[millisecond]

It’s likely a totally different product, the seeds just give a verified shipping history. They review the other product on their own account that “ordered” the seeds. The seeds are cheap and make it untraceable back to the original product.

[Wowfunhappy]

So then how does banning the sale of seeds help? They’ll just switch to plastic doodads or some such.

[aik]

The purpose of a ban isn’t to prevent fraud on Amazon, it’s to prevent unwanted seed from entering the country.

[amf12]

The purpose of a ban isn’t to prevent fraud on Amazon, it’s to prevent unwanted seed from entering the country.

I don't see how it helps though. The product page for such scams doesn't show "seeds". It's an actual product, but the seller sends seeds. Banning the sale of seeds doesn't stop this.

[HenryBemis]

Protect the country's ecosystem by a species that may 'invade' and take our existing flora [0],[1]. If 5% of the recipients want to do something "green" and plant these in a park/forest near them, without knowing the impact.. well 10-20 years from now you may have wiped out other more useful and necessary species.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species [1]: https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/invasives/index.shtml

[function_seven]

Understood, but the question is still: how does this affect the actual trend of sellers gaming their metrics via seed shipments? Those seeds aren't actually being ordered. They're just a cheap, light item to ship to get a tracking number.

It was already fraud before this rule. It's not like the scammy seller is going to obey this rule when they're already flouting the more fundamental ones.

[aarongolliver]

I think this comment has the right idea [0]. Amazon has two problems with seeds:

1. people doing what appears to be a weird scam that involves seeds being mailed across boarders

2. seed sellers on amazon have been flagrantly violate import controls for years.

This new policy seems to be addressing #2, which is important to Amazon now more than ever because of the increased scrutiny caused by #1 making international news.

I've personally bought seeds from Amazon which were declared as "bookmarks" to sneak past US customs.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24393395

[amf12]

I think this comment has the right idea

Yep, I can see how the new policy can help with #2. The news post seems to be suggesting Amazon is doing it to address #1 - which the policy doesn't do anything about.

[booleandilemma]

Can’t they just ban the sellers then?

[DarthGhandi]

> ban the sellers

Something I find perplexing about this theory, they do have the shipping number right? Shouldn't it be trivial to find who is benefiting?

[Chaulkalat]

Gaming the rep system is a fault on Amazon's structure. If people in China are doing this without repercussions then what is stopping other people across the world from doing the same?

[srtjstjsj]

The special thing about China is that China's the only part of the world with a high volume export industry.

[yorwba]

In 2017, there were 24 other countries with an export volume at least 10% as large as China's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports

If export volume is the only factor, we'd expect to see e.g. Polish companies sending seeds at about 10% of the volume coming from Chinese companies.

One possible explanation is that EU exports frequently stay within the EU, so Polish companies would be more likely to try to get fake reviews from e.g. German customers.

[secondcoming]

Mail from China is subsidised, not sure about Poland

https://www.ft.com/content/3af8bfb8-ad3a-11e8-94bd-cba20d673...

[rhacker]

Or you need enough chaos required in the other 90% to learn to do this technique.

[bmlzootown]

It likely won't help -- that's the issue.

[syshum]

Amazon has a history of making PR statements about problems announcing policy changes that do nothing to solve the actual problem....