Thursday | 28 March 2024 | 17 Ramadhan 1445

Fatwa Answer

Question ID: 1168 Category: Dealings and Transactions
Free products after Amazon review

Assalamualaikum,

Some sellers from amazon offer me to buy products from them and ask me to review those with 5 star ratings, once reviews are posted they refund the money via paypal, they are called this testers.

please suggest me in light of quran and hadith, if reviewing those products and getting those products free from them are permissible.

jazakAllah

الجواب وباللہ التوفیق

Based on the following malpractices, such an earning is not allowed:

  1. In this practice, people who don’t have a real intention to purchase the products, view those advertisements. The seller gets undue advantage through the high number of visitors seeing their product, which is a form of deceit.
  1. In order to advertise their product, it needs only a click to enter as a visitor while the same person may have the option to click multiple times to indicate large number of people viewing that product. The result is a higher rating of the advertisers but through a deceitful act.
  2. Moreover, payment is offered against each click, which is not the intended benefit and is a sham.
  3. For an advertising job of this nature, the job seeker needs to register himself in a company and pay registration fee, which is also not allowed in shariah.
  4. Generally in advertising business pictures of women and of other living creatures are widely transmitted, whereas promotion of such pictures is a sin.  
  5. This kind of lease includes the lease of work done and of the time, which is also against the shariah rules.

Based on the above clarifications, this job is not allowed.

Therefore effort must be made to find a job where the income is “halal”

هي) لغة: اسم للأجرة وهو ما يستحق على عمل الخير ولذا يدعى به، يقال أعظم الله أجرك. وشرعا (تمليك نفع) مقصود من العين (بعوض) حتى لو استأجر ثيابا أو أواني ليتجمل بها أو دابة ليجنبها بين يديه أو دارا لا ليسكنها أو عبدا أو دراهم أو غير ذلك لا ليستعمله بل ليظن الناس أنه له فالإجارة فاسدة في الكل، ولا أجر له لأنها منفعة غير مقصودة من العين بزازية۔(رد المحتار : ۶/۴

(أو) استأجر (خبازا ليخبز له كذا) كقفيز دقيق (اليوم بدرهم) فسدت عند الإمام لجمعه بين العمل والوقت ولا ترجيح لأحدهما فيفضي للمنازعة (قوله فيفضي للمنازعة) فيقول المؤجر المعقود عليه: العمل والوقت ذكر للتعجيل ويقول المستأجر: بل هو الوقت والعمل للبيان.

الموسوعة الفقهية الكويتية(۱ /۲۹۰)

فقط واللہ اعلم بالصواب