I’ll Admit It — China Offered Me Money to Tell a Lie

A fter a California mayor was recently charged with being a paid agent of the ChiComs I realized I’d better get in front of any bombshell accusations and admit it: I was contacted by China to perform an unethical action in exchange for money.

Sounds bad, right? Well, it was. Here’s how it began. I got an email.

Dear Customer, Good afternoon, it’s time to take a break after a busy day at work. Can you read your email? Please accept our sincere compensation.

Since I was already reading the email, it seemed like an odd question.

I am the after-sales customer service staff of the store where you purchased the [Under-desk keyboard tray] previously.

Note to after-sales customer service staff: If you wish your letter to have the personal touch, avoid dropping [the product name] between placeholder brackets.

We sincerely apologize to you for not being able to bring you a satisfactory shopping experience. To this end, we hope to improve your satisfaction with us through our attentive after-sales service. We will compensate you with a $50 gift card. I hope you can accept our apology.

Oh! Well, that’s nice. I’d ordered a keyboard tray that clamps on to a desk, and it could not be properly adjusted. Not only were the screws tightened by a robot that hated humanity, but they were made of that particular Chinese metal that’s 17 percent warm butter, and the screwheads strip like a wet noodle if you try to turn them. I had given the product a one-star review on Amazon, which got their attention. Now I could have $50 worth of different junk that arrived cracked with misaligned screw holes! Hurrah!

What’s more, I’d really made a difference for everyone going forward:

We have fed back the product problems to the designers and engineers, and we will upgrade and optimize the product.

I can easily imagine the team sitting down with furrowed brows, asking the designer how this could possibly have happened: The entire reputation of the TYUIMSQ brand was now in doubt. “Well, aren’t we planning to close the TYUIMSQ brand in Q3 and move everything over to GHUUK?” “Yes, but it’s a matter of honor! We have diminished the standing of Chinese goods in the eyes of this consumer!”

Actually, no, that was done long ago. That was accomplished when the eggbeater leaked black oil, the handle of the whisk fell off, the bed arrived with a thick crack in the headboard, the LED light set remote stopped working after a day, the hot-water kettle arrived with a crimped spout, and so on. A spate of purchases to outfit a new dwelling had taught me an important lesson: China makes junk.

Here’s the catch: There was a link to the review I’d posted, and this question:

If possible, can you help us remove the review from the page? Of course, you can also choose to update it to 5 stars.

There you have it. China would pay me $50 if I retracted my honest review. Of course, China, the political and cultural entity, was not trying to corrupt the truth. It was just one company! One typical, utterly representative company that no doubt had a co-owner whose second cousin was a liaison to the Red Army and kicked back 4 percent of the profits to the local party official, but not illustrative of China as a whole. Certainly not.

Events like this make one wish Trump had spent his recent trip to China describing a new wave of arbitrary, vindictive tariffs and declared that America would soon lead the world in making under-desk retractable keyboard trays. At least if the thing was made in Akron, and it was poorly engineered and squeaked like you were sawing a mouse in half and made jittery clicky sounds when you typed, I would have the option of driving to Akron, showing up at the factory, waving the thing around, and ask to speak to someone about this.

By the way, the email was from “Doris Brown.” Next time I write a one-star review, I’ll probably hear from Deloris Magenta or Mabel White. I’m tempted to tell Doris I’ll give her a five-star review if she assures me she supports Taiwan’s independence. I’ll even give her $50 if she one-stars Xi.