Christ Centered Gamer

So today I got "relieved" of a task from someone I do some occasional computer work for. They sell many products on Amazon and have over 90% store rating there. Apparently that's not good enough and they asked me to head up a system for the employees to place orders and leave feedback to boost their rating. The employees would get reimbursed and no product actually shipped, maybe a blank envelope to generate a tracking number.

While I can't find any flat out rules against this, I don't think it's ethical. I basically told them that other companies have gotten fined severely for being caught doing false reviews. Is it worth the risk? All it takes is one disgruntled employee to out them.

I said I was willing to do a legitimate purchase and would leave positive feedback if the item arrived when promised. I gave them some tips to use if they decided to go through with the fluffed up reviews (personal emails with other purchase history, wait a few days for feedback etc)

I got a phone call back saying I probably wasn't the right person for this task....I agree.

So, what would you have done?

You done well. Better than me, because I would have gone all Dick Cheney on it.
Probably not, I just wanted to reference the Dick Cheney-Pat Leahy incident.

That would be an unethical practice and straight up deceptive. It's one of those "not technically lying, but still totally lying" cases. Makes you wonder why their reviews aren't good enough.

Anyhow, their proposed system is a fantastic way to make an employee hate their job. A previous company I worked for asked their employees had bad reviews on glassdoor and asked their employees to write good ones. It was pretty obvious the good ones were written by either the executives or employees "drinking the juice." Worst company I ever worked for. By the time I left, the dev team was half what it was when I started. I should go write them a bad review...

Their bad reviews were from people waiting over a month for their order...a legitimate beef if you ask me! Why not fix the problem instead of fluffing it over? If you can't ship an item in time, refund and apologize to the customer. It's 100X better than taking their money and making them wait.

I have seen a lot of people come and go and I'm just a freelance consultant so I honestly don't care one way or the other what she thinks of me. Sure I'll take the money but I won't break my moral code to do so.

Yikes! Forget that noise. That company sounds like they have problems straight from the tippy top.

It's commendable that you'll turn down jobs that would compromise your ethical code. As my mother would put it, how much is your conscience worth?
Turns out, for me, about $3.50. Tree-fiddy.

Back in the days when eBay was new a lot of people were doing that, because in the early days, you could leave feedback without it being tied to a particular transaction.

I agree that refusing to do it was the right move. The whole point of a review system is to get honest information about a product, service or company, and these people were looking to short-circuit that process which is just dishonest.

Boom. Third seal, Arch.

The tribulation is upon us.

A wise choice. God love you for your honesty. That'll take you farther than knowing how to artificially increase reputation.

I think you did the right thing by refusing. False reviews are flat out lies. Now if you had OWNED the thing you were reviewing (eg, if the company or person asked only those who owned what they were reviewing) they could have reviewed the PRODUCT... but still not the shipping, unless they got it the same way.

Me? I'd have told them outright that it was lying, and probably gotten fired for it.

Stick up for what you believe, people... If you loose your soul, gaining the whole world would profit you nothing.