When Amazon started cracking down on mobile electronics companies with shady reviewer programs, Aukey and Mpow were the first to get whacked — and yet Aukey is still selling at least three sets of wireless earbuds at the giant online retailer, The Verge has found.
Two weeks ago, I pointed out to Amazon PR that both Aukey and Mpow had seemingly found a way around their bans. Mpow had an “xMpow MFly” set of wireless Bluetooth headphones, and Aukey was selling several different sets under its “Key Series” sub-brand.
I’ve been watching their product pages ever since, and today I noticed that the xMpow MFly has disappeared. But Key Series is alive and well with three products. Aukey appears to be paying Amazon extra to promote them in search, too, as you can see from their “sponsored” disclaimers:
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There’s no question that these are Aukey products. You can see the Aukey brand printed on top of the charging case for those EP-N7 earbuds above. Aukey introduced the brand with an official press release in May 2019, and at least two Key Series products, including these T-10 wireless earbuds, have YouTube videos on the Aukey channel.
It’s vaguely possible that Key Series was spun off, or that these Amazon listings are run by a reseller, though. The Key Series website contains no official references to Aukey, but it does have one mention of a Primtech Limited based in the UK.
But it also seems that Key Series had additional products on Amazon that did disappear. Similar to other electronics companies that were booted from Amazon, there are several blank spots on the brand’s Amazon seller page.
Related: I’m still collecting photos of your inserts from Amazon packages, whether they’re suspicious or not. They’ll help me with a future story. If you haven’t already, could you send me pictures of them at sean@theverge.com?
Today is Amazon Prime Day.
Humble request:
If you get any insert cards in your new purchases (they don’t need to look this suspicious), please send me photos of them at sean@theverge.com for a story. pic.twitter.com/7337ookNPp
— Sean Hollister (@StarFire2258) June 22, 2021
