[KamiCrit]

Surprised that they had to resort to fake reviews considering the quality of products they sold. What a rat race.

"Quality means doing it right when no one is looking." -Henry Ford

[baybal2]

I very much doubt they did marketing by themselves.

In China, it's usually outsourced to specialist Amazon wizards, people who are kind of in rank with "SEO consultants."

[LeonM]

I think you comment is underrated.

It's not just China, everywhere I look I see companies partnering with shoddy marketing/SEO 'consultants'. They are rarely transparent about their tactics, and often resort to click farms, fake reviews, keyword stuffing etc. The company doesn't understand the risk to their brand, because they don't understand what the consultant is doing in the first place.

The problem here is, I guess, that these tactics do actually work on the short term. So the consultant gets paid, the team reaches their targets and the manager gets promoted.

By the time eBay, or any other platform supplier, implies sanctions (and rightfully so, imo) the 'consultant' is long gone, and everybody loses.

[pessimizer]

> The problem here is, I guess, that these tactics do actually work on the short term.

Let's be honest: these tactics work over the long term. When they blow up, you just start again with a new name. Use the same consultant if the last one was good, a better one if a friend of yours did better than you did.

[chii]

> everybody loses

well, except for the consultant! And the business which made some sales. So it's only the customer losing...

[SCLeo]

And their competitors who decided to play fair.

[arkitaip]

Of course the company knew about the fraud. The fact they outsourced the actual work to a third party just means they can claim plausible deniability.

[alangibson]

If they knew, they're guilty of fraud. If they didn't, they're guilty of incompetence.

[Closi]

Either way they should be judged/policed by their actions rather than their intent, because intent is too hard to prove or disprove.

[nolok]

Agreed, Aukey is actually a good quality brand I like to buy since they appeared on amazon.fr, along with Ugreen and a few others. I don't know why they let their image be damaged like that, that's so not needed.

[throw14082020]

Maybe because your opinion was shaped by their efforts. Perhaps maybe you would’ve bought from Anker instead? Perhaps they were able to charge you $30.99 instead of $10.99 after they faked the reviews.

[WolfRazu]

Aukey is usually cheaper than Anker in my experience. That's why people buy from them, it's Anker-like quality at a cheaper price.

[SauciestGNU]

I was recently shopping for a USB hub, and Anker and Aukey had what appeared to be the exact same offering with different branding. It made me believe that they use the same OEM, but I'm not sure whether that's actually the case since I'm not familiar with their engineering and manufacturing processes.

[cptskippy]

I have only ever heard good things about Anker but their premium price has kept me from purchasing them. I bought Aukey several times because they were considerably cheaper than Anker.

I was and still am impressed with their quality and with their support so I have continued to buy their products.

I really like their now outdated PA-U32 USB power supply, it was a great value for the money and I probably have a half dozen or more.

I think all of my USB powerbanks are Aukey and I have been happy with each.

[pydry]

Probably because everybody else was doing it and they were losing out

[yoz-y]

Rampow, one of their main competitors does exactly the same thing (giving out gift cards for goods reviews) so maybe it’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.