stores have been closed. These are all Amazon's own internal crackdowns on fake orders, but recently a third-party agency made Amazon sellers pay tens of millions of dollars in compensation!

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently issued a statement saying that it has filed a lawsuit against an e-commerce seller suspected of false advertising and manipulating reviews. This is the first time that the FTC has fired at an independent e-commerce retail platform seller.

▲Announcement on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s official website

The company, called Cure Encapsulations (hereinafter referred to as "CE"), sells a weight loss drug product on Amazon that claims to suppress appetite and control fat. The product description on the Amazon page states that its product can significantly and quickly reduce weight by up to twenty pounds, but it has not produced any credible clinical or drug reports.

Even more outrageous, the FTC investigated that CE had purchased reviews for its Amazon products on a review sales website. CE required the website to keep its Amazon products at an average star rating of 4.3 and to add 30 reviews to the products at a frequency of 3 reviews per day.

▲Excerpt from FTC’s public documents

In response to the above actions that seriously violated consumer rights and federal laws, CE expressed its willingness to pay the FTC a fine of up to $12.8 million to reach an out-of-court settlement.

Before obtaining any reliable clinical data, CE companies cannot use any efficacy-related words (including weight loss, appetite suppression, fat suppression or disease treatment, etc.) to promote any of their products. Of course, they are also not allowed to manipulate word-of-mouth by swiping orders.

How does Amazon react to the fact that the products and reviews on its platform have been exposed as fake? In an interview with the media, an Amazon spokesperson said

Amazon itself has a very firm attitude towards false reviews. In addition to closing stores, it will also file lawsuits in serious cases.

However, before this incident, government watchdogs such as the FTC did not pay enough attention to fake reviews on Amazon. However, this shot by the FTC is likely to drive major US regulators to focus more attention on Amazon.

Even the FTC has expressed its seriousness and recently announced the establishment of a team of 17 staff members to take regulatory actions specifically against the growing Internet giants such as Google and Amazon .

▲Announcement on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s official website

What else can I say after seeing this?

Brushing is dead