I favourited a suspiciously low priced set of “New with tags” Hourglass make up brushes, but didn’t buy them because deep down I knew it had to be some sort of scam for that low a price. A few hours later I got a notification to say they had sold, but when I went back to my homepage they were there again - the seller reuploaded them?!?

I went on the seller account and they only sold two things - these brushes and a water bottle. When I looked at their reviews I was shocked to see they had 350+ reviews, almost entirely 5 stars. Upon closer inspection I realised the reviews were coming in at a rate of knots, about 15 per day. I decided to follow the seller out of curiosity and see if she’s actually uploading enough to reasonably get so many reviews.

Over the last few days, it appears to me that she is selling the two listings and then immediately reuploading the same photos of the brushes and the bottle, and selling them over and over again. So she must have an industrial volume of stock of (presumably fake) Hourglass brushes, and a random water bottle??

The plot thickens - the seller messages me with a discount. I then casually enquire about the mysterious reuploading and she claims it’s the same product, just that she’s deleting it and uploading it again every day to try to keep it fresh for the algorithm. But if that’s the case then where the hell have all those reviews come from?!?

She does also admit they “might not be genuine” which I thought was odd since she’s not admitted that in the listing. I mean clearly they aren’t genuine, and she must have a direct link to a supplier making fake copies. I just think the whole thing is utterly bizarre.

Has anyone else come across similar suspicious activity? I see loads of classic scams posted on Reddit but to me this is a bit more unusual - even if she has loads of these brushes, there’s surely no way she’s selling 15 per day?!? Some of the reviews are from members but most are automated which is what makes me think it’s a more technical scam and the sales aren’t all real?

Seller with suspicious volume of reviews - do we think it’s somehow a scam?