The Mail I Get

I got an email from the maker of nutritional supplements urging me to take a stand against “sock puppet” fake reviews. How? By reviewing his product. Not only will I be striking a blow against fake reviews but, as an added incentive, he says it will also boost my own “helpful” review stats.

Help me stop these fake “sock puppet” Amazon reviews.

I found your Amazon Review profile and wanted to see if you would like to review a nutritional supplement with “excessive” buzz?

XYZ was recently featured on the Dr Oz show and instantly became the world’s #1 selling nutritional supplement. I’m not kidding, this product beat the top selling Multivitamin in Sales Rank!

Right now we are competing with some other companies to be the product with the most reviews on Amazon for “XYZ”.

I’m pretty sure the two biggest reviewed competitors above us are using fake reviews to get to the top sales ranks. After looking through their reviews, it’s pretty obvious that some of the “customers” are not real people.

Just shill accounts with hilarious reviews:

“This product is puppy dogs and rainbows. I lost 100 pounds, it cured my cancer, and it made me a millionaire in 5 seconds! Buy it!”

We’ve decided under no circumstances to use fake reviews, but we still want to beat these guys!

Right now we have 49 reviews and 4.5 stars, all from real customers.

The top seller has 302 reviews, a bunch of which are fake.

We can beat them the old fashioned way. With real reviews!

I’d like to send you a free bottle of our product XYZ in exchange for an honest review. I’m not asking for a 5 star review. You can give it 1 star and I’ll be happy.

Since this is one of the hottest selling products on Amazon, you have the opportunity to rack up a ton of helpful votes and views for your review.

I don’t see how helping him rack up reviews for his product will strike a blow against sock-puppetry or help him battle the unfair tactics of his competitors (especially since he claims his pills are already “one of the hottest selling” products on Amazon). He may not to be asking for fake praise, but his solicitation is still uniquely idiotic and sleazy.