Fake Amazon Reviews - Dr. Madre, Teqin and Lil' Jumbl Bedwetting and Enuresis Alarms

Update November 27, 2015: Before you read further, we want to mention a substantial update on Dr. Madre expanding its fake Amazon reviews by many times. This is addressed in a more recent post at

Dr. Madre Fake Amazon Reviews – Greed Apparently Overwhelms Morals and Scruples with 81% of the Reviews being obviously FAKE!

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We read with considerable delight the recent news that Amazon was suing about 1,000 persons who had advertised that they could place fake Amazon Reviews and were offering this unethical service to Sellers who may be sufficiently unethical and incorrigible enough to pay them for these services. The Seller gets his/her (his) 5-stars reviews on Amazon.com, a corresponding boost in his Amazon rank and, possibly, a corresponding boost from sales to gullible and oblivious Buyers who may lack the ability to identify and discount fake reviews, and possibly punish these fraudulent Sellers for their ethical abuses by not buying these products. This abuse of Amazon Reviews by unethical Sellers is something that we have been pointing at for a long time, and strongly suggesting that Amazon needs to be taking strong action in the matter. Amazon is, at last, taking some appropriate action by going after these unethical review providers.

Amazon’s suing these unethical persons who advertised their offering of fake Amazon reviews on Fivver is only the tip of the iceberg. We strongly suspect that there are other services (like Fivver) or other media including more local “rags” in places such as “Silicon Valley” where many sellers may be located, where the fake reviews provider may consider it to be worth his while to advertise his services. Many such providers may also convey their services to unethical Buyers by having more “direct” connections to Sellers that are well known to be using such services. A reader only needs to look at this blog to identify at least one Seller in this small industry that may fall into this category. Yes, we are referring to Theos Medical Systems, the Seller of Chummie, and its owner Saket Bhatia (Theos/Chummie/Bhatia). We shall address ourselves to them a little later.

First, we need to point at the Sellers of a particular bedwetting alarm, where there are a horde of Sellers attracted to this bedwetting alarm, which an incongruous manufacturer in China has no qualms about supplying this alarm to. Oversupply, lack of suitable local support in the U.S., and illegal shipping within the U.S. in violation of U.S. rules and regulations, does not prevent desperate parties without suitable qualms to try and exploit the U.S. market. We have been pointing out these Amazon Sellers as well, and intend to elaborate on our focus about how they are abusing Amazon reviews through fake reviews and hyping of their products. We have been pointing out the illicit behavior of Theos/Chummie/Bhatia, for more than two years. To other unethical and illicit Sellers, Theos/Chummie/Bhatia may have a model worth following. Among other acts, Theos/Chummie/Bhatia has used the services of fake reviewers extensively. Have no doubts that we shall address them further in such matters. Meanwhile, desperate sellers with a poor product, unable to get sales through legitimate means, are resorting to using fake Amazon Reviews.

How do we identify fake reviews? Without complete records and information relating to the review and the “Customer” who posts such reviews, we cannot be 100% certain that a review may be false or fake. So we apply some simple tests. A reviewer who only has a single review for the product and no other reviews, is immediately suspect. Even if it is a “Verified Purchase.” We believe that many Sellers will spend more money, effectively paying the reviewer to purchase the product. That not only allows the Buyer to appear more credible, but it also allows the Buyer to get more money by returning the product to Amazon (get a refund) if he has not been directly compensated for his purchase by the Seller. For the Seller, this purchase increases his product sales on Amazon, helping his rank on Amazon.com. We also consider “recent” reviews which are easy to fake. So would a reviewer with reviews going back two years be considered illicit? Yes, if he has no reviews for significant time and then suddenly shows a spurt of reviews (including the suspect review) all clustered at or around the time when the suspect review has been posted. Essentially, we have to try and put on the mind-set of these unethical persons (both the Seller and Buyer involved in the fake review). So, usually, we can only point at a fake review as being highly suspect, unless we have definitive proof that a review is fake (which has been true of a substantial number of Theos/Chummie/Bhatia reviews). We also recognize that when a fake review is posted on Amazon, there is a possibility that it may have been posted by some party other than the Seller. It may also penalize an honest poor opinion by a true customer, as these people often do not post anything on Amazon reviews unless they think very poorly of a product and want to express their opinion. However we do include such reviews in our list of fake reviews. We also recognize that for some Sellers (Theos/Chummie/Bhatia, for example) investing in a longer-time approach and paying months in advance for such shenanigans, may be worthwhile for their angst and dread of factual competition. Again, the prime intent is to make it relatively difficult for a fake reviewer and an unethical seller to post a review on Amazon. But this entire set of approaches would be moot if Amazon would seriously crack down on deceitful Sellers.

So we shall list the suspect Sellers and also list the suspect fake reviews. We are sequencing them by their rank on Amazon when we are writing this article. These Sellers all sell the alarm made by Shenzen Modo Technologies, which is currently being sold in the U.S. by many sellers, some being on Amazon.com with shipping from Amazon.

Seller: Dr. Madre 

The latest seller on this crowded scene is Dr. Madre. A latecomer on Amazon.com, Dr. Madre is attempting to make a quick start by getting four (4) paid reviews immediately. Here is a seller who recognizes that being successful on Amazon will not be easy without deceit, and is willing to indulge in it without much delay. All current reviews are on our Fake Review list.

Fake Reviews:   100% of current reviews are fake.

Silas P
Amazon Customer
Katherine H
RC

Seller: Teqin:   100% of current reviews are fake.

Not only do all of Teqin’s reviews appear to be fake, but one (Tyra Meginness) is for a different product. How or why Teqin got it inserted as a review for the alarm is a good question for Teqin and Amazon to address. The five newest reviews by Mark Patrick, Mary S Joseph, J Ronals, Ronald L James and Dawbarn Chris all cover the same two products. This Seller must have a very poor opinion of Amazon customers or reviews readers to be treating everyone so stupidly.

Fake Reviews:   100% of current reviews appear to be fake.
Mark Patrick
Mary S Joseph
J Ronald
Ronald L James
Dawbarn Chris
Arju
Kevin E. Mathews
Jeniperkim
Denise Sadler
John Carter
Nick Morrison
Tyra Meginness

Seller: Lil’ Jumbl:

Here we have the oldest seller of the three. Only “BGS Sales,” a seller who preceded Lil’ Jumbl, is an “older” seller of this item. BGS initiated “giving away” a large quantity of free samples to Amazon reviewers, almost insuring receiving a 5-stars review. We refer to these as “freebie reviews.” BGS sales did not see much long-term benefit to giving away as many units as they did, because BGS Sales has been absent from Amazon for many weeks. Lil’ Jumble has given away 9 units so far, getting 9 freebie 5-stars. That is 35% of their total reviews. As things stand at the moment, including other newer sellers of the same item and related price declines, we doubt that Lil’ Jumble will get much long term benefit from these freebie give-aways.

For readers who want to know why we think so poorly of this Modo Technologies alarm, please look at our entry

Abusing and Misinterpreting Amazon Reviews: The Case Against Chummie, Dry-Knight and Lil' Jumble.