NEWS – A security researcher recently found evidence that several China retailers have been gaming their ratings on Amazon. They offered free products for good reviews and money for removing bad reviews. When Amazon caught wind of this, they started banning these sellers and their products from their online store. Big names like Aukey, Mpow, and Tomtop, along with others, have been implicated. You may recognize some of these vendors, as we’ve reviewed many of their products here on The Gadgeteer, including recent reviews of Mpow earbuds and an Aukey charger. I applaud Amazon for removing these vendors, and I hope they continue to do these sorts of things in the future.
In case you’re wondering how things work here at The Gadgeteer, vendors cannot pay us reviewers for better reviews nor are they allowed to see or approve the reviews before they are posted. (As disclosed, we are compensated in that we get to keep a sample of the gadget we review.) This frees us to write what we believe is an honest review of the product. Some reviews are happy with the gadgets; others not so much. Even though some vendors attempt to bully Julie into removing some reviews–I’ve personally seen this happen–Julie doesn’t budge an inch. If you want a better review, you gotta create a better gadget. Looks like our reviews are more honest than some of those found on Amazon.
UPDATE (17 June 2021) – Amazon has confirmed that they have also removed RavPower from their store. RavPower is another Chinese company from whom we’ve reviewed many gadgets, like this charger.
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I’m glad. I got a defective Aukey battery pack from Amazon, had to go through the 3rd party return process. I was informed by Aukey that they would only refund or replace my purchase if I made a 5 star review. I refused and turned the emails over to Amazon support, Amazon refunded me directly, I got the more expensive Anker battery pack instead. Worked out for me anyways, still have the Anker pack after 5+ years tho the down side is I will get pulled aside for detailed inspection 100% of the time when I bring it on a plane.
Yeah, I’ve read a lot of stories like yours lately.
I’ve been a fan of Aukey products in the past but now… wow. 🙁
I have several other of their products, cables, adaptors, chargers, honestly have had no issues with any of those. I only ran into the issue with the Battery pack. Defects happen, I wouldn’t have had a problem getting it replaced, it was the sleazy sales techniques that soured me. If they had replaced it without the attempted blackmail and I got a working one, I would have reviewed it honestly and not punished them for a single bad unit.
While a lot of the fake 512 GB and 1 TB SD cards seem to have been cleaned off the Amazon site, I find a few new brands with 1 TB cards for ridiculously low prices have popped up, with no reviews yet. The problem has not been solved, and I will avoid purchasing any electronics on Amazon when I can. These fake reviews (and companies specializing in providing then to crooked manufacturers) are common in China, it is called “brushing” the ratings.
The good news is that most vendors have their own online store, so if you want to make sure that you’re getting the real thing, you can purchase from there.
Nothing to do with Aukey, but a couple years ago I bought an alarm clock from Amazon and it was really bad and did not do what the ad claimed. I returned it and gave them a lousy review.
I then started getting e-mails from the seller offering me stuff and money to remove my review. They were persistent, too. I’d get an e-mail from them almost every day.
It’s almost impossible to report sellers like this on Amazon as the process is so convoluted and frustrating. I finally got to talk to somebody and they agreed this was a violation of their seller contract.
And nothing was done. The seller is still selling the same stuff. And Amazon removed my review.