11 people were arrested and a cross-border service provider was arrested!

In the busy New Year, everyone should remember to eat some melons. Despite the risk of being closed down, gray transactions such as fake orders are still growing quietly and wantonly. Under the crackdown by all parties, some service providers have been arrested and some have been sentenced.

11 people in a fake order service gang were arrested

“The worst consequence of brushing orders is getting caught and having your store closed by the platform. But if you don’t brush orders, you will most likely be driven to death by other sellers who brush orders, or even starved to death on the platform.” Many sellers believe in this “truth” and commit illegal acts on the platform. The final result is predictable.

Recently, the public security department of Yiyang County, Rao City, Jiangxi Province reported a case of cross-border e-commerce order fraud . Eleven members of the team were arrested, and the police seized a large number of computers, mobile phones and other tools used in the crime. The amount involved in the case exceeded 10 million yuan.

The best way to describe this team is to say that they are selling dog meat under the guise of selling mutton. The company is mainly engaged in software sales, but in fact it is mainly engaged in illegal activities such as fake orders. In order to specialize in fake order services, they created an APP called "**侠". Through fake transactions, they increase the store's transaction volume and praise rate, thereby increasing the conversion rate, thereby achieving the purpose of improving the store's search ranking and standing out from homogeneous products.

The team had a clear division of labor, and also set up multiple positions such as hierarchical agents, order-brushing group leaders, order-brushing buyers, and goods delivery. It can be said that the illegal operation method was quite meticulous. At present, the case is under further investigation.

In the eyes of many sellers, Amazon is all about “who has more reviews, who has better reviews”. Reviews have become the key to determining conversion rate. A bad review will cause sales to plummet, but a good review can turn the tide. It is reported that the conversion rate of good reviews for low-priced products and high-priced products is 190% and 380% respectively. And in terms of average data, every increase of 1 star in product rating can bring 26% sales.

Some sellers believe that stores that do not post orders will not only be forced into vicious competition, but may also be unable to promote new products. As a result, a number of fake order chains have emerged in the cross-border circle, which has also led to an endless stream of such cases, and some offenders who engage in such work have even been held criminally responsible.

Last year, two Amazon fake order service providers in Jimei District, Xiamen were arrested. According to their feedback, they paid at least 180 yuan for each review. At that time, the amount of illegal business disclosed in the case reached more than 168,500 yuan, which was considered serious and they were sentenced to several years in prison. The amount involved in the case of the above service gang exceeded 10 million yuan, and their profit situation can be imagined. It is not ruled out that they will have the same fate.

Amazon has always strictly prohibited fake orders, but it has not been completely eliminated. Since May 2021, Amazon's account ban has affected a large number of top and mid-level sellers, and the same situation happened again in 2022. Even with a large number of top sellers falling in front, the subsequent sellers have not been able to rest assured.

Some cross-border sellers believe that they cannot survive without fake orders, but is this really the case? If we carefully analyze the areas most affected by fake orders, we will find that most of them are products in highly competitive, highly saturated and homogeneous categories. On the other hand, some brand merchants, merchants with unique features and cost-effectiveness, do not rely on fake orders, but instead set their sights on some new traffic entrances.

Is it a sure win to do e-commerce? A man was defrauded of 300,000 yuan

"Find a side job and transfer money easily," there are endless promotional gimmicks like these on online platforms. Even though the police in various regions have been promoting it day after day, they have not been able to stop the speed of fraud companies.

A man living in Pingluo County also did not escape the cross-border e-commerce fraud. The man said that he received a call asking him "whether he wanted to do cross-border e-commerce business". After learning about it, he felt good and did not doubt anything else. He began to operate according to the woman's requirements and successively downloaded Fusen Management Co., Ltd. software, TikTok   APP and a Korean version of the chat software .

Later, he began to follow the woman's method and started trading items before Double Eleven. At that time, there were many buyers shopping on its platform, and the man thought his chance had come. However, at that time, the platform required sellers to convert the payment into US dollars and pay it to the platform first, which means that the money needed to be reserved by the platform first.

After the buyer signs for the goods, the platform will return the money for these products to the seller. At this point, the man did not think there was anything wrong and immediately paid the platform a whopping 300,000 yuan in payment as required. However, he soon found that the platform could not refund him, and then he realized that he had been cheated.

Coincidentally, @风中厂长最 recently shared a case of being scammed, and a mother of two was also scammed recently. It is reported that the mother first saw the training video of TikTok, and then the fraud company took advantage of the mother's desire to make money and asked her to buy Douyin courses and equipment to make a matrix account. The mother collected more than 30,000 yuan by swiping her credit card, but in the end she received a bunch of junk courses and equipment, and no one responded to the customer service.

In fact, there are many people who have had the same experience. Dozens of defrauded sellers have begun to defend their rights and trace the root causes. It can be found that these scammers' tricks are exactly the same. Most of them use some money-making gimmicks and cases to promote the popular cross-border e-commerce platforms, and explain how simple it is to do cross-border e-commerce, trick people into buying courses, etc., and finally run away after getting the money.

Moreover, in the eyes of some scammers, many victims who suffer losses will not seek redress. One reason may be that the amount of money involved is small and does not meet the conditions for filing a case; another reason is that many people will be discouraged by the obstacles in the road to redress. Only a very small number of people can file a lawsuit or report the case, which is also an important reason for the prevalence of this phenomenon.

In recent years, due to the strong development momentum of cross-border e-commerce, the huge profits behind it have also been envied by sellers. It is no longer a new thing for them to take advantage of various loopholes and walk in the gray area of ​​the law.

It is not just the fake orders and fraud we mentioned above, but also payment, high imitation, taxation and other aspects, which are mostly in gray areas. While it has an impact on overseas brands, it also puts higher requirements on the supervision of the platform. In the future, the compliance trend will only be stricter, and sellers will also need to abide by the red line and operate in compliance.

Fake orders

Amazon

Cross-border