The Wildberry market is facing serious allegations from its vendor community, who claim that management has been unfairly deducted under suspicious advertising practices. The core claim centers on an accusation of illegal advertising tactics that have left many suppliers counting losses rather than profits.
Vendors assert that the marketplace extended credit or promotional support worth 300 units of value to suppliers who allegedly engaged in gray advertising schemes. They allege that a third party, represented by a compromised IT professional, orchestrated these ad purchases. The resulting financial impact is described by sellers as substantial, with figures circulating around 650 million rubles in direct damage to Wildberry, while some estimates suggest deductions as high as 2 billion rubles overall from vendor accounts. These numbers underscore a broader concern about the integrity of advertising flows and the risk exposure for sellers relying on the platform for promotion.
In the wake of the dispute, a group of aggrieved sellers gathered at the company offices on Avtozavodskaya Street. Among them was an individual with alleged involvement in the theft and disruption surrounding the incident, who claimed that each supplier had been stripped of between 80 and 100 million rubles. The same source also alleged that certain employees were publicly branded as fraudsters, amplifying tensions within the market community.
Initial analyses indicate that Wildberry has sustained a loss exceeding half a billion rubles due to what is described as a fraudulent promotional scheme. The unfolding situation has drawn attention to the risks inherent in promotional algorithms and the governance of third‑party advertising within large online marketplaces.
A later report from the source suggested that an IT expert connected to the alleged fraud admitted involvement with advertising algorithms. According to this account, the individual created a Telegram bot designed to assist sellers in bypassing platform rules and to push their products through a so‑called gray promotion for free. Such revelations highlight potential vulnerabilities in automation tools used to scale advertising and the potential for misuse when governance controls are imperfect. (Source attribution: market observers and internal briefings from industry risk analysts, 2025.)