[pyoung]

So if I understand this right, they are creating a fake account on some other site (aliexpress, etc...) with his address attached. And then they ship the 'gift' from the Amazon tracking number, so that he is more likely to accept that package, and then ship the multimeter from the fake account tracking number, allowing them to leave themselves a positive review on that site.

I always suspected something was going on with the aliexpress ratings. If you look at the reviews it is a lot of one liners like 'i got the item as described!' with a 5 star rating.

[leggomylibro]

This is the most convoluted thing I've had to think through in awhile.

Jeez. Honestly, I mostly ignore reviews on Chinese listing sites unless they're low. It's all about two things:

1. Is the price in line with other listings? From both directions?

2. How many people have ordered it in the past 90 days?

Sometimes that does mean taking a risk with specialty items, or foregoing them. But hey, if it's a critical application I'm not going to source it from sketchy international cheap-o listings.

[ggm]

My hypothesis: Suppliers of goods rank by satisfaction, the web search pages show them first. Front page ranking is the endgame: nobody goes to the second rank. Completed sales. foreign delivery sales rank higher than domestic. So a seller who can make a real sale, and couple into it a fake gift as a satisfied sale overseas gets a cheap 2x legup in the ranking. They sort higher, therefore they get more primary sales. Therefore they make more money.