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Businesses Technology

The 'Brushing' Scam That's Behind Mystery Parcels (bbc.com) 142

If you've ever received a parcel from a shopping platform that you didn't order, and nobody you know seems to have bought it for you, you might have been caught up in a "brushing" scam. From a report: It has hit the headlines after thousands of Americans received unsolicited packets of seeds in the mail, but it is not new. It's an illicit way for sellers to get reviews for their products. And it doesn't mean your account has been hacked. Here's an example of how it works: let's say I set myself up as a seller on Amazon, for my product, Kleinman Candles, which cost $3 each. I then set up a load of fake accounts, and I find random names and addresses either from publicly available information or from a leaked database that's doing the rounds from a previous data breach. I order Kleinman Candles from my fake accounts and have them delivered to the addresses I have found, with no information about where they have been sent from. I then leave positive reviews for Kleinman Candles from each fake account -- which has genuinely made a purchase.

This way my candle shop page gets filled with glowing reviews (sorry), my sales figures give me an algorithmic popularity boost as a credible merchant -- and nobody knows that the only person buying and reviewing my candles is myself. It tends to happen with low-cost products, including cheap electronics. It's more a case of fake marketing than cyber-crime, but "brushing" and fake reviews are against Amazon's policies. Campaign group Which? advises that you inform the platform they are sent by of any unsolicited goods.

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The 'Brushing' Scam That's Behind Mystery Parcels

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  • Help Amazon? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Monday September 07, 2020 @08:05PM (#60483352)
    So, if I get some random package from somebody working for/with Amazon, I'm supposed to go out of my way to help Amazon police their own platform, because they're unwilling to spend the money to do it themselves?
    • Amazon is filled with fake reviews and I doubt they can counter this scam any way other than shooting down individual listings opportunistically.
      Just accept the "gift" and move on.
      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Yeah, nahh. Throw it away, why take a chance, they are already scamming people, how safe could the product be, the bin is the only place for it and Amazon is a shite review platform and every should know that by now, they want to protect high review scores because it promotes more sales, they have the morals of, well none at all, they will break any law they can, as long as the profits are higher than the penalties, they are a very economically destructive corporation and parasite upon the economy returning

        • If you are in the UK, you should report it to the Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
          https://planthealthportal.defr... [defra.gov.uk]

          They will give you instructions on how to dispose of them. You should not put them out in regular rubbish.

      • They could easily solve the fake review problem with a "reviewer reputation" (probably an internal metric, rather than one to show users). For example, a new account with no purchases has a reputation of zero. Someone with years of purchases gets a higher reputation. Reviews marked "useful" get higher reputation, answering questions maybe gets you some too (especially if your answer is marked "useful", and not "sorry, not tried using it yet"). Spammy activity that gets reported penalises you harder than goo

        • This is the algorithm we need for all social media: a trust metric that each user can fine tune. Building their own "web of trust" based on their own criteria.

          Of course, given the death of P2P systems like Usenet in favor of the walled gardens, we aren't likely to see any such thing emerge. The first thing most of us would filter from places like Twitter would be ads. And Amazon? Why would they care? They've largely figured out how to put all the real pain on their employees/contractors/drivers, the small

        • by spitzak ( 4019 )

          That's exactly what they were doing. The fact that the person actually bought the item was considered a good point toward "reviewer reputation". I suspect *any* scheme you can dream up can be hacked, just like this was.

          • by mysidia ( 191772 )

            The fact that the person actually bought the item was considered a good point toward "reviewer reputation".

            I guess the question then would be is.. How were scammers able to come up with a unique payment method for each faked account?

            Clearly they are not applying for fake credit cards in the fake accounts' name, otherwise this would not be a mere "review" scam, and I think Amazon would probably notice 100+ people suddenly using gift certificates disproportionately on a certain item; furthermore,

      • I normally filter out all the 5 and 1 star reviews. And only read the 2-4 star reviews.
        5 Star are either from the company (with the same old marketing garble)
        1 Star are just from haters.

        Even with the honest reviews, I have found their ranking is based on what their expectation would be. The cheap trinket is made for plastic, where you were expecting metal (which may cost twice as much) or that service where you expected a luxury treatment, where you had a bunch or crude guys cursing up a storm while comp

      • Amazon is full of fake everything. Fake reviews. Counterfeit brand products. Fraudulent quackery - I keep getting suggestions on there for 'EMF shield' tokens, pendants and sprays to protect against the cancer rays from my phone.

    • Re:Help Amazon? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dirk ( 87083 ) <dirk@one.net> on Monday September 07, 2020 @09:26PM (#60483448) Homepage

      As with all things, if no one tells them there is a problem, how do you expect them to fix it? Without someone reporting this, I have no idea how Amazon would even know it was going on.

      • Re:Help Amazon? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Monday September 07, 2020 @10:09PM (#60483502)
        ... and how is that my problem, if I'm the recipient of a package? I'd consider doing it if they paid me to, but I'm not generally in the habit of helping out giant multi-billion dollar international corporations for free.
        • Re:Help Amazon? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @04:56AM (#60483954)

          ... and how is that my problem, if I'm the recipient of a package? I'd consider doing it if they paid me to, but I'm not generally in the habit of helping out giant multi-billion dollar international corporations for free.

          You are not helping a giant corporation. You are helping people who might be misled by huge amounts of fake positive reviews for shitty products.

          • Re:Help Amazon? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by N1AK ( 864906 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @05:31AM (#60483998) Homepage
            You are helping a giant corporation, you are voluntarily and without compensation attempting to improve the quality of Amazon's service when they clearly could improve it themselves and are already a dominant online shopping company. Ccould I send you a couple of stores I use which would really benefit from having more extensive and accurate product information; by your logic it's reasonable to expect you to use your own time to improve the quality of their sites so that I can get a better shopping experience... because god forbid that they are expected to do it themselves or that I shop somewhere else that offers better service.
            • by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
              Yeah it would be much better if you need to send Amazon proof of residence whenever you want to submit a review! /s
              • Re:Help Amazon? (Score:4, Insightful)

                by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @09:36AM (#60484522)

                Why the sarcasm? That actually sounds like an excellent idea.

                • by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
                  Pretty sure people would complain about the the hassle and privacy violation?
                  • Privacy? Amazon already knows the address they're shipping to. They just need confirmation that the address of the guy ordering it is the same address. As far as hassle--it's Amazon problem, and it's up to them to deal with hassle of solving it.

                    • by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

                      Privacy? Amazon already knows the address they're shipping to. They just need confirmation that the address of the guy ordering it is the same address.

                      yes, how would that be done exactly? Also, how would it work for gifts when the shipping address isn't the purchaser by design?

                    • by nazrhyn ( 906126 )
                      Buying a product as a gift (or in any other way to an address you have not verified) would not be a "verified purchase".
          • But most of all, by helping amazon to fix things, we would take away one of his reasons to complain about the things that don't work at amazon.

        • by jythie ( 914043 )
          On the other hand, someone has stolen your name and address and is using it for their own enrichment, including associating your name with the purchase of products you might not want to be associated with. If you complain to amazon they can erase the account pretending to be you.
      • by nagora ( 177841 )

        As with all things, if no one tells them there is a problem, how do you expect them to fix it?

        Why do I want them to fix it? What's the downside for me?

        • "What's the downside for me?"

          You buy a crappy product (for which you pay a premium) based on fake reviews.

          • by nagora ( 177841 )

            "What's the downside for me?"

            You buy a crappy product (for which you pay a premium) based on fake reviews.

            I don't buy from Amazon and I don't use reviews from anonymous people to guide my buying anywhere. If stuff shows up here it's a gift. Probably an unwanted gift, but still.

    • I am not the one getting Scammed. I am just getting free crap. I remember back in the old days, we would get free samples in the mail. Soap, Foods, or some sort of trinket. Why would I think that little packet of seeds or a candle would be anything but a free sample.
      I get a product, my accounts are not under any threats.
      If it were an expensive item say over $20 I may return it, because I figured it was for someone else, and they got their order wrong, and I wouldn't want them to go threw the hassle of try

      • If it's from an Amazon labeled box (fulfilled by Amazon) you don't need to return it. Amazon will reimburse both the buyer and seller in the case of incorrect delivery.

    • Jeff Amazon is too busy to write all the reviews himself, but he does try all the products personally.
    • But this doesn't even make sense. I set up thousands of fake accounts to order this item... then I am actually stupid enough to spend the money to physically ship them to these addresses and fake accounts? Shipping for them is cheap, but not free. They are coming from China, not from Amazon, so this is obviously not a "fulfulled by Amazon" scheme. So why ship anything? All it can do is tip off the scheme.

      Brushing doesn't make sense. There is something else at work here.

    • So, if I get some random package from somebody working for/with Amazon, I'm supposed to go out of my way to help Amazon police their own platform, because they're unwilling to spend the money to do it themselves?

      Exactly. That's spot-on what you're supposed to do. For them.

  • Happened to me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by beepsky ( 6008348 ) on Monday September 07, 2020 @08:16PM (#60483364)
    I once received a mystery package from China containing some kind of plastic nose shaping tool.
    For the life of me I couldn't figure out how it was supposed to be used or work or why it was sent to me.
    I'm glad to have a little closure on that now, thanks.
    • I've gotten a bunch of stuff. I report each one when i can track down which site it was from (usually a seller on Amazon). I got some silicon feet for furniture, a shower head, a relaxation noise machine, box of screws, etc.

      • Re: Happened to me (Score:4, Informative)

        by Aighearach ( 97333 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @12:34AM (#60483678)

        When they send it to me, I take it back to the post office and refuse it. They get charged for the return postage. Most foreign countries, that costs way more than delivery, because delivery is subsidized.

        • UPS dropped two of those packages off, they just throw them in my drive way. They're office is such a pain in the ass to deal with that I threw them in the trash instead.

          For USPS I unfortunately opened one of the packages because it was addressed to me and I was expecting a package at roughly the same time. I briefly through my order was wrong, but after digging up the tracking numbers for my order I realized I had no record of the tracking number on this shipment.

          If I through the shipping label addresses w

          • by fox171171 ( 1425329 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @05:06AM (#60483972)

            If I through the shipping label addresses were legitimate I would fill the box with all the bubblewrap I get and pay to ship it over. Let them figure it out what they got an empty box after pulling through a bunch of bubble wrap looking for the contents. Probably not a productive use of my time ...

            A brick would cost them more.

          • If you simply tape it shut and deny having opened it, you can still take it back to the post office and "refuse delivery." The sender pays any fee. There is no fee from the US side, but their national mail service will charge them the same rate that you you have to pay to send something there. And that is usually over 10x what they pay to send it to you in the first place.

            • Sweet! This should work for me. Some of the junk I got came through ChinaPost and thus USPS.

              On the UPS/FedEx/DHL side I've started the policy of not opening the package and I search my email history for the tracking number. Hopefully I don't miss any ancient crowd funding things, I had an indiegogo that shipped 2 years after it was funded. Great product and I still use it, but it was a loooong wait.

  • My moms credit card was used to open an amazon account, which then purchased a bunch of Chinese made junk and shipped it to her. We suspect that this stuff was ordered for a similar purpose. Amazon wouldnâ(TM)t take any of it back since we canâ(TM)t identify the account it was Ordered under, and Amex rejected the claim since it was delivered to the proper address.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      and Amex rejected the claim since it was delivered to the proper address.

      I'm sorry to hear your mother was bit due to Amex still operating under terms and conditions from the dark ages.

      If she has any means to change credit card providers, her or you should check over Visa/Mastercard terms from banks that are options.
      All three banks I've had Visa cards through in the last decade state "any unknown or unrecognized charges" as valid reasons for a dispute.

      Even the mighty Amazon is on board with this enough to continue accepting visa/mastercard.
      You file the dispute with the bank, the

    • I find it odd that AmEx would refuse. I've never had an AmEx card, but the Visas and MasteCards usually accept my disputes without hesitation. Granted, I do not abuse the privilege, but I just disputed something last week. They did ask why, but they accepted my reason and I probably could have told them anything.

      I had tried to buy something from a minor retailer - one I had never heard of before, but seemed legit. And small businesses wonder why consumers go back to the big boys like Walmart, Target or

      • When my credit union sees anything even remotely fishy I get an automated call within about 5-10 minutes. It's really quite astounding. The charges don't ever make it onto my card.

        9am my time: Did you just order $35 worth of McDonalds outside of Moscow? Um, no, I did not.

        9pm my time: 5 minutes ago, did you just buy gift cards from a business in another country that you've never done business with and send them to someone? Actually, yes, yes I did!

        I've never had to dispute anything with my credit union. I'm

      • by AvitarX ( 172628 )
        Amex is in general the most pro card holder card in disputes too.

        My friend manages a hotel and doesn't even try to defend a dispute against amex (there's a lot of fraudulent hotel stays).
  • by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Monday September 07, 2020 @08:27PM (#60483378) Homepage

    This seems like such a dumb, obvious weakness in rating algorithms. Why don't buyer accounts only count for increasing seller reputation once they have spent some amount of money from "probably good" sellers?

    Suppose you have a seller credibility score. It can be initialized based on staffer review (with a per-staff contribution limit if you are worried that your staff will be bribed), or based on total sales, or some other algorithm. Buyers similarly have a credibility score, based on total purchases or diversity of purchases or whatever else. The credibility of a buyer or seller goes up based on transaction value times the counterpart's credibility, with some maximum determined globally and by the buyer's and seller's credibilities, and very much limited for each counterpart.

    E-commerce sites with literally billions of transactions seem like good candidates to provide enough data to tune the credibility tuning algorithms. This is a lot like web searching algorithms, except that buyers and sellers are effectively bipartite cliques, and so the problem is easier than the general page-rank problem.

    • Because good reviews encourage purchasing? I'm sure if the scam was fake purchases and then leaving bad reviews for competitors, Amazon would figure out a way to stop it. What's the typical purchase to review ratio for a normal account? One of these fake accounts? What's the typical review ratio distribution for a real product's reviewers? This isn't a hard problem is there was a will to solve it
    • Why would Amazon want to cut down on people using their platform to sell stuff, if they get a cut of every sale?

      They have a very vested interest in there being as much commerce on their platform as possible. As long as the fraud isn't driving away more people than it's increasing sales, it makes financial sense to look the other way.

      And I can't imagine that people are boycotting Amazon because someone in China sent them $0.50 worth of seeds or plastic crap for free.

      • by Entrope ( 68843 )

        Amazon has a strong interest in making ratings work well because a reliable rating system encourages people to buy more kinds of stuff from Amazon, not just the things they already know.

        The risk to Amazon is not that random people are sending stuff to Amazon customers for free, although that could be (and has been, in a few cases that made the news) disturbing to the targets. The risk is that customers ignore the reviews, this makes it harder to find a good product, Amazon ends up handling more returns, an

    • IIRC, Amazon currently limits review posts to those who have spent at least $50. That may need to be increased.

  • by Bobrick ( 5220289 ) on Monday September 07, 2020 @08:32PM (#60483386)
    Hello, there's a couple things I'd like you to send my way, you can give 'em 5 star reviews if you wish. Who do I contact to get in on this?
    • I can't speak for random crap, but you can find offers on Craigslist to get free copies of self-published novels in exchange for 5-star reviews. Some of them will even pay you a few bucks on top of that.
  • The actual news story is unclear, but it seems like they're saying that someone can set up an account with my name and physical address, but a different email -- I think the email is the real Amazon identifier -- and their own credit card, so the packages have a place to go, but no other harm is done to the real customer with that name and address. Do I have that right? And if so, should Amazon be verifying that kind of thing, or is it legit to have more than one account for a name/address?

    • by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @05:01AM (#60483966)
      Yes, I can take the phonebook, and set up accounts for every name / address in the phone book, but with my email / credit card, send some cheap tat to them which is lost money, and then I can leave a positive review as a "genuine" buyer. Nothing you can do about that.

      More than one account seems legit, but then of 1,000 people in the phone book, enough won't have an account, so Amazon can't really block that.
      • Yes, I can take the phonebook, and set up accounts for every name / address in the phone book

        Do those still exist? I haven't seen one in about 10 years.

        • by imidan ( 559239 )

          I get three or four different phone books left on my doorstep every year. They go straight into the recycling bin. For some reason, the phone book producers' first amendment rights to publish their wasteful garbage outweighs my right to not have wasteful garbage dumped at my house. We could start a protest movement. Gather up all the unwanted phone books dumped on people's doorsteps in the area, load them up into a dump truck, and return them to the front door of the publisher's offices. Unfortunately, when

    • by Kreela ( 1770584 )
      Lots of households have multiple adults living in them, and sometimes those adults share the same name. Very rarely this will be namesakes, but more often when children are given the same name as a parent. So it's possible - but Amazon should verify this somehow. This seems to be a reaction though to Amazon's move to insist reviews are written by accounts that have spent at least a certain amount each year. So it's an arms race - the next step will be packages sent to people with slightly different names,
  • This seems like an easy scam to detect. Just average the number of reviews that is associated with each reviewer of the product in question. If the reviewer accounts are all new, the average reviews count is going to be pretty low. If each new account only left one review, for the "brushed" product, the reviews per reviewer count is going to be "1", which is a huge red flag.

    Even a number less than 10 would seem shady to me. No product should have reviews that are left by nearly all new accounts.

    • An alternative would be to shadowban any account whose IP does not match their region until proof of address is provided.

    • by DrXym ( 126579 )
      I bet these scammers are so dumb that the typical modus is 1) sign up for new Amazon account, 2) Directly paste link to product / store they're boosting, 3) Order & pay for item with Visa gift card, 4) Post fake review as soon as packet is delivered. Rinse and repeat,. Probably from the same IP or domain block. Probably with the same browser metadata and cookie profile. There are enough clues and traps Amazon that it should be simple to flag the majority and swat them like flies. They could even cross r
  • Is there someplace I can post my address so the scammers will use it and send me free stuff too? I mean sure it's probably going to be junk but it sounds like fun to receive mystery packages with various consumer goods in them.

    • Someone I know received "snail extract skin care product" in such a package.

      They're still getting hospital treatments after a single use two years ago.

      Yep, it is a lot of fun.

      • I'd love to get some snail extract. I wouldn't use it but it would be super funny.

        I think knowing you are going to get crazy (and potentially dangerous) products kinda changes the equation. I wasn't suggesting it would be fun to get them if you weren't aware of what was happening.

  • Unless amazon is fulfilling the order, why not just accept the order and tell Amazon it shipped - its not as if anyone is going to complain that they didn't receive the stuff they ordered.
    • by mark-t ( 151149 )

      Two words:

      Tracking info.

      Sellers may be required by Amazon have to provide tracking when they ship.

      • Do these parcels sent from China by regular mail for next to nothing ("free shipping, delivered in 4-6 weeks") actually have tracking information?

        • by Tx ( 96709 )

          Some certainly do, just checking my recent orders, there is one for $4.34, free postage from China, with tracking.

  • by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <voyager529@yahoo. c o m> on Monday September 07, 2020 @10:10PM (#60483504)

    This past week, I got a mask in the mail, and no one I knew ordered it for me.

    That one was a bit amusing, but the one that really made me scratch my head was about three months ago when I got a package of infant formula from Amazon. Being as I have no children, it was rather perplexing as to how it arrived.

    Now I know that someone spent $55 to be able to make their own review.

  • Box comes from Amazon. In it are an inexpensive cordless shaver and shaving cream. We use blades here...no one ordered it. My name and address. Not on my CC...not on my Amazon account-I try to avoid using Amazon at all costs because labor issues, no recent purchases. Now I gotta check the product to see if "I" left a review. My first name could be male or female so we'll see.
    • I try to avoid using Amazon at all costs because labor issues

      Lol, you sound like my sister. She thinks the same way about Walmart.
      Whenever I get the chance I always recommend she get things from Walmart, or I'll say that I was just at Walmart today and it was awesome or something.

      What I really find funny is that all the alternative stores she does shop at treat and pay the employees about the same or worse.

      • by j-beda ( 85386 )

        What I really find funny is that all the alternative stores she does shop at treat and pay the employees about the same or worse.

        Well, if you stick with locally owned places, at least the owner is probably spending most of their profits (or at least some) in the local economy, even if they are also screwing over their workers, rather than sending those profits outside of the local region to the out-of-state shareholders.

  • Product reviews on Amazon are usually worthless anyway (and sellers reviews often ain't much better), random people get free shit, and the scammer has to spend money on his scam. What's not to love?

  • That explains it! (Score:5, Informative)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Monday September 07, 2020 @11:57PM (#60483620) Homepage

    I received a sheet of teflon (which made for some fun science experiments at home actually, I might order more LOL!) and some random plumbing parts. Both came from China, and I tried to report them to Amazon since there was a seller number on there but I couldn't find the form for "received something I didn't order, and I have no order number to give you." So Amazon doesn't seem to have a way to report this.

    • Same here, they sent some solar-powered LED motion sensor light fixtures to my address (which are actually kind of useful) and some kind of off-brand skin-care product.

      We tried to report it to Amazon, and there is indeed no way to do that. Amazon doesn't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut, it's all good as far as they're concerned.

  • Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @02:43AM (#60483804)
    It was fairly obvious what was going on when this story appeared in the media because it was nothing new. People have been getting unsolicited low value crap from China for years as part of a ratings scam. Seeds were no different except the media (and part of the US government) collectively freaked out thinking they were uncovering a plot to cover the US in super weeds.

    Anyway, it should be easy for large vendors to stamp on the practice. Someone like Amazon probably already has half of these names & addresses registered on other acounts. It should be trivial to flag & suspend merchants with a effusive reviews from new accounts that duplicate details of other accounts. Other tell-tale signs would be IP addresses, missing information like phone numbers, site browsing history of new customers, credit card country mismatches, mangled Engrish, generic reviews, timestamp clues (e.g. reviews appearing in succession) etc. And making it easier for people receiving packets to report them would help too. And aside from all that reviews from new customers that were not fulfilled by Amazon should be more stringently vetted, perhaps with 2FA for new customers.

    Whether other sellers do the same is up to them but I bet they could all do far more than they're doing.

  • by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @06:25AM (#60484056)
    This happened to me and in a fairly short period I got a REALLY nice like $35 electric double arc lighter for lighting cigarettes in a hurricane apparently. I also got some pretty low quality earbuds. I would have rated the lighter a 5 anyway though lol. I forgot what the third shipment was. By the way, that example is NOT how it is done at all. You don't set up an account in someone else's name, you set it up in your own name and send shipments to various addresses that aren't yours "as a gift." I had Amazon support look into it and they said it was sent from another account to my address as a gift.
  • There was a brushing scam, and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt :-(

  • Happened to me. I got a package from Amazon with a pair of bluetooth earbuds, some tea candles, about 10 iPhone charging cables (I don't have an iPhone), and some other crap. I actually started using the bluetooth earbuds occasionally (mostly for podcasts around the house, and I may only put in one of them so I can still hear other things), and they work surprisingly well. No nicer features like ANC and such, but they stay in, get long battery life (I haven't worn them out yet), and sound good enough. I tri

  • Rats! I was hoping because these were seeds, it was some green goo doomsday scenario from an Evil Genius.

    • It could be an evil plan. I can see reasons for someone to anonymously ship out as many cannabis plant seeds as they can produce to random addresses. It would waste a lot of law enforcement time dealing with all the plants discovered in people's gardens who didn't know what they were planting, and provide some level of plausible deniability to any intentional home-growers. It'd give people a source of pot without depending on a dealer - though low grade, without the skill to cultivate it properly. And most

  • ... a nice Chinese SKS and a thousand rounds of 7.62x39mm. Where do I submit a good review?

  • Don't you have to register a credit card number with an account to make a purchase? How is this defrauded?
  • If they don't do it as 'fulfilled by Amazon', then surely they can refrain from sending out the product (incurring cost) but still leave a review?
  • by Radical Moderate ( 563286 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @01:10PM (#60485178)
    Seller sells a bunch of cheap, generic stuff to accumulate good ratings, then lists expensive goods at unbelievable prices...and disappears after the orders, and payments, come in. If a deal seems too good to be true..
  • Lenz is already taken, so yeah....

    Anyway, the Lens Law for clear viewing of truth in reviews is the 60/15/25 rule.

    It's a simple 'if', should you want to automate a sifter program.

    If 5-star < 60% and 1-star > 15% and 2-4star <=> 25%, it's possible it's truthful.

    If 5-star > 60% and 1-star <=15% and 2-4star is weighted high toward 25%, it's a lie.

    If 5-star is weighted low or < 60% and 1-star weighted low or > 15% and 2-4star is weighted low toward 25%, it's truthful.

    If 5-star is weighte

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