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Belkin's Amazon Rep Paying For Fake Online Reviews

Posted by Soulskill on from the fake-them-yourself-like-everybody-else dept.

remove office writes "I recently discovered that Belkin's lead online sales rep, Michael Bayard, has been secretly paying internet users to review his company's products favorably on Amazon.com and other websites like Newegg, whether or not they've ever used the devices. Bayard instructed the people he was paying to 'Write as if you own the product and are using it... Mark any other negative reviews as "not helpful" once you post yours.' Ironically, he was using Amazon's own Mechanical Turk service to hire his fraudsters. Did he honestly think he wouldn't get caught? Are Slashdotters aware of other examples of other such blatant astroturfing on behalf of a large tech company like Belkin?"

9 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. Belkin are dodgy by 1s44c · · Score: 5, Informative

    Belkin have a history of dodgy behavior and should be avoided where possible. Their last trick was hijacking something like 1 in every thousand http connections and directing them to an advertising site.

    http://news.cnet.com/2100-1039_3-5104863.html

    This company should be avoided where possible.

    1. Re:Belkin are dodgy by codegen · · Score: 4, Informative

      The post(by ls44c) and the article are describing different incidents. The post is describing an incident from 2003 involving Belkin routers. The article is describing a recent incident involving astro turfing.

      I believe that the point of the post is that the incident in the article is little more than a pattern of behaviour from a company that continues to break trust with users and is stupid enough to get caught.

      --
      Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
    2. Re:Belkin are dodgy by Chordonblue · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes, that is REALLY annoying, but Belkin are not the only ones who play this game.

      Linksys and Netgear, for instance, had many versions of each of their USB wireless. Many of them share the same. exact. model number, but have COMPLETELY different drivers due to versioning and other VID/PID games. I wish these guys would just append the goddamn number and make it easier for people.

      Oh, and I've found Belkins support site to be slow on occasion as well. Nothing like needing a driver yesterday and watching a 40+ MB file come in at 10 Kbps. :P

      --
      "...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
  2. MS laptops to bloggers? by dotancohen · · Score: 5, Informative

    Microsoft gave some nice Ferrari laptops to some bloggers recently. It's easy to figure out to whom: just google favorable Vista reviews.
    http://what-is-what.com/what_is/vista.html

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  3. They were already 100% evil in my book anyway by jridley · · Score: 4, Informative

    After their fiasco a few years ago where they decided that it was acceptable to program their home routers to occasionally redirect web requests to their own page to sell people things, they hit my "certified 100% evil" list.

    There's no getting off that list. I don't care if they start sending me flowers and candy. Nothing they can do will make me consider giving them a dime again. I don't even buy cables from them; last year I ordered a cable online and waited a week for it rather than buy one locally, because the local place only had Belkin cables in that type.

  4. Obvious bias by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not much different than the Linux zealot who hasn't touched a Windows machine since 1997

    Gee, from looking at your chain of posts it seems you have a certain bias yourself. Have you EVER used a Linux system, or are you in fact the very uninformed Hater you dismiss so readily?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  5. Re:Does this come as a surprise? by Nerdfest · · Score: 3, Informative

    Wasn't Sony caught several time doing this sort of thing? I also seem to remember one incident with their movie division where they actually just made up reviews under fake names and newspapers .. you know, cut out the middle man. I believe some non-trivial fines were levied when they were caught.

  6. Re:DIdn't buy it? Then you can't review it. by Immostlyharmless · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm not sure how it is on other sites, but on newegg.com it allows anyone to review a product, but it will also say right before any review if the reviewer has purchased the item from newegg.com or not.

    I personally wish there was a way to filter out those who had not purchased the item at newegg. That being said, at least being notified that the person didn't purchase the product from that site alerts you to the fact that the reviewer just may possible be full of crap...

  7. I would like to congratulate Belkins by topham · · Score: 3, Informative

    They've made it onto my shit-list. They are specifically a company whos products I will avoid, and will avoid recommending in any instance where there is a reasonable alternative. And, due to their product lines, there are always alternatives.

    If the company has any brains they will prosecute the manager criminally, or fire HIS boss who put him up to it.