BECAUSE OF COURSE

Bestselling ‘Books’ on Amazon Are Actually Packs of Face Masks

Sellers have found a way to evade the company’s restrictions on new listings amid the pandemic.

Amazon sellers are categorizing packs of medical masks as other items—like books and video games—to hijack good reviews and evade the company’s restrictions on new listings, Wired reports. The “books” are even climbing the bestseller charts, with one item becoming the 148th bestselling book in the entire store, screenshots showed. The e-commerce company said last week that it would no longer accept listings for new face masks after it removed nearly one million items advertised as a cure for COVID-19, which has none, but sellers are taking over old pages for unrelated products and replacing them with packs of face masks. As the new coronavirus spreads, hospitals and healthcare workers across the country are running out of masks, and demand for them is surging everywhere. The shortages have led medical masks to become one of the most in-demand items on Amazon and to extreme price gouging, despite the company’s best efforts.