Rogue Amazon employees peddling bad review removals on social media: Report

San Francisco, Aug 2 (IANS) Some rogue Amazon employees are reportedly helping third-party sellers by removing bad reviews on their products on the e-commerce platform via secret groups on Telegram, WhatsApp and Facebook.

One such group on Telegram has over 13,000 members that is allowing sellers to pay an Amazon insider to recover their accounts, get information on a competitor, and even remove negative reviews on a product, reports CNBC.

“For a fee of $200 to $400, sellers can pay for services such as ‘Amazon Magic,’ as one broker on encrypted messaging service Telegram calls it,” according to the report.

The offerings include access to company insiders who can remove negative reviews on a product and provide information on competitors.

“Users are told to send a private message to learn the price of certain services,” the report noted.

The brokers act as middlemen between sellers and Amazon employees, who leak the data in exchange for money.

“Much more you can find about your account by ordering screenshots with inside information from us, as seller support sees it,” read a message in a Telegram group.

Helping third-party sellers recover their accounts has turned into a large and lucrative enterprise worldwide. Not just Telegram, other brokers peddle similar services on Telegram as well as on WeChat, WhatsApp and Facebook groups.

“The confidential data is promoted as intelligence gold for any seller working to get their product or account reinstated,” the report claimed.

The issue of rogue employees taking bribes is not new for Amazon.

“The company has in the past dealt with low-level, low-wage seller support staffers in China, India and Costa Rica who have accepted payments in exchange for leaking information,” said the report.

The e-commerce giant said in a statement that there is no place for fraud at Amazon and “we will continue to pursue all measures to protect our store and hold bad actors accountable”.

This kind of dealing, however, is not new and a 2018 report from The Wall Street Journal had claimed that some Amazon employees accepted bribes to get access to internal sales data.

More recently, the US Department of Justice charged six individuals in 2020 with participating in a scheme to bribe employees and contractors for internal data.

Amazon had said that it uncovered the suspicious behaviour related to the bribery case in 2018 and reported it to the FBI.