> “I definitely feel like I have to keep [the reviewing] a secret from people who have strong morals,” Jessica added.
Age old scam that works because of people like Jessica who lack any moral compass and will help to screw over anyone for a buck.
Age old scam that works because of people like Jessica who lack any moral compass and will help to screw over anyone for a buck.
Keep in mind that this current scam has only become the norm because of the outcry over incentivized reviews, which resulted in their subsequent ban.
I used to do incentivized reviews, and I followed the rules with disclosures (most incentivized reviewers did that, but not all). After the ban, all those companies using incentivized reviews switched to the backchannel reviews with reimbursement via Paypal, just like the lady in the article.
With incentivized reviews, you could easily dismiss them at your discretion, because the disclosure had to be in the review text. But everything now is a "verified purchase", and most "normals" don't know what to believe or ignore.
I tend to think a good portion of incentivized reviews were pretty honest (fwiw, the vast majority of products I received were quite good for their selling price). When looking at what other people wrote about the same products, however, I could tell that a small percentage of people were writing reviews without even trying the products. The unfortunate part was that those people tended to have the highest rankings in the review leader board.
Looks to me like "Jessica" might be a co-conspirator to racketeering. If I were a prosecutor, perhaps I would think that's something for a jury to sort out?
the question is: who has the right incentives to stop this kind of behavior?
it’s true that good people are not resolving to this crappy behavior. it’s also true that are a lot of people that do cheat the system.
bottom line, this is a systematic issue and until the right incentives are in place this problem is not going to just fix itself.
This is far from a "stealing bread to eat" situation. Jessica isn't scamming people for basic needs, she's conning people for luxury items.
If it were about simply putting food on the table, she'd be reselling everything after she reviewed them, instead of leaving them in a pile in some corner.
As opposed to buying food with the money which OP is implying by saying her stomach is empty.
> “I’m pretty sure I’m at a 10% loss. But I’m okay with it, because I’ve gotten a whole bunch of new stuff.”
The cheap crap is the payment. She's not making much on reselling them, either:
> Jessica gives away many of the items she reviews, and she has made about $150 by selling products on Facebook Marketplace. She’s donated clothes that don’t fit and handed off the rest to family members or friends.
However, she should probably be paying income tax on the value of the items she receives because they are payment for her labor in writing fake reviews. If she’s actually paying taxes on the income, then she could easily be losing money.
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/impact-itemi...
She could probably resell some of the stuff for money, even at a fraction of the price she's make a little since she got it for free, but it doesn't sound like she's doing that.
She is not doing this because she's starving. Anyone who can front-load $2800 (as she gets paid several weeks, to months, afterward from the sellers) can certainly afford to feed herself. Besides, you can't eat an outdoor plastic bird bath.
To her this is most likely a game... I get it, it's fun, and you get a bunch of random stuff that you don't pay for! As mentioned in the article, "it's Christmas every day". Who doesn't like getting packages?
> “I really don’t think I’m making money on it at all. I’m pretty sure I’m losing money,” Jessica said while looking over her spreadsheet. “I’m pretty sure I’m at a 10% loss. But I’m okay with it, because I’ve gotten a whole bunch of new stuff.”
If she worked 15 hours/week part-time for minimum wage, she'd have more spendable income (about $6500), than the benefits she gets from $15,000/year worth of merchandise. Of course, if she turns around and ebays this for, say $5,000, she won't have to report the income and can still collect maximum food stamp and housing aid benefits, which no doubt she does.
I bet she doesn’t leave a note when she backs into another car in the parking lot either. The parking spaces are too narrow...
The intent is to deceive other shoppers. Sure she's not some evil scourge upon the world, but that doesn't make it right.