We all know that Amazon is a competitive marketplace. The battle can be intense and sellers are constantly on the lookout for ways to boost their listings. When it comes to the Buy Box, this is usually through price, maintaining good performance metrics and using FBA.
But some sellers will take things a step further and try to shoot down their competitors using a range of dirty tricks. Their aim is simple – to get a competing seller or listing suspended.
This underhand behavior is rife on Amazon, and a variety of different tricks are being deployed. These range from leaving negative reviews on competing products to switching genuine items with counterfeits, then making inauthentic item claims to Amazon.
Massive disruption is caused for the “victim” sellers, who lose money while their account is suspended. They are left frustrated, having to write a Plan of Action to reinstate their account – for problems that don’t actually exist.
To raise awareness of these anti-competitive practices, we’ve found five of the most prominent dirty tricks being pulled by Amazon sellers on their competitors.
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The Counterfeit Switch
What happens?
In this scam, an unethical seller buys their competitor’s product, for instance a designer jacket. Then they go elsewhere and purchase another jacket that is either a cheaper version or a counterfeit. When the designer jacket arrives, they switch it with the cheaper jacket and claim that the product they received was inauthentic. They return the cheap version and keep the designer jacket, which they can then sell on.
The scammer then either leaves a review saying that the product was a counterfeit, or complains directly to Amazon. Either tactic can cause Amazon to take a seller’s account down immediately, as they take claims of counterfeiting very seriously.
This dirty trick is very popular and, despite its complexity, it is something that Amazon suspension consultant Steven Thompson, from Thompson and Holt, deals with frequently. He told me that this year alone he has dealt with between 50 and 60 cases of people being suspended due to their competitors pulling this scam.
How would you know this has happened and what can you do?
This scam is easy to spot, because when you receive the returned item you’ll know it wasn’t the item that you dispatched.
You wouldn’t know at first glance that you were being targeted by a competitor, as it could simply be the work of a dishonest buyer. It would take some serious detective skills to pin down the culprit and find out if it was indeed the work of a competitor.
Even if you can trace it to a competitor, Amazon doesn’t really buy the “someone set me up” excuse. Frustratingly, the best way for a seller to get their account back is to take responsibility – even when it isn’t their fault. Joshua Price, Managing Director of Suspension Experts, has found that this is a far more successful way to get accounts reinstated:
I’ve never had success with an appeal letter when I’ve directly addressed the faults in Amazon’s system, as opposed to just saying it actually happened. To call them out on it, and say this is definitely a competitor, is very hard to win because you can’t prove it.
So, if you are suspended as a result of this scam, it is probably best to submit a Plan of Action (POA) that outlines how you’re going to change moving forward and, most importantly, how you’ll make sure you source stock from authorized distributors. Even if you are already doing everything your POA says, you have little choice but to present it as a new process you have put in place.
This scam is very difficult to protect against, but there are steps you can take to limit the effect it has. Keeping up-to-date invoices close to hand is an important factor, as it is then easier to present your case and show that you are buying stock from authorized distributors.
Retail arbitrage sellers are especially vulnerable to this scam, simply because they buy from retail outlets and not through authorized distributors. Retail receipts are not accepted as proof by Amazon, so it’s difficult for them to prove their stock was legitimate.
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Review Trashing
What happens?
In this trick, a dishonest seller sets up multiple new buying accounts, unlinked to their seller account, and starts to target their competitor with negative product reviews. These could be about the condition of the item, that it didn’t work, or that it broke shortly after it was purchased.
Once the review is posted, they will often use their multiple buying accounts, or even friends and family members, to up-vote the negative review. This is voting “yes” underneath a product review where Amazon asks, “Was this review helpful to you?”. They may also down-vote existing positive reviews. In the eyes of buyers this gives the fake negative review authenticity and discredits the genuine positive reviews. The overall effect is to make buyers wary of purchasing items from you, and drive more traffic to your competitor’s product.
How would you know this has happened and what can you do?
It can be hard to tell whether a review is genuine or not, and it can be harder still to prove that you’re being targeted by a competitor. Suspicions should be raised though, if the negative review was not accompanied by a refund request or a buyer message, as normally a customer with a faulty item would also want a refund. A bad review alone suggests foul play.
If sellers see these types of comments or notice an unnatural amount of up-votes or down-votes they can use the “report abuse” button beneath the product review to report it to Amazon’s Product Review Abuse team. This tends to give mixed results. In the experience of former Amazonian and ecommerceChris founder Chris McCabe, it doesn’t usually help sellers combat the actions of unethical sellers:
People report this trick all the time and generally they tell me that no action was taken, or that they got a generic message saying it’s being looked into and that Amazon will get back to them, but they never hear anything. Everything stays up; the down-voting stays the same and the fake reviews stay up.
The Product Review Abuse team was created to deal with this but they’ve apparently invested most of their energy in taking down sellers who paid for positive reviews. There’s not been a lot of attention on people leaving negative reviews to cut down a competitor.
Bogus Safety Claim
What happens?
With this one, a crooked seller again starts by purchasing a competitor’s product. They then leave a product review saying that the product was dangerous. For instance, if it was an electrical item, they could use words like “fire”, “dangerous” and “hazard”. These terms are picked up by the keyword algorithm that Amazon uses to patrol product reviews.
When these keywords are detected, your product can be taken down automatically. On a branded or private label product where you are the only seller, the whole listing would typically be taken down. But on a listing with multiple sellers, if Amazon assess that only you are selling an unsafe version, then it can just be you who is kicked off, leaving your competitors still able to sell the product.
This scam is also very popular on Amazon. Steven Thompson currently deals with suspensions caused by bogus safety claims on a daily basis. He finds that scams come and go in phases on Amazon, and that right now, this is the favored dirty trick pulled by sellers on their competitors.
How would you know this has happened and what can you do?
Joshua Price from eCommerce Geek has dealt with a vast amount of bogus safety claims, and finds that the content of them tends to be different from genuine negative reviews:
The reviews are often very over the top because they want to ram as many keywords in as possible. This is because sellers don’t know exactly what keywords Amazon is looking for. So it would include things like ‘it exploded’, ‘it burnt my arm’ and ‘there was fire’, to try and trigger something.
A genuine product review would say ‘it fused out and there was a tiny bit of smoke’. When things go wrong, people are a bit calmer, often more so than the fake reviews make out.
There are other factors that can indicate you are the target of bogus safety claims. One is by looking at the balance of good reviews to bad reviews. If there are only two bad reviews complaining of safety faults, when hundreds of people have had no problem, this could be a sign that the negative ones are bogus.
Unethical sellers also have a habit of including the full name of a product in fake reviews, exactly as it appears in the listing title, in an attempt to associate the safety trigger keywords with that product.
Once again, the tricky part is pinning this underhand tactic on your competitor, as they will have bought the item and left the review with a buyer account unlinked to their seller account.
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More tricks after the video…
False Infringement Claim
What happens?
This is where the unethical seller pretends to be a brand owner and targets one of your products. They report the product using Amazon’s infringement claim form, saying that you are breaching their rights by selling that product. Amazon usually acts on these immediately, suspending your ASIN until the brand owner contacts them saying that you are authorized to sell that product.
Amazon will provide you with the email address used by the person who made the complaint and tell you to contact them. But there lies the problem. Amazon doesn’t require people making infringement claims to have seller accounts, and unethical sellers know this. They simply create a new email account, find their competitor’s bestselling listing, and submit an infringement claim about that product.
Amazon won’t reinstate your product until they hear from the supposed brand owner, so you have little choice but to send messages to the email address provided. You are very unlikely to get a response. Of course, this is your competitor’s aim, as the more time you waste emailing them, the longer your ASIN is down, and the more profit your competitor makes in your absence.
How would you know this has happened and what can you do?
There are a few ways that you can tell you’re being targeted and that the claim isn’t genuine. The first is if you receive no answer from the email address that Amazon provided. This should raise your suspicions, as a genuine brand owner is likely to want to resolve the issue.
It can be fruitful to contact the brand directly instead, as it is not unusual for them to tell you that they never made the claim. You then simply need to get the brand to contact Amazon, explaining that they are the legitimate rights owner and that they never made the claim. This should see your ASIN reinstated.
Another scenario is when you, as the seller, are also the brand owner. Is not uncommon for competitors to file an infringement claim on a private label product that you actually own the rights to. The effect is just the same as for a third-party brand, and it can take a good deal of effort to convince Amazon that you really are the brand owner yourself.
If all else fails and you are completely sure you really aren’t infringing any rights, you have the option to lodge a DMCA counterclaim, where you contest the claim being made against you. This can be made as soon as you receive a notice from Amazon, saying that your product has been taken down.
The counterclaim should be forwarded by Amazon to the person who has made the claim against you. Unless the claimant seeks a court order, Amazon should reinstate your product within 14 business days of receiving the counterclaim.
Chris McCabe believes that as Amazon becomes a more aggressive marketplace, the need for sellers to have an attorney to work on matters like these is increasingly important:
I think in the future, almost every seller is going to need an attorney, to better understand trademarks, intellectual property and copyright. I’ve dealt with thousands of sellers on these topics and many have no understanding of them.
Sellers need an attorney to advise them specifically on these issues because everyone knows that a false infringement claim is in effective way of knocking your opponent off a listing and they also know there is no Amazon team in place to strike down these forms as they are coming in.
Chris McCabe wrote about this topic in detail in Bogus Amazon Infringement Claims… and How to Fight Amazon Rights Infringement Claims.
Listing Hijacking
What happens?
There are a number of ways that unethical sellers can manipulate product listings. One variation that is now common is altering a listing for a generic unbranded product. For example, imagine selling a pink plastic cup on a competitive listing – with multiple other sellers offering the same product.
Then an unethical seller comes along. They’ve sourced the same generic product but their version is slightly different, for example a pink plastic cup with a white lid. They know that they should create their own listing, or find an existing listing matching their particular variation. But your cup sells well and has good reviews, so they connect to this listing instead.
Here’s where the dirty trick comes in: they submit a new title and description, stating that the product is a “pink plastic cup with a white lid”, and submit a picture of their own item.
Now the listing no longer reflects your own product. The rogue seller sits and watches, as the other sellers on the listing – including you – start to get complaints, because the item sold no longer matches the description. When you and the other sellers have been kicked off, the hijacking is complete and the black-hat seller takes over.
Rogue sellers also pull this trick by taking a generic listing and adding a brand name to the title. This causes sellers to get counterfeit or “not as described” complaints, because customers were expecting a branded item and received a generic one instead. This can lead to your account being suspended for selling inauthentic goods.
Hijacking also occurs on branded and private label products but the experts we spoke to believe it is on the decrease, partly because of factors such as Brand Registry.
How would you know this has happened and what can you do?
Often a seller finds out that their listing has been hijacked after someone has left a negative review, saying the product was not as described or a fake. The seller might read the review then check the listing to find that it is totally different to their product – the title will have changed and the images may also be different.
This dirty trick is most accessible to large sellers because, as Joshua Price explains, the algorithm that Amazon uses to decide whether to accept changes is tipped in their favor:
Amazon will basically rank the sellers that have submitted information and the original listing and decide who should win. If you’re a large seller with great feedback and a good sales history, they’re going to put things into your favor. Whereas if you’re a small or new seller, you’re very likely to not win in that situation.
This opens the way for further aggressive tactics. If large unethical sellers discover that their suggested changes are often accepted by Amazon, they may be tempted to go on the rampage, sourcing new products and hijacking existing listings at will to get sales off to the best start possible.
Brand Registry can offer some protection to private label sellers, but it doesn’t give complete control over a listing, just increased authority. It still makes sense for brand owners to apply, but the benefits should not be overstated.
Frustration Free Packaging offers more protection. Once a product has been certified as FFP, Amazon will only allow you, and sellers that you authorize, to sell the FFP version of that product.
Offering a warranty on products is another option. If you sell a product with an Amazon-approved warranty and another seller appears on your listing with an identical product, but doesn’t offer a warranty, this makes their product materially different, strengthening your case for Amazon to remove them from the listing.
But… what about account hacking?
Account hacking hasn’t been included here because it’s usually the work of cyber criminals, or sometimes disgruntled ex-employees, rather than competitors.
Cyber criminals will hack seller accounts and list products with bargain prices but long dispatch times. This way they can make a lot of sales, and receive funds from Amazon before the buyer expects to receive the item. Another variation is to hack active accounts and simply redirect sales proceeds to the criminal’s own bank account.
We have heard a few reports, however, of unethical sellers hacking into their competitor’s accounts and making subtle changes, such as marking warning notices as read, in an attempt to get their competitors suspended in the long term without revealing that their account has been compromised.
Account hacking usually starts with a phishing email, to obtain a seller’s email address and password. Using two-step verification helps protect against unauthorized access to your account, as you have to enter both your password and a unique code, that changes every time you attempt to sign in.
In Closing
So how is this anti-competitive behavior shaping Amazon as a marketplace? Joshua Price thinks that sellers on Amazon are increasingly those willing to try anything, leading the marketplace down a more cutthroat path:
The type of sellers who employ these dirty tricks are often sellers who do have really good accounts. They are more proactive, keen to make changes and can perform much better because they’re clearly very knowledgeable about Amazon. They don’t let some metrics about late dispatch impact them, whereas a newer, less knowledgeable seller could fall foul of the performance metrics that Amazon raves about. It breeds a culture of being a harsh and aggressive competitor on the platform.
Chris McCabe too believes that Amazon sellers will have to become more pugnacious to survive and be ready to combat the underhand tactics of their competitors:
Everyone has to act more aggressively now, whether that’s sellers, attorneys or Amazon. I think in the very near future, every seller will need a battle plan to protect against someone trying to attack their business on Amazon.
In many ways Amazon is the ultimate free market. The sellers with the best products, prices and customer service are favored by Amazon’s algorithms, and they thrive.
But those same algorithms can be abused by unethical sellers. Those who understand a system can also subvert it. On Amazon, a growing number of selling are taking advantage of processes designed to protect consumers and brand owners, to take down their competitors instead.
Great article. The only thing I would do differently would be to employ someone, or possibly just simply use a grammar correcting program. There are some wording mistakes in the article, especially in the use of 'underhand'. Underhand means to throw an object very much in the way a softball is thrown. 'Underhanded' means in a deceptive way. Otherwise, it was a great article, keep up the good work.
Thanks William. I disagree with you on "underhand", and so does the dictionary. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/underhand
It's an optional complaint for redress at best. The option to keep it limited to ones opinion should have been exercised as the point was made with the same intention as it was given. One must conclude that they know what they are reading to eliminate confusion when they perceive it. At no point, did I feel you changed topics from Amazon sellers dirty tricks to Amazon sellers dirty softball team. Proper English is imperative to our communication, but pausing communication to criticize proper English will prove catastrophic. Even with a liberal and more forgiving approach, it would indefinitely cripple the lines of our communication when you consider how late in response any attempt would be, and only for a negative of no return outcome. I think we've set ourselves back far enough to agree comfortably to leave this as a preferred silent option. If no, you missed a semicolon in your statement somewhere. Thank you.
Daniel and Amber Foote of Sosa games purposely use family members and friends of theirs to do stealth purchases on their competition and then they report the competition for selling fake items or they just completely demolished the item and send it back for a complete refund and leaving negative feedback saying that the item didn't work when they received it when in fact they destroyed it when they got it just so they can leave your negative feedback they destroyed my store on Amazon by doing this to me. And they've done it to others check out the badbuyerlist for Sosa games it'll blow your freaking mind
Oh please, nobody cares if there are any minor errors or not. It's about the content of the article.
Stop the grammar policing.
Agreed, Joe.
People are obnoxious! My mother taught me manners, clearly others did not get the same lessons. Articles, such as this, are important. I am getting increasingly, disturbed at the crap going on with Amazon and Walmart. Having fake reviews and deceiving product descriptions is one thing, but now they boldly lie about where the item is made. People need to be aware of the deceptions. Mosty people who shop on Amazon are weary, but there are people who shop Walmart and trust them. The ' pro sellers' are scammers and walmart protects them. There are people who trust walmart and not aware of the fraud and scamming. I always check the walmart retailer box, but somehow I have received the fake item from the scammers. We all need to be aware of all the fraud.
Please heed the warnings of the other messages. I started to sell video games on eBay and the first and last buyer I had was sosagames. Immediately after I sent the item to them my account was permanently suspended without reason. They must be doing this to take out competition and receive free inventory. Not sure why they're able to get away with this either, but I'm guessing the notoriety of their eBay account makes it easy to falsely report new eBay accounts. If you get an order from Daniel Foote from Indiana and your account is not yet established with feedback, cancel the order so you will at least keep your inventory before you're booted off the platform.