On April 10, 2023, the FTC approved a final consent order against The Bountiful Company for abusing a feature of Amazon.com to deceive consumers into thinking that its newly introduced supplements had more product ratings and reviews, higher average ratings, and “#1 Best Seller” and “Amazon’s Choice” badges. The Bountiful Company is a manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of various vitamins and supplements.
In February 16, 2023, the FTC filed a complaint against The Bountiful Company for the alleged practice of “review hijacking”, in which a marketer steals or repurposes reviews of another product. In February 22, 2023, the FTC published an Analysis of Proposed Consent Order to Aid Public comment describing both the allegations in the complaint and the terms of the consent order.
The FTC’s February 2023 complaint alleged that by manipulating Amazon.com product pages, Bountiful misrepresented the reviews, the number of Amazon reviews and the average star ratings of some products, and that some of them were number one best sellers or had earned an Amazon Choice badge. After the public comment period, the FTC approved the Consent Order requiring Bountiful to pay $600,000 as monetary relief for consumers. In addition, the final order prohibits Bountiful from making similar types of misrepresentations and bars the company from using deceptive review tactics that distort what consumers think about its products or services.
Read the FTC’s press release here.
The final consent order can be found here.