Page 4 - March 2018

Phil’s Ramblings
The chances are good that you buy things
online from Amazon.com. Lot’s of people do.
But how do you sort through all the choices they
offer for the item(s) that interest you? Maybe
you already have your mind made up before vis-
iting their website and know exactly what you
want to buy. But sometimes, perhaps not; you
know the type of item you want but not neces-
sarily the exact model or brand. Fortunately,
Amazon offers lots of customer reviews for most
items they sell. You can use these reviews as
an aid in sorting through the competing products
(as I often do).
But have you ever noticed that some products
seem to have a lot of positive reviews that
sound very much alike or are written in some- glowing verified review of the product, which in
what stilted English? Yet these reviews will of-
ten carry the annotation “Verified Purchase” so
they must be legitimate, right? Maybe not; read
on!
Here is an interesting story from a recent Kim
Komando newsletter……
“This situation started out harmless enough. A
Massachusetts couple, Mike and Kelly Gallivan,
received a package last October from Amazon
that they did not order. The problem is, the
packages have not stopped coming.
The couple has received nearly 25 packages to
date that they never ordered. Most of them con-
tain inexpensive items like phone chargers,
plastic fans that connect by USB, a lithium-
battery powered hand warmer, and more.
The Gallivans contacted Amazon to find out
what's going on and they were told the items
had been paid for by gift card so there's no need
to return them. Amazon had no information as to
who the sender is or a sender's address. How-
4
ever, one of the packages did have an originat-
ing address from China.
Although the couple has never been charged
for the packages, they told the "Boston Globe"
that they're creeped out by the situation and
want it to stop. They are also concerned that
they're accomplices in some type of scam.
So why is this happening? According to a cou-
ple former Amazon employees, it's an elaborate
manipulated review scheme.
What's happening is, third-party sellers, most
likely from China, are purchasing items from
themselves and sending them to random peo-
ple in the U.S. This allows the buyer to write a
turn boosts the items' ranking on Amazon.
The entire purpose is for the seller's items to
have higher rankings. As you know, products
that are well-reviewed sell better than products
with poor or no reviews at all.
That's why this is considered an elaborate
scam. Amazon users could be duped into buy-
ing low-quality items based on fake reviews.
There have already been problems with coun-
terfeit items being sold by third-party sellers on
Amazon. Which is why it's a good idea to know
who you're buying from before you make a pur-
chase.
Know who you're buying from
Most likely the phony review scam is for items
being sold from third-party sellers. It's probably
a good idea to avoid buying directly from them
since there has been an ongoing counterfeit
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