Amazon seller reveals glimpse of shadow bribery market

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-06-30/shadow-bribery-market-inside-amazon-preys-on-desperate-sellers

by petethomas • 22 days ago

151 96 22 days ago

cmiles83• 22 days ago

Still use Amazon for certain items because of fast delivery but the site is a complete mess. At some point Amazon leadership failed to understand that there’s a lot more to a good customer experience than “selection size.”

If I search for X I’d vastly prefer a few simple options that aren’t counterfeit or junk vs here’s 150 variants of your thing, most of which are junk but hey look at the size of our selection!

macintux• 22 days ago

I do my best to find a local or online shop that actually knows & understands what they sell. Getting harder, but for more expensive items definitely achievable.

Loughla• 22 days ago

I have yet to find something on Amazon that I couldn't find at a local shop for within 5% of the Amazon price. I live in a very rural area, so I have to imagine that it's easier if you live near a city. Or maybe my sample size of 1 person isn't enough.

jonhohle3• 22 days ago

10 years ago I was working on this problem at Amazon. We were developing methods to normalize all the crap listings and methods 3ᴿᴰ party sellers used to get unique listings when consolidating them was known to drive down prices, which was the original goal.

I had some interesting insights (vendors want to be unique, but need to keep products visible in search, so they typically use a common transformation within their own listings to satisfy both properties), but left before implementation rolled out. Based on current search results, either they failed or the project was abandoned.

I’m shocked at how some categories just contain junk from random brands with unpronounceable names. Want a music player by Sony or even RCA? Those brands have left that market completely for B2B products or are a licensed name on top of some garbage. Now you can get a Zaqe, Picxiul, Lwyinp, Globluum, or Swofy!

MrDOS• 22 days ago

As I'm sure you know but some others might not, the random brands with unpronounceable names (as opposed to no specific names at all) are also a problem that Amazon has created: https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/amazons-quiet-overhaul-of-the-t....

grogenaut4• 22 days ago

talking to several of the catalog unification projects and doing promo reviews for people, it turns out it wasn't as easy to do as people thought. there's places it worked well (media) and others where it's a lot harder.

steve-atx-76003• 22 days ago

You'd think this trend would be obvious to product folks at Amazon unless they're living under a rock. And, you'd think they'd care about lowering conversion rates. I don't think name brand products will stop existing. In the long term, Amazon will lose out on business as people that can afford higher quality products will use Amazon less or just when they already know which brand/model they want to buy before hand.

QuantumGood2• 22 days ago

AI chat interface works where search does not. Not perfect, but much better, and allows more specific, accurate filtering.

QuantumGood2• 21 days ago

I totally understand the downvote, as bad player adds bad tech must = bad. I'm just pointing out that the terrible search interface / results / algorithm / intention of Amazon is, for now, a bit alleviated by their AI interface that filters much more reliably based on prompt, and can adjust the prompt.

stasomatic• 22 days ago

google.com "KEYWORD reddit". It's been the only way for me for the last several years, but mostly for inexpensive items (20-100 USD). In the States it's more frictionless to do Amazon returns then through Temu or AliX.

kirykl• 22 days ago

leadership knows that they get to charge those 150 sellers bidding based "advertising fees" to get the buy box

ericras• 22 days ago

Non-paywall version: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-06-30/shadow-bri...

nizbit• 22 days ago

Gods work, thank you!

dang• 22 days ago

Thanks! We've switched to that from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-24/inside-th... above.

showerst• 22 days ago

Amazon, Walmart, Etsy... my kingdom for a marketplace that doesn't become just a dumping ground for shady fly-by-night dropshippers.

JKCalhoun• 22 days ago

Don't allow 3rd party sellers?

jonhohle3• 22 days ago

But then how could you skim off the top of other people’s work?

giarc• 22 days ago

I think that is key. I used to browse Best Buy's website for various electronics and it was typically pretty good. I knew that somewhere, a Best Buy product buyer was evaluating the products with at least a minimum set of expectations. Then they opened their marketplace to 3rd party sellers and it's the same low cost, low quality crap on every other site.

port113• 20 days ago

This sounds so obvious…Decathlon’s and Leroy Merlin’s 3rd-party sellers made their webshops a nightmare. Why would I go to Decathlon to buy from 3rd parties? We already had, like, 200 marketplaces for that.

geraldcombs• 22 days ago

It depends on the brand, but a lot of the stuff I buy is available directly from the manufacturer's site, usually via Shop Pay.

topgrain2• 22 days ago

This has pushed me to high levels of brand loyalty with direct ordering from the brands I like and trust, plus a lot of buying used… also mostly products from a handful of trusted brands (this is largely clothes, nearly all of which I buy used except socks, underwear, and most sweaters)

alexpotato• 22 days ago

Thermoworks (which makes excellent thermometers) no longer sells on Amazon b/c there were too many counterfeits/people selling broken items etc.

You can now only order from their website which I am more than happy to do as their customer service is excellent.

https://www.thermoworks.com

account423• 22 days ago

To bad that the actual buying experience (once you have selected what to buy) is still so much better with Amazon.

* One cart for everything you need to order

* Fairly predictable shipping and tracking, especially for FBA stuff vs. the random shipping companies vs random shippers you have never heard about or weird shipping options selected by the seller (i.e. ID checks required where that makes no sense at all, preventing the carrier from just dropping the package at the door when you're not home)

* Global shipping with tariffs/fees included in the checkout price - brand stores often don't even ship at all outside their operational area

* The ability to get your money back with high confidence when there are problems vs. smaller sellers that just ghost you.

Amazon has been doing their best to reduce these advantages by making it harder to report problems with orders and also having more sellers that do their own unpredictable shipping.

ProllyInfamous2• 21 days ago

I was an eBay PowerSeller 1999-2004 (the era of primarily accepting money orders). I don't even recognize that platform, anymore (perhaps one purchase, every few years, now – some diamond-in-the-rough rarity, unavailable elsewhere).

I closed my Amazon account, a few years ago, for similar reasons (both platforms seem to become the dumping grounds for brokens, defectives, and otherwise abandonables).

Most items I'll now purchase in-person, at a store – I want to feel the clothing's thickness, smell the hardware's newness, and/or pay more for warranted IRL customer support. Mandatory in-person purchases are memory (RAM or SSD), only because they have a supplier chain-of-custody, without mixed seller bins (which Amazon is attempting to resolve, albeit decades too late IMHO).

----

Random shoutout to Duluth Trading Company (not-affiliated, no stock owned – just a great brand): I drive 2.5 hours round-trip, once a year, to visit one of their clothing stores. If you haven't worn their firehose contractor pants, you're missing out on the incredibility of 3% spandex pants – thick, breathable, don't tear... and when you feel them in person you will absolutely not care about their pricetag. They have traditional US wwXhh mens-sizing, but also three separate "fits" (tightnesses).

If you're a fattietradesman (like me), trying things on is essential. Really glad to see certainly higher-end storefronts "coming back," as these customers demand quality.

Just wish they sold computers – although I did visit my first MicroCenter, recently: WOW! (Reminiscent of early-2000s Fry's Electronics, but smaller/better).

fehu22• 22 days ago

Most of the amazon sellers package trash and send to many people broken items ETC amazon is losing its name in India

Poacher5• 21 days ago

B&Q in the UK went exactly the same way - used to be pretty reliable, and I didn't mind paying the extra to have all the things a home DIYer might need without going to half a dozen different builder's merchants and trade suppliers. Then they opened their store page up to anyone who wanted to list anything even tangentially related to home improvements and predictably it's a huge heap of drop-shipped rubbish and it's all been SEO'ed to the Nth degree to appear higher in the search rankings than anything actually sold by B&Q.

danesparza• 22 days ago

Amazon could easily solve this problem if they wanted to. They just don't want to.

kjellsbells• 22 days ago

Its been "day 2" at Amazon for a long time now. I guess the Leadership Principles need an update.

HumblyTossed• 22 days ago

Of course not. They _created_ this problem.

theflyinghorse• 22 days ago

That's a problem for you — the customer - not for Jeff, the VP.

ahartmetz• 22 days ago

Maybe the customers are Amazon shareholders now and Amazon is selling Amazon's financial performance.

pan69• 22 days ago

"We're not competitor obsessed, we're customer obsessed. We start with the customer and work backwards." - Jeff Bezos

Backwards indeed.

DaiPlusPlus• 22 days ago

The dropshippers are the customers of Amazon’s platform, in a way…

gertrunde• 22 days ago

I tend to find ebay less shady than Amazon these days, which is a bit disapointing really.

smallerfish• 22 days ago

AliExpress is less shady. If only they had customer service and a decent UI.

jonhohle3• 22 days ago

I recently dealt with a merchant in Aliexpress who was intentionally selling things well below market price, not to build their storefront reputation, but to collect sales and then ask the customer to cancel. I forced them to cancel the order, which harms their rep.

Literally every unmanaged, user content controlled platform devolves into the basest scams, thuggery, and unpleasantness. This is why we can’t have nice things.

victorbjorklund• 22 days ago

I only had good experiences with the customer service. Do they wanna have long conversations? Nope. But they are quick to just give you a refund.

OJFord• 22 days ago

If only they would sort out their language / shipping country / currency model and make it so I can actually select what I want rather than their wrong assumption.

(And that's me having that problem in English / England / GBP, not a weird combination.)

galleywest200• 22 days ago

I have ordered items on eBay just for the seller to order it on Amazon and send it to me that way. Just happened to me this week with club bells/Indian clubs.

arjie• 22 days ago

Haha, I ordered my car wing mirror cowl and it arrived in a box with an Amazon gift receipt. I suppose the eBay fellow was solving a discovery problem for me for a cut. Good for him.

cucumber3732842• 22 days ago

IIRC that's against eBay's rules. But people still do it when the spread is enough to make it worth the risk.

fhn3• 22 days ago

Ebay is no less shady. Buy something(from China) that takes a long time to arrive, reviewing is disabled. Ebay is junk.

Scoundreller2• 22 days ago

You 60 days from delivery or 90 days from ordering if there is no expected delivery date.

How long is your stuff from China taking to arrive?

theplumber• 22 days ago

EBay is the worst website someone can use for shopping…they just got it all wrong. Seems lead by people who don’t use it

potsandpans• 22 days ago

I found Ryan cohens account

pigeons• 22 days ago

Worst except for Amazon.

ridgeguy2• 22 days ago

eBay is very good for science-related goods, in my experience. Last week, I bought ~$12K of used gear for a project. All items work, would have cost ~2.5x that from the usual used instrument vendors, about 6x new.

account423• 22 days ago

Ebay would be a lot more fun to use if

a) You could search for keywords without also matching keywords that have your keyword as a sub-string

b) "Sort by lowest price including shipping" actually did what it says

As it is you often have to wade through tons of undesired crap to get to what you want.

I also don't like that eBay sellers can see that you viewed their product and send you price offers.

Oh and let's not forget the popup nagging you to use their app for a discount ... while you are typing something into the search bar.

Melatonic• 21 days ago

Exact keyword match in quotes doesnt work for you?

tenpoundhammer• 22 days ago

"This item will arrive tomorrow at 9 AM" -> Pay -> "Sorry this item can't be delivered by tomorrow will be delivered 2 days later" -> Next day -> "This item will be delivered 3 weeks from now"

nomel2• 22 days ago

I think Amazon is catching on. I had this happen last week, and after the 2 days late, Amazon sent an automated apology with the option to cancel if it didn't show up after the third day.

saghm• 22 days ago

I'm not sure that's "catching on". One would think that if they can't reliably offer a service, they shouldn't be offering it in the first place.

cmiles83• 22 days ago

OMG yes this. So annoying.

It’s like Uber saying book and pay for a ride, cars are 2 min away. Great here’s my money, send a car. 15 min later still waiting for car…

fhn3• 22 days ago

sounds like fraud to me

abeyer• 22 days ago

It's not common that they miss those timed delivery windows, in my experience... but when they do their systems don't seem to be able to handle it well and the delay is far worse than it would have been if it _weren't_ a timed window. I suspect it's related to the timed deliveries mostly being farmed out to gig drivers.

moltar• 22 days ago

This has been going on for a decade.

radicality• 22 days ago

leave a product review in exchange for a free bed scrunchie accessory

I wonder what the exact language was. If it included something like “5 star review” on that card, then the guy deserves getting kicked out from Amazon and getting his business shut down (it’s federally illegal to do that per ftc regulation). If it was just very neutral language asking for reviews, then that sucks, and hope he can get it resolved with Amazon eventually.

buzer• 22 days ago

In 2022 I got physical mail about leaving a review for something I bought from Amazon (sold by company X, shipped by Amazon) in exchange for Amazon Gift Card. It contained the name of the product I bought. When I tried to report it to Amazon:

* there was no obvious way to do it. Closest thing was by reporting issue on product.

* there was no way to show the customer service agent a picture of the mail. Chat did not support sending pictures & they were unable to open imgur link.

* agent recommended me to leave a report it by leaving review to the seller page. I did that and next day review was deleted.

So it's pretty clear that Amazon didn't care and I doubt it has changed (unless the law you are talking about is recent one).

hex4def6• 22 days ago

Yep -- I've gotten multiple postcards in the mail and/or product box after ordering something telling me I'd get ~$5-$10 if I left a 5 star review. They thoughtfully included exact screenshots of how to submit the review.

I also went looking for a way to report it. Eventually opened up a chat, didn't really get anywhere.

(I also didn't appreciate getting junk mail for ordering something).

worik• 22 days ago

The only thing I use Amazon for is price guidance - is that hardware $1, $2, $10 or $100?

I have not bought from them since 2005.

There is no need

ynac• 22 days ago

1999 or maybe 2000 for me. Dollars are votes for how I want to see the world.

steve-atx-76003• 22 days ago

I use Amazon when I've planned poorly and need something the next/same day. But, actually, less and less over time because Walmart and HEB (Texas grocery store w/ solid delivery) keep improving their delivery offerings.

incomplete• 22 days ago

https://archive.is/hioIm

fhn3• 22 days ago

So Amazon could have logged who performed the action(based on logon details) and catch the culprit.

SpicyLemonZest• 22 days ago

The article says that they did do this.

KennyBlanken• 22 days ago

People. Stop making '20 calls' about this sort of thing.

If you get ripped off by a corporation, you call once. Take notes. Maybe call twice. At most, three times. Show you made a decent attempt. If you're in a one-party consent state, record it.

Then call your lawyer, who will send a demand letter to Amazon legal.

If that doesn't get an answer, you go to court. If you can't work something out, you go to court.

The civil court system exists for a reason. Start using it.

What do you think Bezos does when a contractor takes his money and doesn't fix one of his dozen swimming pools? Or a car dealership fucks up one of his hypercars?

Do you think he makes 20 calls to customer service numbers? Or do you think one of his personal assistants calls once and asks politely, and then if it isn't made right, it gets batted over to his law firm.

matheusmoreira• 22 days ago

That costs a lot of effort, time and money, all of which are in short supply nowadays.

AussieWog93• 22 days ago

The seller in the article read doing $500k/mo.

Wasting 2 months not getting any sales is far more costly than spending a few grand on a lawyer.

mschuster91• 22 days ago

The civil court system exists for a reason. Start using it.

Yeah, if you are a private customer that might work out going to small claims court against a large company.

But if you are a commercial vendor? Tough luck, you probably signed some mandatory arbitration clause in your terms, maybe even a non-disparagement clause. Whoops. Arbitration can cost shitloads of money upfront or expose you to the risk of having to pay the counterparty's lawyers if you lose the arbitration, no referral to the regular court system possible. And even going to the press to complain is a risky move.

There's a lot of things I'd be willing to jump into. But I'd never ever want to be in a commercial relationship with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta or any of the other tech giants (or Walmart, they are just as infamous for squeezing suppliers), simply because they have all the cards and I have none. They decide to kick me out, my existence is gone.

steve-atx-76003• 22 days ago

Have you ever paid for legal services? If you are a small business you may not be able to afford 4-500 USD/hour while they make phone calls and type emails.

supertroop• 22 days ago

I can’t believe Nekhala managed to gross $6million on a bed scrunchy on Amazon without Chinese competitors pirating the design, even with a US patent. That in itself is a major accomplishment. At some point when progressives finally take the house perhaps we can get some real regulations in place so that someone banned from the system like this has recourse other than call tree AI.

nullc• 22 days ago

It's by no means limited to amazon. $50k or less gets you arbitrary account information from almost any large site you can name, similar rates for access to information that's supposed to be law enforcement only, or to get someone's realtime cellphone location. If it's not via a corrupt insider, it's by corrupt LEO, or impersonating LEO.

The only way to have a reasonable level of privacy against a well funded attacker is to not provide anything private to companies in the first place.

Amazon seller reveals glimpse of shadow bribery market

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