Taobao Seller Reveals Trust Scandal

Beijing Morning Post, 5/09/08

A Taobao seller recently put up a post online in which he revealed that a professional "trust scrubber" has established groups on QQ for "scrubbing" people's online trust rankings and resale of Taobao online stores that have already had their trust ranking manipulated. The scrubber uses multiple user accounts to initiate small transactions with the target seller, following which they pump up the seller's trust ranking with good evaluations. Afterwards, control remains in the scrubber's hands, as he may then order former clients to submit high ratings for other, current clients and threaten to report them to Taobao for "trust scrubbing" if they fail to comply. According to the poster, the "scrubber" now controls several hundred Taobao sellers, and has reported 50 people.

A spokesperson for Taobao said that after being informed of the matter, the company initiated "accelerated processing" of users whose trust ratings were suspected of having been scrubbed.

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