Belkin Paid Users to Write Positive Reviews
Belkin apparently paid users to write 100% positive review of its products in Amazon and other retailer sites and specifically the Amazon's Mechanical Turk service. This service allows registered users to get paid for tasks provided by requestors, in this case Belkin paid 65 cents for each positive review someone wrote of their products. To be paid by Belkin the user would have to complete the following:
* Always give a 100% rating (high as possible)
* Write as if you own the product and are using it
* Tell a story (lie) of why you bought it and how you are using it
* Thank the website for making you such a great deal
* Mark any other negative reviews as "not helpful" once you post yours
Some other sites that Belkin paid other users to write reviews on include Buy.com and Newegg.com. Apparently all of the paid for reviews have been taken down from these sites and the President of Belkin issued the following press release:
Belkin has always held itself to the highest standards of corporate ethics and its employees to the highest standards of personal integrity. Similarly, we support our online user community in discussion and reviews of our products, whether the commentary is good or bad. So, it was with great surprise and dismay when we discovered that one of our employees may have posted a number of queries on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website inviting users to post positive reviews of Belkin products in exchange for payment.
Belkin does not participate in, nor does it endorse, unethical practices like this. We know that people look to online user reviews for unbiased opinions from fellow users and instances like this challenge the implicit trust that is placed in this interaction. We regard our responsibility to our user community as sacred, and we are extremely sorry that this happened.
We want to stress that this is an isolated incident and to re-instill trust with you, we have taken the following courses of action:
- We've acted swiftly to remove all associated postings from the Mechanical Turk system.
- We're working closely with our online channel partners to ensure that any reviews that may have been placed due to these postings have been removed.
It's also important to recognize that our retail partners had no knowledge of, or participation in, these postings.
Once again, we apologize for this occurrence, and we will work earnestly to regain the trust we have lost.
