Lions mane 8:1 extract on amazon has an F on fakespot. Why?

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Here is Genius's card that gets delivered in the boxes with orders.

That tells people to go to http://1freesupplement.com/ for free bottles for reviews. And of course, I got that image from an Amazon review again. This is all publicly posted information anyone could find, such as a site like yours trying to position itself as one assessing the validity of reviews.

Here is a picture of a unit we got from Genius recently. They moved to stickers on the caps for some products offering free product for reviews. They get creative with it.

Here is a picture from a Toniiq product. The site they run is https://tqfreebottle.com/ for their review manipulation program. They do the stickers like Genius. Funny enough, Toniiq's products are the worst of the worst we have tested. Every single one of them has failed our testing in the lab. ALL OF THEM. Not just failed for assay, but for ID, too! They are not even the plants they claim to be! Yet they rank high because of ranking and review manipulation! Fuck me and our lost sales. That doesn't matter. Think of the consumers buying these fake products! It's the thing that the FDA will use as justification for dismantling the entire industry someday if it doesn't stop.

I could keep going on and on and on with all the top selling products on Amazon. They ALL do it. They use cards and stickers in Amazon products that tell people to go to dedicated sites they have setup to get free product for reviews. They use chat bots on Facebook to get people interested in free product, then they weed through the ones not willing to give all 5 star reviews. You might not know about that strategy, but it's the big one. They create private Facebook groups that they use chat bots and real life people to build up with "known-reliable" reviewers that they have recruited. If you get a free product and leave a less than 5 star review, they drop you from the program or don't invite you to do any more. Then they track the ones they know will always give a 5 star review for a free bottle of another product, and they invite them to these private FB groups that they use to organize mass pushes of reviews for. They use these groups to launch new products with. They will have their list of reliable reviewers that they can reach out to and have a ton of 5 star reviews flood in off the bat to boost up rankings and sales velocity. It's all pretty sophisticated with how they do it, but you can tell it works. Look how many reviews they get from it. This makes them top dog for that product on Amazon, which then becomes a self-fulfilling feedback loop. You won't see a rapid increase in reviews randomly over time, though. They do it from day one on launch. So your system of looking for changes in trends is outdated, as the people really doing this already know how to avoid that.

Here is a screenshot of the Genius chat bot. That's on Facebook for their private review group, which has now been removed by FB. They no doubt have moved on to another FB group. That's what they do. This is what allows them to connect someone's Amazon account to their Facebook account, and then converse directly with them to run these programs. It's a sneaky way to get around Amazon's limitation of keeping customer communication inside Amazon's systems. Customers scan the QR codes they get on cards and stickers in Amazon products, get offered free product for reviews, verify those reviews with the company's staff, then they link their profiles together in backend systems that can let them further drill down and target. This is how they rack up thousands of reviews right off the bat. They cultivate a "book" so to speak of customers they know are willing to give 5 star reviews for free product, then use data analytics to leverage that for new product releases or rank manipulation. It works, as you can see by the thousands of reviews they get.

So that is how these companies game Amazon's systems, and use review manipulation to be the best selling product. I was going to go into more detail on our analytical testing of the products showing they are fake or impure, but I figured that was a distraction. You guys don't assess whether or not products are fake or impure. You assess reviews. I do bring it up for a reason, though. These companies are able to sell shitty, untested, impure, and misleading products exactly because they can manipulate the ranking and review systems. Of course Amazon is the main one to blame here, but you exist in that system that allows them to succeed. You give legitimacy to these fake reviews by your rankings. So while it is really Amazon that is the cause of all this, and the one we need to put most of the blame on, you are not innocent. Your ratings give legitimacy to obviously and provably manipulated reviews. At the same time, you question the legitimacy of real reviews from vendors like us, and smaller guys that have no idea all these games are going on in the background. I am fighting a battle to help change the analytical and quality control standards of the entire industry, but we get an F on some products because customers didn't write a review, and just left a star rating?!? Do you know why Amazon started allowing that? To get more reviews from real customers because it is easier for them. It worked. More customers just give a start rating now that didn't review at all before, because it is easier. Also, did you ever think that could be a strategy for competitors to leverage? In fact, they do! These review manipulation programs don't end at them propping up their own reviews. They also bleed out into offensive operations against their competitors. They absolutely do shit like this to make their competition's product appear less legitimate. Many times that is immediately hitting a new product launch from a competitor with 1 star reviews to completely fuck their rankings. Then they also do positive reviews that seem sketchy in an attempt to make it look like there is manipulation happening on the part of the vendor itself. However, the manipulation is happening from their competitors. Your systems allow for that to happen, because you are using imperfect metrics to try and assess something that is impossible to assess with those limited metrics. Your systems will never be accurate, because you are not looking at what you need to be looking at. The people I have referenced above should all be given Fs on your site, as they are participating in entire review manipulation programs. If you factored that into your model, then you could at least get closer to a legitimate accurate rating. The info is all there. Sure, it is more labor-intensive to get than your existing algorithm is. However, isn't accuracy the goal? Isn't truth what should be strived for? I realize you are a business, but a business based on faulty assumptions, bad data, and falsehoods can never last forever. I can promise you right now that if I was going to break Amazon's TOS and run a review program, your systems would not detect it. I'd also certainly have more reviews on our products than the measly amount we have now. Hell, I'd have 5,000 reviews on our lion's mane 8:1 if I was going to go down that path. Do you think I would break the rules just to NOT rank the highest AND still get an F from you guys? LOL.

This leads me to my last point. I promise, this is the last point. I have rambled long enough. You're not going to like this last point, though. I know because it will hit at the very heart of the legitimacy of your business. However, I have never shied away from speaking my mind when given the chance, so here goes.

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