On February 16, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charged The Bountiful Company, now owned by Nestle, with ‘review hijacking’ – a tactic in which a marketer steals or repurposes reviews of another product.
The case is the FTC’s first law enforcement challenging ‘review hijacking.’
According to the Commission’s press release, during 2020 and 2021, The Bountiful Company requested that Amazon create several variation relationships for its supplement products with different formulations.
Amazon allows its vendors and third-party sellers to request ‘variation’ relationships between products that are substantially similar. However, the products can only differ in specific ways – such as size, color, quantity, or flavor.
The FTC notes that the supplement company merged its new products on Amazon with significantly different well-established products, which may have led customers to believe the new products had better reviews, higher ratings, and #1 Best Seller/Amazon Choice badges.
For example, according to the FTC complaint, in March 2021, “[The Bountiful Company] began selling two new products, Nature’s Bounty Brain Superfood capsules and Nature’s Bounty Brain Focus chewable tablets, to Amazon for sale on Amazon.com. [Bountiful] requested that Amazon create a variation relationship between those products and an established product, Nature’s Bounty Ginkgo Biloba 120mg capsules. The products had different formulations.”
In the same month, The Bountiful Company began selling another new product to Amazon called Sundown Kids Vitamin C Gummies.
“[Bountiful] requested that Amazon create a variation relationship between [Sundown Kids Vitamin C Gummies] and an established product, Sundown Kids Disney and Pixar Toy Story 4 Multivitamin Gummies. The products had different formulations. As of May 26, 2022, the products together had 7,546 ratings and 344 reviews, of which only 1,143 ratings and 38 reviews were for the Sundown Kids Vitamin C Gummies,” the FTC states in the complaint.
After a public comment period, the FTC approved the final order against The Bountiful Company on April 10. As a result, the Commission is ordering the company to pay $600,000 to customers. In addition, Bountiful is prohibited from creating similar misrepresentations and banned from altering customer beliefs about its products through creating a variation relationship.
The Bountiful Company has not responded to Healthnews’ request for comment on the FTC’s final order.
