Amazon Says It is Investigating Claims That Its Employees Are Taking Bribes To Sell Internal Data To Merchants To Help Them Increase Their Sales on the Website (wsj.com)

Amazon.com is investigating internal leaks as it fights to root out fake reviews and other seller scams from its website, the company told WSJ. From the report: Employees of Amazon, primarily with the aid of intermediaries, are offering internal data and other confidential information that can give an edge to independent merchants selling their products on the site, according to sellers who have been offered and purchased the data, brokers who provide it and people familiar with internal investigations. The practice, which violates company policy, is particularly pronounced in China, according to some of these people, because the number of sellers there is skyrocketing. As well, Amazon employees in China have relatively small salaries, which may embolden them to take risks. In exchange for payments ranging from roughly $80 to more than $2,000, brokers for Amazon employees in Shenzhen are offering internal sales metrics and reviewers' email addresses, as well as a service to delete negative reviews and restore banned Amazon accounts, the people said.

Amazon is investigating a number of cases involving employees, including some in the U.S., suspected of accepting these bribes, according to people familiar with the matter. An internal probe began in May after Eric Broussard, Amazon's vice president who oversees international marketplaces, was tipped off to the practice in China, according to people familiar with the matter. Amazon has since shuffled the roles of key executives in China to try to root out the bribery, one of these people said.

Comments

Typical

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This is precisely the sort of thing that workers do in China. It's funny, as I read the summary I thought "Chinese culture is spreading to America?" only to find out it was indeed in China. Yeah, the workers are paid shit and view it as their obligation to make money however they can. Men in particular are viewed as pack mules whose job it is to make money for an entire family. The family ruthlessly badgers the man to make more, make more, make more. When he makes more, they spend more. It never ends.

When he can't make enough in salary, they badger him to - not exactly steal? But use whatever position he has to utilize the employer's resources to make money for his family. Selling data is right up this alley. You can't even call it theft because nobody lost anything. It's win-win: the merchants sell more, the worker makes money he turns over to his family, the family can afford to purchase status symbols that make them look good in the eyes of people they know. This is actually a "good" case because nobody got hurt. Typically in a situation like this some middle manager substitutes shoddy materials in a product and pockets the difference, which can and does result in harm to real people.