Due to the surge in online shopping activities in recent years, there has been also a direct increase in fraudulent activities by sellers. The e-commerce giant Amazon has taken some steps to put an end to online fraud by validating the identity of the sellers via the use of video calls.
Amazon is taking some innovative steps to verify all sellers by first testing video calls to verify third-party sellers. The world’s largest e-commerce giant has already been under criticism due to the authenticity of their products. For Example, some of the sellers were selling products with Fake labels of “Apple” and “Nokia”.
This unique verification process started earlier at the start of this year and initially, there were plans for verifying every person but due to the current scenario of coronavirus pandemic, the company delayed this and later decided to only verify via video calls.
An Amazon spokesperson said recently, “As we practice social distancing, we are testing a process that allows us to validate prospective sellers’ identification via videoconferencing. This pilot testing will allow us to connect one-on-one with prospective sellers while making it even more difficult for fraudsters to hide.”
Amazon has started its verification trials of testing video calls in different countries of the world like China, Japan, the US, and the UK. It will verify the ID and documents of the seller and so far more than 1000 sellers have been verified with this starter verification project. Amazon is also using a machine learning system to identify sellers, it will also check for other misuses of accounts, that either the seller has any link or associated with previously suspended accounts in the past.
According to research from firm Marketplace Pulse in 2019, 40% of the top 10000 sellers in European countries were from China. There were misuses of accounts from most of the sellers that were from China because Chinese based sellers have a history of multiple accounts registered as the seller.
Project Zero was also part of this game, in which Amazon allowed the sellers to provide logos and trademarks for their products. Only last year, the company banned 2.5 million invalid seller accounts at Amazon, and Amazon is also taking some legal steps to withdraw such products from the market.
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