Unsolicited seeds from China

[SBH]

People across the country are receiving unsolicited seeds from China. If you receive any here in Hawaii do not open, throw away or plant the seeds. Call the USDA in Hawaii. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/27-...s-n1235094

[randomq]

So throw away or plant, but do not open?

- Oxford comma mafia

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

After you’ve opened and examined your unsolicited seeds, then did one thing or another with them, as part of your clean up and disinfectant routine do not use any of the following hand sanitizers considered dangerous by the FDA:

FDA Hand Sanitizer Warning

[Seeb-2]

Has anyone figured out what this seeds are.
The Soviets had a whole anti agricultural bio warfare program.

[terracore]

This is Amazon review manipulation: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...users.html

1) Seller needs 5-star reviews.

2) Seller sets up shill buyer account(s).

3) Seller/buyer uses list of Amazon customers.

4) Seller buys own products and ships to #3 through #2.

5) Seller/buyer leaves 5-star reviews for their product using their #2 accounts. (The buyer leaves reviews, not "gift recipients" of the product).

This is a known problem with Amazon review manipulation. We received a "gift" ourselves once. If the complete supply chain from seller-buyer-recipient is within the Amazon chain it tricks the algorithms into thinking the reviews are legitimate, so the seller can generate as many 5-star reviews as they want to.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

3) Seller/buyer uses list of Amazon customers.

How does an independent seller gain access to Amazon’s customer list with addresses?

[eightfingers2.0]

I usually read the one and two star reviews. I always assumed most of the five star reviews were fake.

[terracore]

3) Seller/buyer uses list of Amazon customers.

How does an independent seller gain access to Amazon’s customer list with addresses?

There are dozens of web sites out there dedicated to selling their services of review manipulation.  They probably sell lists of amazon customers.  When a third party sells through the amazon platform they get the buyer's information (name/address/phone number etc) for order fulfillment purposes.  A couple of large volume sellers could compile a large list of customers in no time.

As far as believing the 1 and 2 star reviews, review manipulation "services" are inclusive of destroying one's competitor's ranking as well.  

The simplest form of review manipulation is to simply change the product the listing is selling.  Like if you are selling a high quality product at a really low price, you'll quickly get a lot of high reviews.  An unscrupulous seller will then "bait and switch", selling an inferior product, or an entirely different product altogether.  Amazon lets a seller change the product listing including description and pictures.  Thats why you sometimes see reviews for headphones or whatever when the listing is selling a phone cover (or whatever).  If its an unscrupulous seller, by the time Amazon gets around to sanctioning the seller for selling the inferior or counterfeit item(s) the seller has already closed their bank account and "left town".

It used to be if something was "Prime" it was sold and fulfilled by Amazon so a person was less likely to get screwed because Amazon had more skin in the game, but now they have "Seller fulfilled prime" so that is no longer the case.

One time I bought a new, 2000 watt Samlex inverter sold and fulfilled by Amazon and I received a used 1,000 watt inverter. No idea how that happened. Amazon replaced it without question but neither Amazon or Samlex would reply to my emails asking how something like that could happen.

[eightfingers2.0]

So what do you do? I see all sorts of negatives, but nothing positive.

Should I just ignore the reviews altogether and take my chances?

[terracore]

There are a variety of web sites and browser plug-ins that will tell you if their algorithms detect fake reviews though I rarely use them. Here's one that I have found to be relatively useful: https://reviewmeta.com/

Generally, the products that have fake reviews are low-cost junk anyway and not in the category of things I shop for, so I don't really worry about it.

Almost every company out there makes some effort to solicit reviews (they know that reviews sell), that is not review manipulation so long as they are only soliciting honest reviews. If I am making a larger purchase of an item with few reviews often I will contact the seller and tell them I would like to review their product and ask them for a coupon code. They can look at my past reviews and see that I only post honest reviews. Not everybody offers a coupon code but I often get 10-40% off. When Amazon is ranking the weight of a review one of the factors they take into consideration is the amount of money the buyer spent on the product so sellers are reluctant to give up-front discounts higher than 50% and most of them feel like 40% is their limit.

This company used to be a review manipulation service but has come around from the dark side and now only solicits honest reviews. Most of the stuff is junk but it's worth checking back because every now and then they have a steal:

https://www.vipon.com/

This one operates a bit differently and I've never used it but I know people who have, they sometimes get deeply discounted even free stuff. Because the rebate for the product is given after the purchase and without Amazon's knowledge it dodges the discount ranking problem with coupon codes so in a way is a mild form of review manipulation. People will give higher reviews for something if they aren't paying for it even if they are doing it subconsciously:

https://rebatekey.com/