Saturday, October 10, 2015

Chummie Deceit on Amazon Continues!

We were thinking (and hoping) that with all of his recent losses in the Courtroom and elsewhere, Theos Medical Systems and its owner Saket Bhatia, admonished by a U.S. Federal Judge who ordered them to stop and correct various nefarious activities of theirs, would start behaving in an honest and professional manner. We now have reason to believe that Theos/Chummie/Bhatia’s illicit behavior continues, particularly on Amazon Reviews. Please remember that the manipulation of Amazon Reviews underlies much of Theos/Chummie/Bhatia’s deceit, whether hyping his firm and products, or attacking his competitors.

We pay great attention to Chummie’s reviews on Amazon, and have also learned to pay great attention to the reviews that show up on Amazon with respect to the competitor that Theos/Chummie/Bhatia love to hate, namely DryBuddy. Again, we can certainly understand why the antagonist (Theos/Chummie/Bhatia) would be competitively fearful of DryBuddy, as they are very innovative, while Theos/Chummie/Bhatia are sitting still on an over-hyped product such as the Chummy Premium or the very poorly selling Chummie Elite. We are ignoring their other plastic toys as they are not valid to our discussion. Please see the table at the end of this article that very adequately demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the two Chummie alarms without Theos/Chummie/Bhatia’s manipulation of reviews or other illicit activities.

So let us examine what we believe are some of Theos/Chummie/Bhatia’s latest misadventures on Amazon Reviews.

We noticed that some readers of Amazon Reviews have also become conscious of something that we have long believed in when looking at the credibility of Amazon Reviews. If we see a review (good or bad) for a product, and essentially no other reviews which go back some time, there is a distinct possibility that this new review could have been posted by someone with an axe to grind or something to hype. Since Theos/Chummie/Bhatia were told by a Federal Judge that the rash of reviews of Chummie products by Unverified Purchasers contained many fake reviews purchased for cash by Theos/Chummie/Bhatia, Theos/Chummie/Bhatia appear to now be purchasing their own product(s) from Amazon, paying Amazon their charges, and hyping the product as a Verified Purchaser. Let’s look at some recent evidence.

Looking at the 10 most recent Amazon Reviews for the Chummie Premium, the latest to date being copied below: 

ByDr. LB on October 8, 2015
Format: Health and BeautyVerified Purchase1 of 1 people found this review helpful
I have personally tried the Chummie Bedwetting Alarm on my son and he doesn't wet the bed anymore. This alarm has a soft silicon is far superior to any clip sensors that pokes and causes irritation. The easy to navigate switch makes it simple to change tones nightly.
I would personally never recommend a one tone alarm as it causes auditory accommodation, where you child gets used to one tone and might not respond to treatment after sometime. That's why its better to buy a Chummie that has 8-tones pre-built that will not cause any auditory accommodation.
With millions of American children that suffer and wake up to the embarrassment of bedwetting, for no fault of theirs. Chummie is their best bet.
A helpful note for parents like me, whether treatment is gradual or super fast, have a little patience. Eventually you should achieve results. Goodluck with your treatment.

Note that this is the ONLY review by the “Dr. LB.” Furthermore, if you have been following Chummie and Saket Bhatia as long as we have, the statements in the review are directly from the blurbs that Chummie uses in there promotions. The review may well be a Chummie promotion. In fact it is.

So why do we think that “Dr. LB” may well be Saket Bhatia or a close associate? We are aware that on October 8, 2015, the same date as the above “review,” “Dr. LB” went to an Amazon Review of the Chummie Elite going back to August 26, 2014 (Yes, over a year ago) which we reproduce below:

2.0 out of 5 starsExtremely Flawed Design. Does Not Work For Kids Who Move In Their Sleep., August 26, 2014
By 
Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Chummie Elite Bedwetting Alarm with 5 Tones and Vibration, Green (Health and Beauty)
Based on the reviews I was excited to try this product for my nine-year-old son. I wish I had actually read the reviews from the verified purchasers because my problems are similar to theirs. The design is so flawed that it simply does not work. We have had it an entire week and it has not stayed on once through the night.

My son moves around a lot when he sleeps. Knowing this, I read the FAQ sheet on the company website and was prepared to use more flex tape and to have him wear two pairs of underwear. Unfortunately, this still didn't help the sensor stay in place. Furthermore, the plug that attaches to the alarm kept coming unplugged. I taped the plug to the alarm, but it still did not work. I even sewed a small pocket into his pajama t-shirt to put the alarm in and secured it with Velcro. Every morning his bed was wet, the sensor was off his underwear and the sensor was unplugged from the alarm. I don't know that anything will work at this point. The "clip" that it comes with is absolutely ridiculous. I also don't want to spend more money for an armband, especially if the thing becomes unplugged anyway.

It's unfortunate because my son was really excited about having an alarm to help him stop wetting the bed. It's hard enough being nine and wetting the bed. Having a tool that is supposed to help, but doesn't work is an additional blow to his self-esteem.

I contacted the company this morning. I'm hoping that they will refund my money. In hindsight, I wish I had gone with an alarm that has a mat on the bed. Unfortunately, we had to scrimp and save for this alarm, so I will not be able to purchase one any time soon.

Bottom line: For any kids who moves when they sleep, this is definitely not the alarm for you.

O.K. So this reviewer was unhappy with the Chummie Elite and gave some detailed reasons for his/her unhappiness.
One of the comments to this review (over a year ago) was:

Do a Googl search for Chummie Fraud on Amazon Reviews. Lots of info.”

We thoroughly agree. We can certainly comprehend that Theos/Chummie/Bhatia sees red about all such references.

So “Dr. LB” says:

Oct 8, 2015 7:09:33 PM PDT
Dr. LB says:

M, you're such a fraud. Amazon should remove your comment and disable your account.
Why would “Dr. LB” even be thinking about a review for a product which he did not buy, and the review is over a year old? Could Theos/Chummie/Bhatia be brooding about it? Very possibly. Very likely. We track these things carefully. We noticed that this comment was removed later, but not before we got a copy of it! That is what we reproduce above.
“Dr. L.B.” very likely falls into our category of fraudulent reviewers/reviews with this one-only review of the Chummie Premium and peculiar critique of an adverse review over a year old. So it appears that Theos/Chummie/Bhatia are purchasing products from Amazon so that they can be Verified Purchasers for their bogus Amazon Reviews!

While on the subject of possibly bogus reviews with no review history, just on the last page (10 reviews) for Chummie Premium, possible fake reviews include:
·         Dr LB (5-stars) verified
·         bandele (5-stars) not verified
·         Michelle (5-stars) verified
·         Kristi (5-stars) verified
·         Joe Jepson (5-stars) not verified
·         Johny and Tisha’s mommy (5-stars) verified
·         F.T.R. (5-stars) verified
·         Liz (5-stars) not verified

8 suspect reviews out of the latest 10! And some, including the almost certainly fake Dr.LB, are for the Green color, the item that is really languishing on the shelves and which Theos/Chummie/Bhatia need to promote and make it look like there is “real” demand for it. Obviously, it appears to be worth it for Theos/Chummie/Bhatia to be purchasing their product from Amazon. It is so absurdly high-priced relative to its likely cost, that creating fake demand like this is a very valid strategy for the ever-innovative-in-deceit Theos/Chummie/Bhatia in their quest to dominate this market! Their deceit never appears to be a valid consideration in their minds or mind-set. And they can reduce these costs of buying these products by returning the items purchased to Amazon and getting a refund. Considering their history, this should seem perfectly acceptable behavior to Theos/Chummie/Bhatia.

Dodging the Court Order's Bullet? As we have also pointed out, Theos/Chummie/Bhatia have gone way past the Court's deadline to remove all of the PAID reviews that they so generously endowed on their poor products. So the ever-devious Theos/Chummie/Bhatia appear to be placing hordes of fake 5-stars reviews for their Chummie products (see just above for examples) and then deleting compensatory fake reviews as per the order. This takes time. We believe that Amazon can be quite astute and observant if they wish to. It may be that Theos/Chummie/Bhatia fake behavior suits more than just Theos/Chummie/Bhatia. WAKE UP, AMAZON! THIS OBVIOUSLY FAKE BEHAVIOR BY Theos/Chummie/Bhatia IS NOT IN THE SPIRIT OF THE COURT'S ORDER! If we can notice and record this blatantly bad behavior by Theos/Chummie/Bhatia, can you not?

Are they possibly applying this technique to competitors' products so that the competitors' products can be bad-mouthed by verified purchasers? That is very likely. Let’s look at DryBuddyEZ on Amazon, something that we know Theos/Chummie/Bhatia have attacked, and probably will keep attacking until something even more serious than the recent Federal Judge’s relatively mild order smacks Theos/Chummie/Bhatia very hard. For DryBuddyEZ, there has suddenly been a spate of poor reviews on the latest review page. Extremely unnatural based on prior history. The following two 1-star reviews fall into the same fake category as the 5-star reviews on the latest page of the Chummie Premium:
·         Chad (1-star) verified
·         J.D. (1-star) verified
Two days apart! Theos/Chummie/Bhatia really cannot substantially change their writing style, unless they recruit someone who could then become party to Theos/Chummie/Bhatia’s deceit and possible fraud. This is so obvious to us since we have been reading their rubbish for years.

And while we are on this subject, we shall point our fingers at the following two fake reviews:
on May 7, 2015
didnt work at the first time ,sorry for me i just had a chance to open after the 30 days ,and of course im stuck with it ,
so please when u order an item from them PLEASE open ASAP,because u might be so lucky as me

and

on May 4, 2015
My 7 year old slept right thru the alarm. If you have a heavy sleeper this is not the product for you.



Here we have an identical situation to what has just been pointed out for bad behavior towards DryBuddyEZ. DryBuddyFLEX is a highly innovative alarm system that had a very positive image and feedback until "Jerry Wallace" and "Kindle Customer" decided to talk nonsense with 1-star "reviews" 3 days apart. And both have no other reviews! A completely phony situation well in line with the nefarious behavior that we have been discussing.

Note to Amazon:
The only way you will really clean up your reviews and keep them honest is by only allowing reviews written by REAL PERSON reviewers. It may be more restrictive, but will help to eliminate bogus reviews from unethical seller or buyers. If a reviewer is not willing to really stand behind what the reviewer writes, all readers (and Amazon) would be better off for that review not polluting Amazon Reviews. At the moment, because of unethical sellers and reviewers (again note the order involving Theos/Chummie/Bhatia by the Federal Judge as substantial evidence that Amazon has fake reviews on it), they will continue to make Amazon Reviews of dubious value and a source for deception and possible fraud.

Let us end this latest episode on Theos/Chummie/Bhatia’s probably illicit behavior with their current performance on eBay, where they cannot rig reviews.

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