
How Sellers Trick Amazon to Boost Sales - malshe
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-sellers-trick-amazon-to-boost-sales-1532750493
======
mmt
> has bought ineffective products like eye cream based on five-star reviews,
> including some that appeared fake. Now she only looks at two-, three- and
> four-star reviews when she shops on Amazon.

My strategy has always been to read the 1-star and 2-star reviews, most recent
first, unless there are so few total (e.g. under a dozen) that I may as well
just read them all.

Positive reviews, even 4-star and (enough of the) 3-star tend to be useless to
me. What I want to know is why people hated the product. If it's exclusively
for reasons that don't apply to me or for risks/problems inherent to the type
of product, then I have what I need.

Negative reviews are often also where the best referals to alternative
products can be. Of course, those have a high enough likelihood of being
posted by a shill that one can't assume it's actually better without reading
those reviews, too, but it can beat grinding through all of Amazon's search
results.

All that said, the worsening counterfeit and delivery situation means I've
bought hardly anything in the past year, after a progressive decline in buying
the year before.

~~~
kashprime
The only problem with this strategy is that competing vendors will start
leaving 1 star reviews on reviews of rival products. That said, I haven't
bought much either and switched to vendors that somewhat vouch for their
products like Best Buy, Walmart, Monoprice, etc

~~~
mmt
In what way is that a problem, though, in the context of what I desribed?

I'm not merely _counting_ 1-star reviews but actually _reading_ them for
content.

IOW, what content would a competing vendor be leaving in a review that would
confound my research?

------
rectang
Years ago, I felt like I could trust that the prices, selection, and quality
of items I found on Amazon were relatively predictable. Now that it's a bazaar
rather than a store, I can't trust anything and unless I want to get ripped
off I have to apply an exhausting level of scrutiny to each item purchased. As
a result, I don't shop there nearly as much as I once did.

How is Amazon thriving? I don't get it. Don't other people have the same
experience?

~~~
culot
I feel the same way about Amazon. What tipped me over the line was a
counterfeit pair of Ecco shoes. I mean, seriously? You cannot safely buy air
or water filters, SD cards, batteries, and so much more, but you have to even
now be super cautious about buying _shoes_ from Amazon? Its just not worth the
convenience. It feels almost like an abusive relationship.

I've started experimenting with Walmart to replace lots of the stuff I usually
get from Amazon. Unsure about them yet.

Unless Amazon ditches the 3rd party sellers, I won't be back.

~~~
fma
It used to be you can click "Amazon Prime" and get a reputable seller...but
now I guess you gotta click on "Sold by Amazon". I hope they don't commingle
Amazon's stuff with 3rd party sellers...

If so...I'm just going to buy name brand items in stores and get a price
match.

~~~
Regardsyjc
Third party sellers can also sell directly to Amazon via something called
Amazon Vendor Central. Their products will be "Sold by Amazon". I know someone
who was accused of selling counterfeit products to Amazon. He has 3 different
accounts all hooked up to its own network.

Another Amazon horror story would be I was listening to an Amazon seller
podcast. The person being interviewed sold supplements. He said he imported
some herbs from South America, picked them up at the airport, dropped them off
at the plant with some bottles, got them, and sent them off to Amazon. Nowhere
did he mention fda or anything. I'm hoping things are a lot harder now to sell
your own private label supplements on Amazon, like requiring GMP certificates
or invoices from a credible manufacturer... Or even worse electronics from
China that do not have any of the required testing that retail brick and
mortar stores require. Or ah maybe the worst story of all. The Amazon seller
who sells used bras as new on Amazon. I stopped buying bras on Amazon after I
heard that one at an Amazon seller event.

~~~
colechristensen
>Nowhere did he mention fda or anything.

"Dietary supplements" are essentially unregulated. The manufacturer is
responsible for doing any quality control/inspections/etc. The FDA might come
after you after you sell something, but they do absolutely no verification
before. I can't find any evidence that the regulation requires anyone but the
manufacturer to do anything and it doesn't seem there is any verification. (in
other words, don't trust supplements no matter where you buy them)

On the other hand, all meat that isn't privately sold is required to be
inspected before and after slaughter and processing by the USDA. The packing
plants have to shut down if there aren't inspectors there.

------
hourislate
I always leave a review with pictures and as much info as I can if the product
is shit and not what I expected or what the reviews suggested to help the next
folks. I actually bought a jump rope on Amazon that was "Amazon's Choice" and
it turned out to be crap. I found that exact same jump rope at Walmart for
$4.99 instead of $25 on Amazon and went to war with the seller.

He emailed me repeatedly offering refunds or a new rope, etc to change my
review. This only encouraged me to post more pictures and comparisons.
Eventually, they just added like 20 reviews to push mine down.

I don't buy anything on AMZN anymore unless it is something where I know I'm
getting the real thing at a good price. Typically you can find those cheap
Chinese items on AMZN for a lot less at Walmart or a local store. It's a shame
that AMZN isn't able to police their reviews culling all the fakery.

------
debaserab2
The seller fraud started happening when Amazon let international vendors on
the platform so they could compete with Alibaba. It's virtually impossible for
Amazon to police all their international vendors given how hard things like
verification are internationally. Even when they do ban a vendor, it's very
easy for them to pop up again under a different name.

~~~
gcb0
you guys are basing it all on personal anecdotes.

amazon was always the wild west. since 2009 when I started to use amazon
heavily I remember having to always police myself to never buy from items
without the "sold by amazon" note.

it has nothing to do with evil foreigners or going down to alibaba level.
amazom was always the alibaba of the US.

~~~
fencepost
_since 2009 when I started to use amazon heavily I remember having to always
police myself to never buy from items without the "sold by amazon" note._

What you've missed is that ever since Amazon added "fulfilled by Amazon" what
"sold by Amazon" means is _only_ "pulled from stock in an Amazon warehouse,
with that stock coming from both Amazon wholesale orders _and_ stock shipped
in by third party sellers." Basically commingling of stock means that "Sold by
Amazon" is entirely an accounting function now and says nothing about the
physical products or their origin.

~~~
BeetleB
I have sold on Amazon via FBA. Everything you say is true. If I ship a new
item to Amazon's warehouses, I go through a step in the process where I
explicitly give Amazon permission to comingle my item with theirs.

------
rustcharm
I read the article (I pay for WSJ) and there's one area they didn't mention:
books.

I see a lot of books, especially business, productivity, time management
books, written by authors who churn out poor quality (but legit, in that
they're not filled with nonsense which is another scam) books by the dozens
that mostly are the same book but freshened or rearranged. These books are
low-cost so I've taken a chance on a few of them.

What made me try them if they have hundreds of legit looking reviews and 4 and
5 star ratings. I imagine there's some sort of "farm" for Amazon self-
publishers that does this.

~~~
i_am_nomad
There are a number of services that will generate fluff reviews for your book.
You take a risk, though, because if Amazon detects them, you're getting
delisted. Also, Amazon will flag your book if your friends and family review
it.

------
ceejayoz
> The Amazon spokeswoman said it determined that fewer than 1% of hundreds of
> millions of reviews were fake last month...

Maybe they meant this to be a positive statement, but to me this just means
they're not catching anything except the most egregious cases. Any cursory
look at a popular product makes this look like a silly statement.

~~~
reaperducer
_> The Amazon spokeswoman said it determined that fewer than 1% of hundreds of
millions of reviews were fake last month..._

Oh, good. So there are only millions of fake reviews on Amazon. That's just
fine, then. Not a problem.

~~~
ceejayoz
Yeah, and that's their best case, PR version.

I'd bet in competitive categories - electronics, clothing, etc. - it's more
like 50% fakes.

------
Animats
Why are they boosting rank for clicks? Of course that won't work. They know
who actually bought the thing. Even that can be gamed, but it gets expensive
to buy and ship stuff to yourself.

~~~
debaserab2
There's a good podcast on this recently from reply-all.

Apparently in many cases the expense of buying and shipping (usually to a
random US address) is well worth a top product placement spot.

[https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/124#episode-
player](https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/124#episode-player)

~~~
Artemis2
Planet Money as well:
[https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...](https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=606517326)

They don’t seem to ship the actual items but random junk instead (to get a
tracking number?).

------
superasn
1 in out of every 5 items I buy from Amazon India has this small letter inside
which goes something like "leave us a 5 star review and email me the
screenshot to get 50 rs by paytm." And more often than not these products are
filled with 5 star verified reviews.

The worst offender recently has been a fitness tracker called Goqii which is a
completely useless gadget imo but has more than 22k positive reviews on
amazon.

------
ikeboy
There have recently been some massive purges of reviews, including many
real/organic reviews. I've heard from many sellers that they lost a ton of
reviews on listings, even though they never made fake reviews or otherwise
messed with it. It seems to be specific categories and some are saying it's
concentrated in categories where Amazon has their own PL brands.

------
Simulacra
Technical question maybe someone can answer: Why doesn't Amazon just block all
incoming connections from .bd, etc. ? If not block then depreciate the
activities locations where this problem occurs frequently?

~~~
walrus01
You think click farms in Bangladesh can't establish VPN endpoints in the USA?
You can even get VPN endpoints that are specifically in Comcast, Verizon FiOS,
charter, CenturyLink residential IP space so that it doesn't look like your
traffic is coming from some /22 assigned to a Colo/dedicated server hosting
company.

~~~
mmt
That means it wouldn't outright prevent the behavior, but it would add some
cost and friction. That could reduce the sheer volume of the problem to make
it worth it.

Maybe even not blocking them outright but just rate-limiting would provide
comparable friction. It could even be more effective if they never try the VPN
route to discover that it's faster.

~~~
walrus01
You're overestimating the cost of bulk VPN services. It's like $1.50 per click
worker desktop PC terminal per month, and that's if they don't have a decently
skilled sysadmin to DIY it.

~~~
southerndrift
If you limit the IP to the residential IP space then VPN costs become huge.
You need some resident to rent his IP to you. If those residents get punished
by their providers for that behaviour then soon you will have to rent
apartments to buy your own connections. That's hundreds of dollars.

Now, if Amazon would be sincere about preventing fraud, they would ban the IPs
of fraudulent comments and somehow cooperate with the providers if they use
random IPs. In other words, you would have to rent a new apartment for every
bad review. That's an exhibitive cost.

------
pergadad
I always get the impression Amazon doesn't care about customers until they
complain, and then they are suddenly very nice.

Why not add some obvious QA features like: \- reporting fake reviews \-
reporting fake/misleading listings \- reporting fake reviewers \- reporting
listings where the product has been changed for something else

Many other glaringly obvious issues: \- vastly different products listed on
the same page (to gather more reviews & sales = better ranking) \- shipping
cost > item cost \- sellers promising a refund for a good review (especially
to those that complain) \- fake 'only 1 left in stock' listings \- always-on-
sale listings \- ...

Also while I'm complaining, as a frequent Amazon shopper there are a few
missing filter/search options, in particular: \- listing age \- not
deliverable to your address/country (frequent issue I have with cross-border
shopping)

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/ynSqS](http://archive.is/ynSqS) works for me.

~~~
eisa01
It's 49 cents at Blendle if you want to reward good journalism:
[https://blendle.com/i/wsj-com/how-sellers-trick-amazon-to-
bo...](https://blendle.com/i/wsj-com/how-sellers-trick-amazon-to-boost-
sales/bnl-
wsj-20180728-SB12619217266056794095704584373153815721322?sharer=eyJ2ZXJzaW9uIjoiMSIsInVpZCI6ImVpc2EwMSIsIml0ZW1faWQiOiJibmwtd3NqLTIwMTgwNzI4LVNCMTI2MTkyMTcyNjYwNTY3OTQwOTU3MDQ1ODQzNzMxNTM4MTU3MjEzMjIifQ%3D%3D)

------
OhSnapppp
Weren't there sites where you could check if reviews and ranking are real or
not? They used a pretty impressive algorithm. I wonder why amazon doesn't use
something similar.

~~~
PenguinCoder
The only one I know of is fakespot
[https://www.fakespot.com/](https://www.fakespot.com/), and they also have
browser extensions.

~~~
propogandist
how does fake spot make money though?

Are they injecting their amazon affiliate code into your amazon shopping
session via their browser plugin?

~~~
PenguinCoder
Good questions:

From their privacy policy[1]

 _Additionally when you make a purchase or attempt to make a purchase through
the Service, we collect certain information from you, including your name,
billing address, shipping address, payment information (including credit card
numbers), email address, and phone number. We refer to this information as
“Order Information.”_

 _We share your Personal Information with third parties to help us use your
Personal Information, as described above. We use Google Analytics to help us
understand how our customers use the Service. You can read more about how
Google uses your Personal Information
here:[https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/](https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/).
You can also opt-out of Google Analytics here:
[https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout](https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout).
_

_Finally, we may also share your Personal Information to comply with
applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or
other lawful request for information we receive, or to otherwise protect our
rights._

That said, I don't use their browser extensions so I'm not sure how they (if
they) monetize that. I just paste in the URL to the product I suspect is 'too
goo to be true' into the fakespot site. If it passes that, I do my own other
digging on the item to determine if I think I can 'trust it'. Mainly, co-
mingled inventory, seller ratings, cherry picked 1-star and 5 star reviews,
other review websites, etc.

[1][https://www.fakespot.com/privacy-policy](https://www.fakespot.com/privacy-
policy)

------
jupiter90000
I've never had a fraudulent item purchased that I'm aware of. I hear this all
the time on HN when Amazon comes up, yet haven't once experienced it and have
been using Amazon for years.

If it did happen to me though, it would definitely sour my experience.

~~~
rectang
I've never _bought_ a fraudulent item, either -- nor have I paid an exorbitant
price -- but that's because I'm rigorous when I shop. What I said in my
original post is that _it takes more effort_ to shop now.

I don't know what to think about you and other "Amazon is all hunky dory"
posters not seeing ripoff garbage all over -- because I see it literally
everywhere. Do you not actually shop that much there? (Unlikely, otherwise you
wouldn't have posted.) Are you easily duped? (Uncharitable and unlikely for HN
demographic.) Do you buy only books?

~~~
jupiter90000
I think I see what you're saying now. I have bought for so long from online
retailers that it's kind of automatic for me to realize there's a lot of
garbage listed in shops that allow third party sellers.

It was always par for the course to be extra careful before I buy, never had a
lot of trust in online retail products.

------
bogomipz
Is there a reason Amazon doesn't limit reviews to verified purchasers? I
always assumed unverified purchase reviews were fake or else biased reviews in
exchange for a free product.

~~~
amf12
I agree with you however it's much more than that because verified reviews can
also be fake. There have been incidents of sellers creating bot accounts and
buying products and shipping them to random addresses so that they can give
themselves a verified review. The random person gets a free product (usually
something very cheap, not the actual product). There was an interesting
podcast about this. I generally look at the number of reviews, their
distributions and the reviews posted by people with 1*.

~~~
bogomipz
Yeah and I have to wonder if company's are reaching out to purchasers who
leave negative reviews and offering them incentives to "update" their negative
product reviews. I came across a review from a person who bought a Jackery
Bolt phone charger who claimed the company did this after she wrote a negative
review on Amazon of their product.

>"There was an interesting podcast about this."

Do you happen to remember what podcast this was?

~~~
amf12
> Do you happen to remember what podcast this was?

Found it. Here you go. It's a Planet Money podcast and is very interesting.
They actually interview people in China who do this.

[https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...](https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=606517326)

~~~
bogomipz
Thanks for the link! This is indeed very interesting. Cheers.

------
theyinwhy
Even big companies like Cherry behave fraudulent on Amazon, shipping different
items under well known legacy product names. Amazon has a huge problem with
its sellers. It is time for them to solve this.

------
known
Sounds like AMZ is infected with
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb)

------
johnslegers
As a collector of books on (among other topics) politics & religion, I've been
thinking of buying a 73 volume full size Schottenstein Edition of the Talmud
for quite a while. However, these usually go for > $2,000.00 in the US and >
$3,000.00 in Europe. So you can consider my surprise when I stumbled on a new
set at Amazon that's sold at $509, with only $14.95 shipping to Europe.

So I ordered the set. After some days, I get a notification that the set has
been shipped. But no tracking number, which is odd for a shipment of such
value.

After a week or two, I contacted the seller if they could give me a tracking
number or at least confirm the address they sent it to. They gave no tracking
number a confirmed the shipping address, but left out the country.

So I asked in response if they could confirm the country. I then was told that
the address the shipment was sent to was the address in my contact info,
without details.

So I again contacted them with the request to explicitly confirm the shipping
country. Then I was told that they could not find me other and therefore
refunded my money.

Two weeks later, I went back to Amazon and noticed they re-listed the item
([https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01A68XF9I/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01A68XF9I/)).

Then, I noticed several buyers complaining about items sent to the wrong
address, packages being incomplete, etc :

* "1 out of 5 stars I ordered Love is in the Earth, a Kaleidoscope of Crystals. 7/30/18 -I received the wrong book in error Love is in the Earth- Laying on of Stones. I have contacted the store through Amazon, received a response and sent photos of the wrong book cover, back, spine and invoice. Awaiting response"

* "I have been back and forth with this seller about sending us two copies of the wrong ISBN. They have yet to provide a full refund for both books we ordered. They only provided a 50% refund at this point, and it has been more than a week of attempting to get our money back. Do not trust this seller to provide you with the correct items!"

* "Only one book out of the 10 book set arrived. A mistake was made. The seller responded timely and was very courteous."

* "The book arrived well before the expected delivery date but it was definitely not the version I ordered. The description was for the beautiful UK cover edition and I received the cheap mass market paperback production version. Contacted the seller and after multiple e-mails back and forth and pictures sent they ended up refunding the cost of the book so I ended up just paying for shipping."

* "The order that was listed as delivered on June 26, 2018 never arrived. The seller had us confirm our shipping address on July 7, 2018. Now it is July 26, 2018 and the missing order issue has not been resolved. Time for a complete refund of purchase price and shipping costs bookercafe."

* "I have not received my order and it is saying delivered. Can you tell me who signed for this? ORDER NUMBER 113-3032376-5177066"

* "I have purchased two books from this store and one of these orders had been canceled without notification and a fake tracking number has been submitted for the second one. Please refund as soon as possible."

* "lists books they actually don't have. now I have to be troubled to ensure I am refunded."

* "My book never arrived at my mailing address, even though there was a USPS tracking number. When I contacted USPS, they told me it was delivered to the shipping address listed on the packing slip (which was not mine). I contacted the seller, and they told me it must have been a bad tracking number. Haven't heard back...haven't received the book either. I have now submitted a refund request."

* "1 out of 5 stars Another reviewer called it a scam when the book didn't arrive even though there was a tracking number that said it did. Seller told him it was sent to another address. Guess what? Same thing happened to me. A bad tracking number and the excuse that it was sent to a different address. I never heard from them again after they said they would check into it. I've submitted a refund request."

* "I ordered five books from them. One arrived OK, the other four never came but they kept my money for almost a month. One had no tracking number, the other three all had fake tracking numbers, re-used numbers that showed the books were delivered to three other cities. I had to fight them and contact Amazon to get a promise of refunds, and they are still stalling. Cheaters"

* ...

Overall, however, customers appear satisfied and the store has a feedback
score of 91% for 335 ratings.

However, judging by the fact that 309 of those reviews were from the last 90
days, the store seems to exist only about 4 to 6 months on Amazon.

Something else I noticed, is that I get their > 400,000 results and that there
are quite a few items listed for the same amount of $509, most of which I
can't imagine are actually worth that much and are sold by other sellers at
much lower prices :

* Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker Trilogy ([https://www.amazon.com/Douglas-Adams-Hitchhiker-Trilogy/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Douglas-Adams-Hitchhiker-Trilogy/dp/B0043WOFQG/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1533211023&sr=1-3))

* Diablo III: Book of Cain ([https://www.amazon.com/Diablo-III-Deckard-Blizzard-Entertain...](https://www.amazon.com/Diablo-III-Deckard-Blizzard-Entertainment/dp/B00A7JO7XA/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1533211023&sr=1-10))

* The American Pageant ([https://www.amazon.com/American-Pageant-fifteenth-Kennedy-Ha...](https://www.amazon.com/American-Pageant-fifteenth-Kennedy-Hardcover/dp/B00OVLVJEK/ref=sr_1_44?m=AZD3XT1OLC6P2&s=merchant-items&ie=UTF8&qid=1533212898&sr=1-44))

* Calculus: Concepts and Applications ([https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Concepts-Applications-Paul-F...](https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Concepts-Applications-Paul-Foerster/dp/1559536543/ref=sr_1_49?m=AZD3XT1OLC6P2&s=merchant-items&ie=UTF8&qid=1533212939&sr=1-49))

* The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures ([https://www.amazon.com/Free-Range-Cook-Simple-Pleasures/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Free-Range-Cook-Simple-Pleasures/dp/B017V8JR7U/ref=sr_1_50?m=AZD3XT1OLC6P2&s=merchant-items&ie=UTF8&qid=1533212939&sr=1-50))

* O'Connor Violin Method Book I and CD ([https://www.amazon.com/OConnor-Violin-Method-Book-CD/dp/B005...](https://www.amazon.com/OConnor-Violin-Method-Book-CD/dp/B005AZCQ2A/ref=sr_1_84?m=AZD3XT1OLC6P2&s=merchant-items&ie=UTF8&qid=1533212985&sr=1-84))

* Winnie the Pooh Complete Collection 30 Books Box Set ([https://www.amazon.com/Winnie-Complete-Collection-Books-Slip...](https://www.amazon.com/Winnie-Complete-Collection-Books-Slipcase/dp/B00IVPAK0G/ref=sr_1_90?m=AZD3XT1OLC6P2&s=merchant-items&ie=UTF8&qid=1533212985&sr=1-90))

* No Excuses! The Power of Self-discipline ([https://www.amazon.com/Excuses-Power-Self-discipline-Brian-H...](https://www.amazon.com/Excuses-Power-Self-discipline-Brian-Hardcover/dp/B00ZLW9C1U/ref=sr_1_93?m=AZD3XT1OLC6P2&s=merchant-items&ie=UTF8&qid=1533212985&sr=1-93))

* Straight White Men ([https://www.amazon.com/Straight-White-Young-March-Paperback/...](https://www.amazon.com/Straight-White-Young-March-Paperback/dp/B015X4BMHM/ref=sr_1_152?m=AZD3XT1OLC6P2&s=merchant-items&ie=UTF8&qid=1533213142&sr=1-152))

* Sequential Spelling 3: Teacher's Guide ([https://www.amazon.com/Sequential-Spelling-3-Teachers-Guide/...](https://www.amazon.com/Sequential-Spelling-3-Teachers-Guide/dp/B005OBASF2/ref=sr_1_188?m=AZD3XT1OLC6P2&s=merchant-items&ie=UTF8&qid=1533213301&sr=1-188))

* ...

The item I ordered has been re-listed at the same price point, a bit after I
received my refund for it.

Interestingly, there are now 6 sellers offering the same set with "Used -
Good" condition and prices ranging from $506.00 to $548.32. There were only 3
sellers when I checked last time. All of these 6 sellers have a storefront
with 300,000 - 700,000 items in them. And this includes a new shop that hasn't
sold anything yet!

Since I received my refund As the store I ordered from is the only one
shipping to Europe, I asked them if they'd ship be willing to sell it to me
again. First they were eager and even offered a 30% discount. When I asked if
they could add tracking for a second order, the tone became less friendly and
I was asked to remove my (negative) feedback for the initial order.

I'd also asked an explanation for what went wrong with my order but haven't
received any.

I also came to notice that this seller uses a kind of broken English very
reminiscent of the broken English of sellers on AliExpress. So I suspect that
her native language is Chinese and this account is a good example of a Chinese
scammer account. And the same probably applies as well to the other 5 accounts
I spotted which sell the same item at roughly the same place.

AliExpress sure has its flaws, but I never really had that much issues with
ordering on AliExpress. And I certainly never came close to experiences as
strange / fishy on AliExpress as my recent experience with third party sellers
on Amazon... which really surprises me, as this type of seller should be easy
to spot, even by an algorithm!

I'll definitely think twice next time I see an interesting book - or set of
books - on Amazon that's sold by a third party seller! I feel like Amazon
urgently has some serious closet cleaning to do!

------
malshe
Outline link - [https://outline.com/gzShMr](https://outline.com/gzShMr)

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/5AqeF](http://archive.is/5AqeF)

~~~
teh_klev
Sadly just a copy of the paywalled summary.

~~~
neonate
Sorry! [http://archive.is/ynSqS](http://archive.is/ynSqS) is better.

