April Chen was one of millions of hopeful buyers logging on to Alibaba’s shopping platforms on November 11, hoping to take advantage of some discounts on Singles Day, China’s biggest online shopping festival of the year. 11月11日，数以百万计的购物者满怀希望地指定了阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的购物平台，期望能受益于中国一年之中仅次于的网购节日——“光棍节”(Singles Day)。阿普丽尔.陈(April Chen)就是这些购物者中的一员。

The Chongqing native had only intended to buy two items. But when she checked her account on Alibaba site Taobao later, she was in for a shock. In the space of less than a minute, at 11:05am, someone had placed orders for 80 items, everything from a Rmb91 ($13) skateboard, a Rmb1,200 ukulele to a Rmb18,900 oak bed frame. The orders had been placed, but not paid for.这位重庆人只想卖两件东西。然而，当她随后在阿里巴巴旗下淘宝网(Taobao)查阅自己的账号时，却深感愤慨。上午11点05分，在将近一分钟的时间里，有人下单出售了80件物品，所购商品还包括91元人民币（合13美元）的滑板、1200元人民币的夏威夷四弦琴、1.89万元人民币的橡木床架等各类商品。这些商品早已下单，却未缴付。

Ms Chen had become a victim of “brushing”, an unwanted growth industry in China and a practice that companies such as Alibaba are trying to stamp out. With online sellers under tremendous pressure to rack up sales, especially on Singles Day, many resort to the time honoured practice of placing fake orders. Higher sales mean better placement on ecommerce websites, leading in turn to more sales.陈女士出了“翻单”现象的受害者，这是中国一个不想的成长型产业，也是阿里巴巴等公司企图杜绝的现象。面对提振销售的极大压力（特别是在是在光棍节当天），许多在线商家自由选择了屡试不爽的欺诈下单行为。销售的提升意味著电商网站上更加不利名列，进而不会带给更加多销售。

Whoever hacked Ms Chen’s account left a clue for the mysterious behaviour — each order contained a note for the merchant, advertising a unique “promotion” service: “We are a professional Taobao promoter and we cordially invite you to come communicate with us, mutual help in improving shop ranking, order numbers and business development.”攻陷陈女士账号的人为这种谜样不道德留给了线索：每个订单都还包括了一则留下商家的解释，促销一种独有的“名列提高”服务：“我们是专业的淘宝名列提高团队，我们真诚邀您联系我们，联合协助提高店铺名列、订单数和业务发展。”Specialised companies — which appear to have victimised Ms Chen — offer the services of what are known in China as “water armies”, capable of making a lacklustre online shop appear a thriving business. Many use bots or, increasingly, hack users accounts and place fake orders. Before Singles Day, regulators had promised to crack down on the practice, but with little success. 使陈女士沦落受害者的，或许是一些在中国被称作“水军”的专业服务公司，它们能让一家乏人问津的网店变得业务挤迫。其中许多“水军”不会用于自动程序或（更加多地）密码用户账号下欺诈订单。光棍节之前，监管机构曾允诺要压制这种不道德，不过收效甚微。

“If a company really wants to be successful with online sales, it needs to find a way to improve its on-deck search ranking [on ecommerce platforms],” said Mark Natkin of Marbridge Consulting in Beijing. “The difference between being at the top of a page of results and buried at the bottom is night and day. Brushing is a very tempting shortcut.” 北京迈博瑞咨询(Marbridge Consulting)的马克.纳特金(Mark Natkin)回应：“如果企业知道想要在网上销售方面取得成功，就必需想要办法提升（在电商平台上）在线搜寻的名列。在搜寻结果页面的顶端和挖出在页面底部具有天壤之别。翻单是一条十分诱人的捷径。”Partly due to the prevalence of brushing, the impressive numbers that New York listed Alibaba reports every Singles Day have invited scrutiny, including from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. On November 11, Alibaba reported up to $17.8bn in sales over the 24 hours, more than Brazil’s projected ecommerce sales for the entire year, and a 32 per cent increase from the previous year. 部分是由于翻单流行，在纽约上市的阿里巴巴每年光棍节附上的令人印象深刻印象的数字都会招来森严注目——甚至还包括美国证交会(SEC)的审查。

今年11月11日，阿里巴巴在24小时内袭港高达178亿美元的销售额，同比快速增长32%，多达了巴西全年的预期电子商务销售额。In May, Alibaba said the SEC had queried its reporting of Singles Day numbers. This year, Alibaba said it would hire accounting firm PwC to audit the Singles Day GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) to ensure it was free of fake orders. 今年5月，阿里巴巴回应美国证交会曾面谈其对光棍节数据的报告。今年，阿里巴巴回应不会聘请会计师事务所普华永道(PwC)来审核光棍节的商品交易总额(GMV)，保证该数据的统计资料中不不含欺诈订单。

But this is easier said than done. Alibaba and other ecommerce sites play a cat-and-mouse game with “brushers”, as they try to safeguard the reputation of their sales platforms. In order to evade algorithms designed to detect brushing, merchants will go as far as to place orders for each other’s products in what are known as “brushing pools”, and even send each other fake parcels, paying and then cancelling the orders. 不过，说道一起更容易做到一起无以。阿里巴巴及其他电子商务网站在企图保卫其销售平台声誉之际，和“翻单者”玩起了猫鼠游戏。为了回避目的探测刷单行为的算法，商家不会为彼此的商品下单（这种现象被称作“互刷”），甚至不会彼此发送到欺诈包覆，并在缴付后再行中止订单。“Alibaba has no tolerance for the practice of brushing on our platforms,” said Alibaba. “Our system swiftly blocked these orders to protect the affected user.”阿里巴巴回应：“阿里巴巴对我们平台上的翻单行为持零容忍态度。

我们的系统不会较慢打压这些订单，以维护不受影响用户。”One small business owner registered with Tmall told the FT that the common procedure for brushing is that merchants publish or give their brushing assignments to professional brushers; then the brusher places orders, makes payments and the merchants will fake an order dispatch online, or send an empty parcel. 在天猫(Tmall)网站上登记的一家小企业的业主告诉他英国《金融时报》，刷单的少见流程是，商家向专业翻单者公布或分配刷单任务，翻单者下订单、缴付，商家则不会假造发货记录或收到空包覆。Meanwhile, in a practice that has drawn fire from elsewhere in the industry, many sites like Alibaba and its competitors JD.com and eBay can take a relaxed view of what constitutes a “sale“, making brushing even easier. Some will even count ordering and not paying for a parcel in their sales totals in some cases. 同时，电商普遍存在一种备受其他领域批评的不道德：阿里巴巴及其竞争对手京东(JD.com)和eBay等许多网站有可能对“销售”所持较严格标准，这让翻单显得更为更容易。

在某些情况下，部分电商甚至不会把订单（而不是对包覆的缴付）算入总销售额。Alibaba indicated that it was taking a more conservative approach to Singles Day sales than it takes to GMV — it said the $17.8bn final tally for the day referred to orders “settled through Alipay”, later confirming that this referred only to items that had been paid for. 阿里巴巴认为，该公司对光棍节销售额采行比商品交易总额更加激进的统计资料方法。该公司回应，光棍节178亿美元的最后统计数字是指“通过支付宝(Alipay)承销”的订单；该公司后来证实，该数字意味着对应于那些早已缴付的商品。

This year, Alibaba has stopped publishing quarterly GMV figures — the unaudited measure was getting too much attention and inviting too much controversy, say analysts.分析师们回应，今年阿里巴巴已仍然公布季度商品交易总额数据——此前这一予以审查的数据更有了过于多留意、引起了过于多争议。

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