LOS ANGELES—Brian Sloan, inventor of the Autoblow brand of sexual appliances for men, claims consumers are being scammed by sellers of cheap sex toys on Amazon with fake reviews.
As a sex toy inventor and manufacturer for the past 16 years, Sloan has watched as Chinese factory-direct sex toy brands that have taken almost every top spot on Amazon’s sex toy marketplace due to their mastery of methods to break Amazon review-related rules and Federal Trade Commission laws regarding fake reviews.
In a seven-minute video, Sloan examines some of the top-selling male sex toys on the Amazon marketplace, such as one automated stroker topping out at over 9,000 units sold per month. The video exposes some of the methods the Chinese factory-direct Amazon sex toy sellers use to get fake reviews from customers including sending refunds and pre-paying customers to buy their products in order to leave five-star reviews.
To watch the video on Vimeo, click here.
Using websites designed to detect the hallmarks of fake Amazon reviews, he exposes that some of the top Amazon sex toys have up to 65 percent of their reviews written by buyers who left only a single review—an obvious hallmark of a concerted fake review scam that aims to attract more buyers to the cheap products.
“The harm to American consumers is not only financial but it is sexual as well,” Sloan said. “Many American consumers turn to Amazon as a trusted marketplace to buy their first sex toys, but after being induced into buying poorly made products that do not provide pleasure, it may deter them from further experimentation with sex toys, depriving them of the future benefits the devices can offer for enjoyment, health, and relationship enhancement purposes.
“Finding the sellers doing this would be an easy task for Amazon. They should have employees search for and join the fake sex toy reviewer groups and then ban the sellers giving away free products in exchange for five-star reviews. The only reason Amazon does not do this is because they make too much money not doing it,” he added.
Sloan was featured in an article on Vice.com last year. To read the article, click here.
