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Belkin boss 'extremely sorry' for cash-for-good-reviews plan

Unauthorised actions of just one employee

Accessory maker Belkin has formally apologised for paying punters to plug its products in Amazon.com's buyer reviews system.

According to an open letter from Belkin big cheese Mark Reynoso, the "unethical practice" was conducted by "one of our employees", who offered cash in exchange for good reviews.

It's not clear whether the offer, made on Amazon's Mechanical Turk site, was taken up. Reynoso said that the Mechanical Turk postings were removed "swiftly" and that the company was working with its online retail partners to seek, locate and destroy any reviews that were posted as a result of the unnamed employee's offer.

We say 'unnamed', but at least one Belkin staffer has been accused of the malpractice and named on the net. However, Belkin did not confirm that the worker was behind the scam.

Reynoso said Belkin was "extremely sorry" about it all, and said that the company's retail partners were not involved - or even aware it had taken place. ®

Latest Comments

Belkin?

I can't bring myself to buy their stuff, the name is horrible.

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Caveat emptor

I've got a Belkin switch and a KVM thingy from them and they work fine (also a spare SOHO router but I've never used that for more than an hour or so at a time). I wouldn't buy an UPS off them, though! Far too critical to leave to a non-specialist.

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Works for me

I like Belkin products. They've always been reliable for me, more so than the Netgear crap, and I've only had one problem when a 3-year-old wireless router blew up. Belkin support (in Oz) shipped me the next model up free of charge within 3 days. Can't complain about that kind of service.

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@ThinkingOutLoud

Are you confusing Belden (very high quality cables) with Belkin by any chance?

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Anonymous Coward

@ Thinking Out Loud

And which industry would that be then?!

(I do a lot of live and studio audio work, as well as some video post. Which to me would cover about everything that would need audio cables. And everyone I know would either laugh in the face of Belkin, or would never of heard of it because their market penetration is so dismal)

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