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Workers fulfill orders at an Amazon fulfillment center on Prime Day in Melville, New York, US, on Tuesday, July 11, 2023.

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For the millions of sellers who make up the booming Amazon marketplace, few things are as perpetually concerning as the threat of getting suspended for alleged wrongdoing and watching business evaporate overnight.

Helping third-party sellers recover their accounts has turned into a large and lucrative enterprise, because the only way the merchants can get back up and running is to admit guilt and correct the issue or show sufficient evidence that they did nothing wrong. The process is often costly, lengthy and fraught with challenges.

Enter the illicit broker.

For a fee of $200 to $400, sellers can pay for services like “Amazon Magic,” as one broker on encrypted messaging service Telegram calls it. The offerings also include access to company insiders who can remove negative reviews on a product and provide information on competitors. Users are told to send a private message to learn the price of certain services.

The Telegram group has over 13,000 members, and it’s far from the only one. Other brokers peddle similar services on Telegram as well as on WeChat, WhatsApp and Facebook Groups. The confidential data is promoted as intelligence gold for any seller working to get their product or account reinstated.

The groups are part of a robust market of so-called black hat service providers that have cropped up alongside the rise of third-party marketplaces on Amazon, Etsy, and Walmart. Amazon’s marketplace now accounts for over 60% of goods sold on the platform, and includes numerous businesses that generate millions of dollars a year in annual revenue on the site.

Source: Telegram

Source: Telegram

As it’s grown, the sprawling global marketplace has also seen a surge in the number of counterfeiters and spammers trying to game the system, which has pushed Amazon to ramp up enforcement. Much of the activity originates off of Amazon’s marketplace and on social media and encrypted messaging apps, complicating the policing efforts.

A public Facebook page identified by CNBC offers an internal screenshot service with “valuable insight into your seller account, allowing you to see how Amazon employees view your account and its performance.”

Facebook parent Meta didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The issue of rogue employees taking bribes is not a new one for Amazon. The company has in the past dealt with low-level, low-wage seller support staffers in China, India, and Costa Rica, who have accepted payments in exchange for leaking information.

Brokers, who act as middlemen between sellers and employees, often reach out to insiders on LinkedIn, said a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named due to confidentiality. Amazon has an internal group tasked with threat analysis and response, including a team dedicated to investigating employees suspected of leaking data, the source said. The threat analysis unit monitors social media platforms for abusive groups where bad actors may congregate before engaging in illicit activity on Amazon’s marketplace.

Amazon told CNBC that it has systems in place to detect suspicious behavior like improper access to confidential data and investigates these activities, sharing information with law enforcement agencies. It reports abusive groups to social media platforms and encrypted messaging services, where bad actors are increasingly concentrating their activities in order to avoid detection, the company said.

“There is no place for fraud at Amazon and we will continue to pursue all measures to protect our store and hold bad actors accountable,” Christy Distefano, an Amazon spokesperson, said in an email.

Amazon declined to say whether it has disciplined or fired employees for leaking data in exchange for payments, beyond noting that it has zero tolerance for staffers who violate its policies.

Amazon’s ongoing bribery problem

In 2018, Amazon investigated claims that employees, primarily based in China, received payments of $80 to more than $2,000 to share confidential sales information or delete bad reviews, The Wall Street Journal reported. More recently, the Department of Justice charged six individuals in 2020 for participating in a scheme to bribe employees and contractors for internal data.

Earlier this month, the fifth defendant in the case, who is a well-known seller consultant, was sentenced to probation and house arrest after pleading guilty in March. Account annotations, internal notes from an Amazon staffer on a seller’s account, were among the confidential data being exchanged between the defendants and employees.

Amazon said it uncovered the suspicious behavior related to the bribery case in 2018 and reported it to the FBI. The company said it had “robust systems” in place to detect suspicious behavior such as fraud and abuse. Amazon has also urged social media companies to assist it with rooting out fraudulent activity like fake reviews.

While Amazon is aware of the problem and is investing in people and technology to weed it out, groups continue to proliferate into the hundreds, the person with knowledge of the issue told CNBC. Accessing groups on encrypted chat apps like Telegram, WeChat or WhatsApp may require a link or invitation.

Remi Vaughn, a spokesperson for Telegram, told CNBC in an email that “moderators proactively monitor public parts of the platform and accept user reports in order to remove content that breaches our terms of service.”

The Amazon Magic group on Telegram is public, with users advertising black hat services almost daily. Screenshots of Amazon’s internal Paragon system, which is used by seller support employees to handle cases, are distributed freely in the group. CNBC authenticated the legitimacy of the screenshots with sources knowledgeable of the system.

“Much more you can find about your account by ordering screenshots with inside information from us, as seller support sees it,” a message in the Telegram chat states.

Many of the messages in the group are in Russian, and a user who runs the group claims on Facebook to be based in Ukraine. The person didn’t respond to a request for comment.

How this young Indiana couple stole $1.2 million from Amazon

Group administrators list a full menu of services available in an online spreadsheet. Annotations, which often include more detailed information than the suspension notifications, are priced at $180 a piece, and attacks on a competitor’s listing vary in pricing. Securing an upvote on a review, a tactic used to manipulate trustworthiness or popularity of a product, costs 50 cents. The brokers guarantee buyers they can deliver the goods within one to two business days.

Amazon sellers have for years complained of being unfairly kicked off the site without explanation. The process of getting their account back can take months, costing critical sales in the meantime. The issue was a key focus of a 16-month investigation by the House Antitrust Subcommittee into competitive practices at Amazon and other Big Tech companies.

“When Amazon turns off the faucet, everything goes to hell,” said Cynthia Stine, president of eGrowth Partners, a consultancy that helps merchants get reinstated. “I’ve had CEOs of large companies cry on the phone with me, and they’ve had to lay off their people. They’ve declared bankruptcy.”

Account annotations are like an “insurance policy” for sellers who’ve been suspended, Stine said. She said she comes across potential clients who’ve purchased annotations and are seeking to regain selling privileges roughly once or twice a month. As black hat brokers and consultants have multiplied over the years, it’s eaten into her business, Stine said.

“For a time, people wouldn’t even come to us, they would just go work with whoever they bought the data from,” she added.

Amazon has previously said it has processes in place to help sellers avoid deactivation and get reinstated when appropriate. The company disputed claims that the chaotic and costly suspension process justifies illicit tactics like buying confidential data.

“There is no place for fraud at Amazon and no excuse for resorting to illegal activities,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC last month.

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Whoop says FDA is ‘overstepping its authority’ with warning about blood pressure feature

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Whoop says FDA is 'overstepping its authority' with warning about blood pressure feature

The logo for the Food and Drug Administration is seen ahead of a news conference on removing synthetic dyes from America’s food supply, at the Health and Human Services Headquarters in Washington, DC on April 22, 2025.

Nathan Posner | Anadolu | Getty Images

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday published a warning letter addressed to the wrist wearable company Whoop, alleging it is marketing a new blood pressure feature without proper approvals.

The letter centers around Whoop’s Blood Pressure Insights (BPI) feature, which the company introduced alongside its latest hardware launch in May.

Whoop said its BPI feature uses blood pressure information to offer performance and wellness insights that inform consumers and improve athletic performance.

But the FDA said Tuesday that Whoop’s BPI feature is intended to diagnose, cure, treat or prevent disease — a key distinction that would reclassify the wellness tracker as a “medical device” that has to undergo a rigorous testing and approval processes.

“Providing blood pressure estimation is not a low-risk function,” the FDA said in the letter. “An erroneously low or high blood pressure reading can have significant consequences for the user.”

A Whoop spokesperson said the company’s system offers only a single daily estimated range and midpoint, which distinguishes it from medical blood pressure devices used for diagnosis or management of high blood pressure.

Whoop users who purchase the $359 “Whoop Life” subscription tier can use the BPI feature to get daily insights about their blood pressure, including estimated systolic and diastolic ranges, according to the company.

Whoop also requires users to log three traditional cuff-readings to act as a baseline in order to unlock the BPI feature.

Additionally, the spokesperson said the BPI data is not unlike other wellness metrics that the company deals with. Just as heart rate variability and respiratory rate can have medical uses, the spokesperson said, they are permitted in a wellness context too.

“We believe the agency is overstepping its authority in this case by attempting to regulate a non-medical wellness feature as a medical device,” the Whoop spokesperson said.

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High blood pressure, also called hypertension, is the number one risk factor for heart attacks, strokes and other types of cardiovascular disease, according to Dr. Ian Kronish, an internist and co-director of Columbia University’s Hypertension Center.

Kronish told CNBC that wearables like Whoop are a big emerging topic of conversation among hypertension experts, in part because there’s “concern that these devices are not yet proven to be accurate.”

If patients don’t get accurate blood pressure readings, they can’t make informed decisions about the care they need.

At the same time, Kronish said wearables like Whoop present a “big opportunity” for patients to take more control over their health, and that many professionals are excited to work with these tools.

Understandably, it can be confusing for consumers to navigate. Kronish encouraged patients to talk with their doctor about how they should use wearables like Whoop.

“It’s really great to hear that the FDA is getting more involved around informing consumers,” Kronish said.

FILE PHOTO: The headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is seen in Silver Spring, Maryland November 4, 2009. 

Jason Reed | Reuters

Whoop is not the only wearable manufacturer that’s exploring blood pressure monitoring.

Omron and Garmin both offer medical blood pressure monitoring with on-demand readings that fall under FDA regulation. Samsung also offers blood-pressure-reading technology, but it is not available in the U.S. market.

Apple has also been teasing a blood pressure sensor for its watches, but has not been able to deliver. In 2024, the tech giant received FDA approval for its sleep apnea detection feature.

Whoop has previously received FDA clearance for its ECG feature, which is used to record and analyze a heart’s electrical activity to detect potential irregularities in rhythm. But when it comes to blood pressure, Whoop believes the FDA’s perspective is antiquated.

“We do not believe blood pressure should be considered any more or less sensitive than other physiological metrics like heart rate and respiratory rate,” a spokesperson said. “It appears that the FDA’s concerns may stem from outdated assumptions about blood pressure being strictly a clinical domain and inherently associated with a medical diagnosis.”

The FDA said Whoop could be subject to regulatory actions like seizure, injunction, and civil money penalties if it fails to address the violations that the agency identified in its letter.

Whoop has 15 business days to respond with steps the company has taken to address the violations, as well as how it will prevent similar issues from happening again.

“Even accounting for BPI’s disclaimers, they do not change this conclusion, because they are insufficient to outweigh the fact that the product is, by design, intended to provide a blood pressure estimation that is inherently associated with the diagnosis of a disease or condition,” the FDA said.

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Amazon turns to rival SpaceX to launch next batch of Kuiper internet satellites

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Amazon turns to rival SpaceX to launch next batch of Kuiper internet satellites

United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the first two demonstration satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband internet constellation stands ready for launch on pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on October 5, 2023 in Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States.

Paul Hennessey | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

As Amazon chases SpaceX in the internet satellite market, the e-commerce and computing giant is now counting on Elon Musk’s rival company to get its next batch of devices into space.

On Wednesday, weather permitting, 24 Kuiper satellites will hitch a ride on one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets from a launchpad on Florida’s Space Coast. A 27-minute launch window for the mission, dubbed “KF-01,” opens at 2:18 a.m. ET.

The launch will be livestreamed on X, the social media platform also owned by Musk.

The mission marks an unusual alliance. SpaceX’s Starlink is currently the dominant provider of low earth orbit satellite internet, with a constellation of roughly 8,000 satellites and about 5 million customers worldwide.

Amazon launched Project Kuiper in 2019 with an aim to provide broadband internet from a constellation of more than 3,000 satellites. The company is working under a tight deadline imposed by the Federal Communications Commission that requires it to have about 1,600 satellites in orbit by the end of July 2026.

Amazon’s first two Kuiper launches came in April and June, sending 27 satellites each time aboard rockets supplied by United Launch Alliance.

Assuming Wednesday’s launch is a success, Amazon will have a total of 78 satellites in orbit. In order to meet the FCC’s tight deadline, Amazon needs to rapidly manufacture and deploy satellites, securing a hefty amount of capacity from rocket providers. Kuiper has booked up to 83 launches, including three rides with SpaceX.

Space has emerged as a battleground between Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, two of the world’s richest men. Aside from Kuiper, Bezos also competes with Musk via his rocket company Blue Origin.

Blue Origin in January sent up its massive New Glenn rocket for the first time, which is intended to rival SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rockets. While Blue Origin currently trails SpaceX, Bezos last year predicted his latest venture will one day be bigger than Amazon, which he started in 1994.

Kuiper has become one of Amazon’s biggest bets, with more than $10 billion earmarked for the project. The company may need to spend as much as $23 billion to build its full constellation, analysts at Bank of America wrote in a note to clients last week. That figure doesn’t include the cost of building terminals, which consumers will use to connect to the service.

The analysts estimate Amazon is spending $150 million per launch this year, while satellite production costs are projected to total $1.1 billion by the fourth quarter.

Amazon is going after a market that’s expected to grow to at least $40 billion by 2030, the analysts wrote, citing estimates by Boston Consulting Group. The firm estimated that Amazon could generate $7.1 billion in sales from Kuiper by 2032 if it claims 30% of the market.

“With Starlink’s solid early growth, our estimates could be conservative,” the analysts wrote.

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Bitcoin falls below $117,000 after Trump crypto bills are blocked before vote

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Bitcoin falls below 7,000 after Trump crypto bills are blocked before vote

Bitcoin falls as lawmakers grapple with crypto regulation bills: CNBC Crypto World

Bitcoin fell below the $117,000 level on Tuesday after cryptocurrency-related bills were blocked in the House of Representatives.

The price of bitcoin was last down 2.8% at $116,516.00, according to Coin Metrics. That marks a pullback from the day’s high of $120,481.86.

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Bitcoin/USD Coin Metrics, 1-day

The drop comes on the heels of multiple crypto-related bills failing to overcome a procedural hurdle in the House, with 13 Republicans voting with Democrats to block the motion in a 196-223 vote.

In recent days, bitcoin has been trading at all-time highs, spurred by institutional buying of bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) amid rising optimism that Congress would soon pass crypto legislation.

Stocks linked to crypto also came under pressure in late afternoon trading. Shares of bitcoin miners Riot Platforms and Mara Holdings closed down 3.3% and 2.3%, respectively. Others like crypto trading platforms Coinbase slid 1.5%. All were under pressure in extended trading.

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