Amazon this week filed lawsuits in three states, aiming to squash what it describes as fraudulent affiliate marketing schemes driven by email campaigns purporting to come from the Seattle e-commerce giant.
The suits allege that companies in Georgia, Michigan and Texas wrongly used Amazon’s branding in spam campaigns designed to send traffic to fake Amazon-branded surveys run by online marketers. Those marketers then made money off advertising impressions, according to the suits.
It’s part of a broader effort by the company to crack down on fraud. In May, the company filed suit against companies in Washington state and India, alleging that they tricked new users of Echo speakers and other Alexa devices into paying for purported technical support. Other actions by the company have targeted everything from get-rich-quick scams to fake customer reviews to sales of knock-off products.
The latest suits were filed against Michigan-based companies Sendwell and Lakeshore Development Group; Georgia-based PhatLogic; Texas-based Omala Internet Solutions; and Germany-based SpreadyourAds.
“Amazon has no tolerance for schemes fraudulently using our brand, and we are appalled at these bad actors’ attempts to deceive our customers,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. “We are advocating for customers by holding these bad actors accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Amazon says it has shut down the campaigns and has secured an agreement from the Michigan defendants to stop using the company’s brand.
The company filed a similar lawsuit last year against an Illinois-based affiliate marketing company, First Impression Interactive, and won prohibitions against use of the Amazon brand by that company.
Separately, Amazon says it has stopped a series of fake Amazon-branded email campaigns from companies and people in Colorado and California, with the people involved agreeing to stop using the company’s trademarks or brands
The affiliate marketing schemes are different than recent phishing scams that caught police attention last month, using purported Amazon branding to trick recipients into divulging personal information.
Amazon says customers should report unsolicited emails and texts here, and the company has more information about decoding suspicious emails, phone calls, and webpages here. The company has previously filed similar lawsuits to prevent scammers from fooling Amazon customers.
