Chummie on Amazon – Are Chummie, Amazon or Both Ignoring a Federal Judge’s Order?

The Farce Continues! 

In our entry dated Friday, August 14, 2015

Grand Deceit by Theos Medical Systems and Chummie – A Judge's Order! (Part 2)

We pointed out:

5.            The judge also ordered that Theos/Chummie/Bhatia should remove these illegitimate reviews from Amazon:
"DEFENDANTS will submit, through Amazon Vendor Central, a letter from their attorneys to Amazon’s Buyers Review Team and Item Update Creation Team. The letter will ask for the removal of all nonverified reviews of Chummie products on all Amazon websites posted between June 1, 2014 and March 31, 2015 on the grounds that the validity of the reviews has come into question. This letter will be sent within 10 days of entry of this Consent Decree. If the subject reviews are not removed within 45 days of the date the letter is sent, DEFENDANTS will send, through Amazon Vendor Central, a second letter from their attorneys to Amazon’s Buyers Review Team and Item Update Creation Team. The second letter will reference this Agreement and the Court’s Consent Decree, and will identify the specific nonverified reviews to be removed."

We can postulate that this is unlikely to happen till the end of the ordered period, and it would not surprise us if it did not happen even by that time. We have not seen Theos/Chummie/Bhatia do anything on a timely basis if it could be disadvantageous to them. This includes negating or erasing their fake claims. We’ll just have to wait and see.

(The bold emphasis above is ours to emphasize the following discussion).

The Order and Consent Decree was signed by the Honorable Edward M. Chen, United States District Court Judge, United States District Court, Northern District of California on July 14, 2015. So we thought that we should wait at least two weeks beyond the outside time limit set by the Judge in order and agreed to by Theos Medical Systems, the maker and seller of Chummie, and its owner Saket Bhatia (“Theos/Chummie/Bhatia”). It is now more than two (2) months since the date of the order, certainly enough time for Theos/Chummie/Bhatia and Amazon to fulfill the terms of the Order in 5. above.

As of the moment we see a very substantial number of non-verified reviews of Chummie products on Amazon’s site(s) in the proscribed time period of June 1, 2014 through March 31, 2015. So it is obvious that the Judge’s order has not been completely and satisfactorily executed, and the results expected by the Judge (and, we assume, the Plaintiff in the Case) has not been obtained. Let us postulate as to what may or may not have been happening.

Theos/Chummie/Bhatia:

The Defendant in the case has demonstrated a substantial proclivity for doing whatever he thinks is advantageous to him. There can be little doubt that if well over one hundred highly rated and probably fictitious Amazon Reviews are removed for his Chummie products on Amazon, the repercussions are likely to be quite unfavorable. Not only might many Amazon “customers” wonder why the total reviews for the products dropped precipitously, but also notice the significant drop in the artificially inflated “ranking” for these products. This would doubtless be a negative development for Theos/Chummie/Bhatia.

Amazon:

Amazon has a “contract” with Theos/Chummie/Bhatia to sell a substantial quantity of Chummie products. There is no doubt that in the past year the sales of Chummie products have slowed substantially on Amazon and elsewhere. Amazon could be genuinely concerned that removing a very substantial number of these highly positive and possibly fictitious “Reviews” would result in Amazon’s task of selling these products much more difficult.

Why Amazon has not extricated itself from this obviously ill-advised “contract” on the basis of tort or any other applicable legal theory (we are not lawyers), we do not know.

What We Observe at Present:

As mentioned earlier, we do not see the exclusion of all or even the great majority of non-verified reviews from Amazon.com for Chummie products over the stipulated time period. As stated earlier, if these proscribed reviews suddenly disappeared, it could adversely affect Theos/Chummie/Bhatia and thereby Amazon as well. One may argue that the overall effect of possibly losing even all Chummie sales would be unnoticeable on Amazon’s huge financial ledger and bottom line. But Amazon may continue to be interested in protecting every little piece of pie that it feeds on.

The current facts do demonstrate a very slight decrease in overall reviews. This can result from something as innocuous as some reviewers deciding to remove their reviews from Amazon.com for whatever reasons.

Interestingly, we are noticing a significant increase in the recent rate at which reviews are being posted on Amazon.com for Chummie’s “Premium” bedwetting alarm, by far the most dominant Chummie sale item on Amazon.com. We did a simple count of reviews over two periods of time:

1.    January 1, 2015 through June 30, 2015, a time when the Judge’s Order and Consent Decree was awaiting Bhatia’s signature and Theos/Chummie/Bhatia probably felt pressured to be very careful about their “Reviews” activities. And

2.    July 1, 2015 though today (September 20, 2015), essentially a post-decree period of time.

For Period 1, there were 75 reviews posted, which amount to an average of 0.41 reviews every day.

For Period 2, there were 49 reviews posted, which amount to an average of 0.60 reviews every day.

This is an increase of almost 50% in the rate at which reviews are being posted on Amazon.com for this one “Premium” product, an amount that appears to be significant, particularly when examined under the context of Theos/Chummie/Bhatia’s legal situation. This suggests that there is an increase in “new” posted reviews at almost the same rate as that at which “old” reviews are being removed. It is possible that the let’s-try-anything-that-we-may-get-away-with Theos/Chummie/Bhatia could be involved in this rather unscrupulous activity (or possibly not), circumventing the intent of the Legal Order, while reducing the impact of the order on Chummie sales on Amazon.

To do this, we see three obvious methods:

1.    Theos/Chummie/Bhatia may not have officially asked Amazon to remove the proscribed listings as Ordered by the Judge and agreed to by Saket Bhatia,

2.    Amazon may be intentionally ignoring the Order request and dragging its feet on removing the proscribed listings so as to minimize the negative impact on Theos/Chummie/Bhatia and on Amazon itself as well.

3.    There is collusion between Theos/Chummie/Bhatia and Amazon to drag out this matter so as to minimize the negative impact on Theos/Chummie/Bhatia and on Amazon.

In our opinion, any participation by Amazon to circumvent a direct legal Order is probably due to the efforts of someone at a lower echelon at Amazon who is less concerned about Amazon’s welfare in this “small” matter and considers Amazon to be above the law, while this person’s relationship with Theos/Chummie/Bhatia may be more important in this person’s mind. On the other hand, Theos/Chummie/Bhatia has previously behaved in this manner, and may continue to do so in the future. We therefore think it most likely that this non-compliance in getting these proscribed reviews removed from Amazon is a result of Theos/Chummie/Bhatia failing their duties (1. above) or some form of collusion between Theos/Chummie/Bhatia and Amazon (as described in 3. above). These are postulates on our part, and we do not have true factual evidence other than the facts and results described above.

At this point, it is the moral and legal responsibility of the Plaintiff in the case to bring to the attention of the Judge that his Orders are not being adequately observed or followed.

We shall again point out how poorly Chummie fairs on large and competitively open selling sites where there are no reviews that can be manipulated.