Consumerist- Belkin Business Development Representative Michael Bayard has been caught offering to pay anyone willing to leave perfect reviews of Belkin products on Amazon, Buy.com, and Newegg. Even worse, the highly unethical strategy seems to have worked—almost fifteen pages worth of Belkin products on Amazon have perfect five-star ratings.
Bayard brazenly hosted the fraud using Amazon’s own Mechanical Turk, which allows people to farm out menial tasks that computers can’t perform. Bayard isn’t some rogue Belkin employee trying to earn a few brownie points. According to his recently disabled LinkedIn profile, he’s responsible for overseeing “sales of Belkin products to major .com accounts such as Amazon.com.” As our estranged sister site Gizmodo points out, consumers rely on fair and impartial views to counterbalance misleading marketing claims. This incident shows one of the best reasons to always look for the negative reviews of any product.
We’re confident Belkin will soon release a statement strongly condemning Bayard’s actions and promising an investigation or some equally worthless schmaltz, but we really want to hear from Amazon. This form of fraud—and let’s not call it anything else—has happened before and it will happen again.
I have always liked most Belkins products and service, was this really necessary?
If they mail decent products they would have to do this.
After the last Belkin purchase I refuse to even consider another.
I bought a two way printer cable so both my wife’s computer and I could use it. Only it won’t let her computer log on if I have used it without a printer reboot. An email to Belkin support went unanswered as did a follow up.
Yup, a little shoddy consumer support and a lost customer
It’s sad, Belkin used to ave a good rep, at least in my book. I been wondering if this problem is more wide-spread? Some of the reviews I’ve read on Amazon seem to be rather suspect at times. I don’t think Amazon has anything to do with it. But they may need to limit posted comments to people that have actually purchased the product from Amazon.
Odd… I’ve always liked Belkin’s products. They used to have rock-solid quality. But their DSL modem crapped out on me, which surprised me.
Okay, maybe there was a momentary slip-up somewhere and those Belkin’s reviews were less than truthful and independent, but the rest of all the internet reviews are okay. Aren’t they?
RBG
But all Belkin products are great!!!! Never gave me a problem. I recommend them to all my friends and families and strangers!!!!
Michael Bayard, please mail my check to:
[ADDRESS REMOVED BY EDITOR]
“Ron Larson said,
Odd… I’ve always liked Belkin’s products. They used to have rock-solid quality. But their DSL modem crapped out on me, which surprised me.”
Could be systemic, Ron. Cut product quality at the same time they try to shore up public opinion of their products. If someone knew Belkin’s org chart, they could possibly trace these sick practices (and maybe more) to a single higher-up person. I have good Belkin hardware, but it is several years old! I might be disappointed like you, were I to buy some newer stuff.