/lightcatch/images/image-5a9e0.png "Lightcatch Logo for menu")
If I had low business ethics, what is the best way to trick people into buying?
Easy.
1- cheap price
2- list on amazon
3- lots of good reviews
The best way to get good reviews is to hire a company to fake them.
Listing on amazon looks to be easy, they are coin operated.
If you can pirate a review site to rate you in the top 10, the fake reviews work double time.
You don’t even need to talk to people to pull this off.
What is the problem with a little scam as long as we get a good deal?
Failure rates were collected from over 10,000 property crimes and the results were surprisingly poor.
9 out of 10 crimes had video footage that was useless to the police.
For a full explanation of why security camera’s can have such an exceptionally high failure rate, see the Security Camera Buyers Guide – 2023.
Letting My Children Down
There are two gifts I got my children over the last 18 years that stand out.
When my oldest boys were under 10 I saw these semi-truck car haulers loaded with some cars at Costco for under $25.
I never had much money for gifts, and when I saw the price, it was my chance to be memorable.
The boys were so excited when Dad brought home toys just for them.
A couple weeks later the trailers for the trucks were destroyed.
It hurt knowing that what I had bought them was flimsy and didn’t last. Others could afford toys that lasted for years. Mine didn’t make 30 days.
I trusted Costco, thinking the toys were something that they weren't.
Another time I brought home bins so their overcrowded bedrooms could have more play room.
Carefully we put their name on each bin, marked where each ones should go and then put lots of toys inside each one. After that, we stacked them so everything was organized.
The bins turned out to be so cheap they all broke a short time later.
It still hurts when I think of seeing the boys trying to keep using these jagged edged bins that could no longer stack, just because it was Dad who gave them.
Who knew every bin wasn't as tough as a rubbermaid? I wasn't expecting junk, just a good deal.
The children are the kind of person we are likely to let down if we don't get our home security right.
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I typed in a search for a security camera on my phone.
Buyers Guide - buyersguide.org ad was the top result.
Their site advertised 10 top rated cameras.
All the top 10 links happened to go to just one place, amazon in Canada.
All 10 links at amazon were for products made in China.
All seemed to have a fairly common backstory.
It is also important to know this recent news in the security industry.
The two biggest security camera sellers in the world are branches of the Chinese government disguised as companies.
These two government branches selling cameras got caught with so many spying mechanisms they became banned in several countries like the US and England over the last five years.
The ban on these brands was just one more example among so many, of the Chinese government caught stealing and spying from people, business, and countries.
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A site like Buyers Guide site could be a great help to Chinese companies needing to dump stuff.
The banned cameras could be rebranded under different names and sold via Amazon to help them look trustworthy.
We do know this:
1) The Buyers Guide site says they are independent but happen to only link to products from China sold on amazon.
2) They say over 1 million people use their site every week so this looks to be big business. Big enough to support the former #1 and #2 sellers of cameras worldwide.
We want to think that the cameras that are right for us only need to be ‘good enough’, that we don’t need a Cadillac version, just something that works.
Checking reviews helps give us peace of mind that what we might buy would be worth it. But wait.
A review for a dentist tells you what the prices and service are like.
A review for a blender tells you how well it works and maybe how long it lasts.
A review for software tells you how it ranks against a competitor.
A review for a book tells you what was inside.
A review for a security camera tells you nothing about how secure you are.
It’s like reading about a life insurance company’s great rating because the policy was cheap and the salesperson looked good.
When someone has died, you need more than a good looking insurance rep.
Buy These Cameras And Show Your Trust In The Chinese Government
The number one rated camera on Buyers Guide dot org is a eufy – ANKER model with a 9.9 star rating.
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On eufy’s website it is plain that the main company is called Anker. See the top contact email below.
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Anker is a company based out of China according to Wikipedia.
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Or is it Fantasia Holdings instead of Anker that is selling these cameras?
The bottom of eufy’s site says the company is Fantasia holdings.
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Is the best rated camera on Buyers Guide website a eufy, an anker, a fantasia, or is it a banned camera in disguise?
Perhaps the reason it says Fantasia holdings is that someone is going to be left owning a fantasy after buying this stuff.
Great work by Buyers Guide and Amazon working together to dump this kind of thing on to people who trust the fake reviews and jump at the low price.
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Is ZOSI a company on the up and up and really a solid number two choice? I’ve been in this business for over four years and had never heard of a ZOSI.
Their website says they have 18 years of innovation and operate in 146 countries with 25 million customers. That is huge, and it would make them one of the bigger security camera companies in the world.
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This reference site says the company was founded in 2013 though. That would mean ZOSI has only been in business for 10 years not 18.
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So why would they show in big bold letters 18 years of innovation instead of 10?
Maybe the 18 years of innovation was exaggerated, or maybe it is explainable in some way.
One thing is sure, on the ZOSI website it doesn't say where their cameras are being made.
If you can’t report where you are based and how long you are in business, telling the truth may not be important.
Or perhaps the 18 years of innovation is really true.
Perhaps with this many countries, and this many customers, ZOSI is just a rebranded camera that has been banned across the world under different names.
These could easily be banned cameras pushed out the door by fake reviews and subsidized by the Chinese government to have the lowest price.
Amazon is getting lots of commissions from this product. What a poor misleading marketing system their business is using. It seems shady.
Somehow after checking out the websites for the #1 product eufy, and the #2 camera ZOSI, the #3 recommendation, SMONET’s website feels so familiar.
These No caps or ALL CAPS company names that make up Buyers Guide top 10 recommendations are also feeling familiar.
Every camera on Buyers Guide is from eufy, ZOSI, SMONET, JOOAN, and OOSSXX. All seem to have similar approaches to the english language.
I looked up top 10 electronics manufacturers in China just to see if ALL CAPS or no caps was a cultural thing.
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Only 2 out of 9 of the top electronics manufacturers use ALL CAPS and they are pretty clearly initials with no vowels. So there isn't a cultural reason to do this.
The recommendations from Buyers Guide top 10 cameras all seem to have the same approach to naming a company though.
Who is SMONET and where do they come from?
Online they let a visitor know they are a professional website.
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Saying you are a professional website must be important to mention first like this.
Does being a website mean you are just a website and not a company?
It does seem hard to find where the company is based out of.
Here is the About page. It says on the second paragraph they are gaining ‘influence’ in the North American market and it looks like they are based outside of North America.
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They close the About section noting they are one of the top 3 sellers on Amazon in the United States
Clearly Amazon has been benefited by SMONET becoming the #3 seller in the US.
The sales Amazon gets from this arrangement take sales away from camera suppliers like Google, Best Buy, and other North American dealers.
SMONET may have no choice if the government visits them one day and now requires them to sell a subsidized banned camera under their company name at a cheaper price than every other supplier.
We do know the About page says they are gaining influence in North America. That is exactly what spyware and spying does, gain influence.
SMONET may have no spyware and it may have no security holes in their product, but the fact Buyers Guide can pump this product as #3 and #4 just seems suspicious in light of the other tricks that are being done.
One day number 8 was JOOAN. Most days number 8 is OOSSXX.
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OOSSXX says their company is based out of Shenzen China.
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Credit to this company for being straight forward and clear where they are from and that making security cameras systems is what they do.
Some of the higher rated cameras hide this information.
Amazon uses reviews on their site to sell products.
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Buyers Guide looks to be independent yet conveniently points every shopper to just one website, amazon.
Buyers Guide can afford to spend big on advertising.
Buyers Guide can also afford to use advanced algorithmic software to 'crunch' results, plus have expert analysts doing research, plus support over 1 million visitors every week according to their website.
Those are all things like what Amazon does.
This is an advanced, well financed, promotion machine, designed to send millions of online visitors to destinations they believe are based on great reviews.
Amazon, the largest retailer in the world, gets so much financial benefit from a site like Buyers Guide they may not want to admit how much money they spend to have a marketing arm like this working for them.
Amazon may also not want to admit how much security camera business they have captured in the US and Canada using products that may or may not be banned.
Since all recommendations point to products that one single company profits from, we can assume this is a good revenue source.
The Chinese government is highly motivated to continue the sales of cameras that once made them #1 and #2 in worldwide sales.
Their motivation to promote sales of security cameras regardless of who or what is hurt in the process is clearly established over the last 20 years.
Reviews about security cameras do not match the extremely high failure rates victims experience.
With two big online tricksters working so well together liking this their message is persuasive and very visible.
Tricks, tricks, tricks.
Lightcatch helps home owners get security services from local vendors, plus deliver technology and support innovations that are guaranteed to keep your loved ones and property safe.
This method uses over 20 proven approaches to block crime versus security cameras that are used to watch crime.
The results are 10X better than just security cameras.
The net savings on security spend will likely stay the same or go down. Crime Blocking avoids wasting money on expensive cameras in locations where they are not needed.