A Supplement Company 'Hijacked' Its Amazon Reviews to Boost Sales, According to the FTC

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The Bountiful Company used established product pages with high ratings to launch new products, in a move the FTC says amounts to false advertising.

“Boosting your products by hijacking another product’s ratings or reviews is a relatively new tactic, but is still plain old false advertising,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Consumer Protection Bureau, in the same press statement.

Yet in Bountiful’s case, the company went beyond those allowed variations and successfully petitioned Amazon to group together supplements containing different active ingredients and formulations, the FTC claims. By taking the Amazon listing for an older, well-loved product with high reviews, or even a “#1 Best Seller” badge and then inaccurately listing newer items as variants on that product, the lesser known items benefit from the established reviews, ratings, and Amazon badges.

 

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Bountiful just had the bad fortune to get caught and pay for its deed. The quote from Amazon is a total joke.

they’re just one of thousands doing this.. amazon could care less because higher ratings mean shoppers will be more likely to make purchases on their platform. is a necessity for amazon shopping.

Seems like minor edits on an Amazon page should be ok. But full out product swaps are shady and should definitely be banned by amazon. I’ve noticed that issue for a few years.

Nestle this you!

This is literally every product on Amazon

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FTC Alleges Supplement Company ‘Hijacked’ Amazon Reviews to Boost SalesNutritional supplement company Bountiful Co. will pay $600,000 as part of an FTC case related to alleged “review hijacking” on Amazon February 22, 2023 - Russia suspends the New START nuclear treaty, which is the only nuclear treaty in effect between the US and Russia, saying that the U.S. is 'weakening' the security of the Russian Federation. I feel like all these companies be doing this with the reviews of products FDA needs to thoroughly review and test their products...pure crap! Potency is completely made up hog wash 🧼
Source: WSJ - 🏆 98. / 63 Read more »