Amazon, according to a report by The Wall Street journal, began investigating reports that some of its employees had leaked company information in exchange for monetary rewards.
The report claims that Amazon employees have leaked sales information, deleted negative reviews, and provided negative commenters' email addresses in exchange for money from vendors who work with Amazon.
While some such cases have been identified in US officials, the practice is unquestionably rampant in the Chinese market, between Amazon Chinese employees and local third-party sellers. Amazon employees in China are more prone to such offers because their salaries are quite low and Chinese sellers are able to pay to receive information that will help them better position their products on Amazon or contact those who have leave negative reviews.
An Amazon spokesperson said: “We hold our employees to a high standard of ethics, and anyone who violates our Code faces disciplinary action, including termination pluswork and potential legal and criminal penalties. We have zero We have zero tolerance for abuse of our systems and if we find bad partners engaged in such behavior we will take immediate action against them, including terminating selling accounts, withholding funds and taking legal action.”
According to report by The Wall Street Journal , Payments to Amazon employees can range from $ 80 to $ 2.000, depending on the service. The information that sellers are looking for includes anything related to the habits of the buyers as well as the keywords used in the product searches. With this information, sellers can try to make their items more attractive to buyers or edit their listings to get their products on the first page of the search.
The report also states that employees have been bribed to delete negative reviews on products and their sellers pay to receive the email addresses of customers who left negative reviews so they can offer discounts or free products in exchange for positive reviews .
Intermediaries who often fish for Amazon employees through the Chinese WeChat app are also involved. Intermediaries ask if employees would like to offer these services for a fee and then facilitate communication between employees and third party vendors.
It is difficult to ascertain how widespread this practice is. There are more than two millions third-party sellers on Amazon and account for more than half of the products sold on the site. Amazon has worked hard to attract new sellers to its site, but the volume of third-party sellers (especially those from China) will make it difficult for the company to eliminate all these instances of employee bribery.
