Home » Latest » News » How Scammers in China Manipulate Amazon

How Scammers in China Manipulate Amazon

5

InfoSearched 114 0 News

6.5

SaveSavedRemoved 3

A hidden network of WeChat groups, cash bonuses, and hijacked listings is quietly rigging one of the most trusted “Buy Boxes” in retail.

A Wall Street Journal video investigation, “How Scammers in China Manipulate Amazon,” pulls back the curtain on the underground playbook cross-border Chinese merchants use to game Amazon’s ranking algorithms and seize the coveted Buy Box — the default purchase button that drives the overwhelming majority of a listing’s sales. The report traces how sellers coordinate off-platform, exploit review systems Amazon built to stop exactly this kind of fraud, and turn Amazon’s own suspension tools into weapons against rivals.

• Sellers organize in closed WeChat and Facebook groups to arrange reimbursed purchases with cash bonuses attached, generating artificial “Verified Purchase” five-star reviews that slip past Amazon’s detection systems.
• Fraudsters practice “review hijacking” and ASIN manipulation — taking over dormant listings or merging unrelated product variations so a low-quality item inherits a stockpile of preexisting five-star ratings.
• Automated fraud tools are turned against competitors, with fabricated negative reviews and bogus complaints filed specifically to trigger Amazon suspensions on rival storefronts.

The WeChat Underground

The scheme doesn’t run on Amazon’s servers — it runs on WeChat. According to the WSJ investigation, sellers recruit buyers into closed group chats where they’re instructed to purchase a specific product, submit proof of the transaction, and post a five-star review. In exchange, the seller reimburses the full purchase price off-platform and tacks on a cash bonus, all handled through private messaging and local Chinese banking networks that never touch Amazon’s fraud-detection radar.

Because the buyer actually completes the transaction, the review lands with Amazon’s “Verified Purchase” badge — the exact label Amazon introduced to reassure shoppers that feedback comes from real customers. That’s the loophole: Amazon’s system is built to flag incentivized reviews, but it has no visibility into a WeChat conversation where the incentive is negotiated.

Hijacking Listings and Merging ASINs

A second tactic documented in the investigation involves seizing dormant or abandoned listings and merging unrelated product variations under a single ASIN — Amazon’s unique identifier for each item. Doing so lets a seller’s new, unproven product inherit years of accumulated five-star ratings from a completely different item, instantly making a low-quality product look like a bestseller with a long track record.

Legal experts such as C.J. Rosenbaum of Rosenbaum Famularo note a sharp increase in vendor suspensions tied to this kind of manipulation.

Rosenbaum’s firm represents sellers fighting suspensions, and the spike he describes cuts both ways — legitimate merchants get caught in Amazon’s crackdowns just as often as the scammers those crackdowns are meant to catch.

Weaponizing Amazon’s Own Enforcement

Perhaps the most striking tactic the investigation surfaces isn’t about boosting your own listing — it’s about sabotaging someone else’s. Fraud rings file fabricated negative reviews and bogus intellectual-property or safety complaints against competing sellers, deliberately triggering Amazon’s automated suspension systems. A rival account can be frozen or terminated within days, sometimes with little recourse, while the fraudster’s own listing climbs into the vacated ranking spot.

Amazon’s enforcement teams face a structural problem here: disposable storefront identities let bad actors abandon a flagged account and open a new one almost immediately, localized Chinese banking networks make the money trail hard to follow, and the coordination itself happens in private chat channels entirely outside Amazon’s platform and jurisdiction.

Detection Methods Continue Falling Short

Amazon has rolled out verification badges, algorithmic review filters, and stricter seller-registration requirements, but the WSJ investigation shows why each defense keeps getting outflanked. The fraud isn’t happening inside Amazon’s system where its algorithms can watch it — it’s happening in WeChat groups, bank transfers, and merged product codes, all one step removed from anything Amazon can directly monitor or subpoena.

That gap between where the fraud is organized and where Amazon’s enforcement actually reaches is the through-line of the entire report: platform-level fixes can only catch platform-level behavior, and this scheme was built specifically to stay off the platform until the fake five-star review is ready to post.