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Amazon third-party sellers reportedly hound customers who leave bad reviews

178 points by rexreed 5y ago

tylerrobinson 5y ago
The situation with Amazon reviews has become unbelievable. I recently purchased a $20 item with around 30,000 reviews, overwhelmingly positive. $20 was a reasonable market price for this item from any retailer. There was a card inside the box from the seller saying they’d send me a $15 gift card for posting a 5-star review and then forwarding them proof I had posted it to some gmail account. I followed the instructions, and like clockwork got $15 back on Amazon. When reviews become so critical to item visibility it should be no surprise that they are gamed, but it’s still a shame that it’s come to this.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  It’s probably best to ignore reviews and just shop based on critical reviews or recommendations from friends. And even then it is better to purchase directly from manufacturers rather than risk getting counterfeits. I’m not sure what value middlemen like Amazon add other than fast delivery, which most people can live without.
  - dkdk8283 5y ago
    Three star reviews are all you should read these days. It’s typically unbiased / unemotional and objective. 1 and 5 star reviews don’t tend to be reliable.
    - throwawaysea 5y ago
      I had started doing this inadvertently with book reviews, but I think you’re right that this practice can apply to most products.
  - donmcronald 5y ago
    > shop based on critical reviews There’s nothing critical about them anymore. They’re all affiliate marketing sites. Have you noticed there are no bad products anymore? Their only goal is to convince you to buy something. There’s no expertise. RIP johnnyguru.com :-(
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Curious, if you knew the seller was gaming the system then why did you play along? I take it you're not hard out for $15.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    If the item is good and I’d give a five star and the $15 encourages me to do so I’ve no major problem with it. I did it once to see if it worked and it did.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
  Amazon also takes down reviews that mention paid reviews Edit: In Amazon's defense, they've apparently banned one of the companies (Mpow) that makes a product where I've had my review deleted
- OnlyLys 5y ago
  I've experienced this but with Google Maps. A highly rated pizza chain in my city (4.8 stars out of 6000+ reviews) is giving out free desserts if you rate them 5 stars. I've called them out on it years ago, but it seems that they are still doing it today: https://goo.gl/maps/1L8zdhWgwDK8b8Cy6 https://goo.gl/maps/1L8zdhWgwDK8b8Cy6.
  - jancsika 5y ago
    It's one thing to promote mediocre pizza with a free dessert. It's quite another to try to unclog a toilet with a monetary bribe you got to delete a shitpost about a broken plunger.
  - dawnerd 5y ago
    Shake shack does this too. They opened one up nearby and simply changed the location of a well performing store across the country to where the new store was so they could open with thousands of positive reviews.
- ganoushoreilly 5y ago
  There was a great sky talk at Defcon this week about groups that literally have catalogues of stuff people choose from, order, then get PayPal refund for the 5 star reviews (multiple merchant sites not just Amazon). Some of it is pretty expensive stuff (3D printers, batteries and more). I don’t have an answer for a fix but I definitely just ignore reviews now.
  - janesvilleseo 5y ago
    Not surprised at all. My sister in law apparently has been getting free stuff/refunds for all sorts of stuff. From what I have been told it’s a network of groups coordinating on FB. Seems quite sophisticated. She has gotten 1000’s of dollar of items. And yes they post items saying who is interested in this item or that and then people respond saying yes or no.
- avinassh 5y ago
  Same case in India as well. Here sellers bribe money to consumers, asking to write a five-star review. I have had sellers call me multiple times to leave a review. If you mention in the reviews that seller is harassing you for fake reviews and other reviews might be paid, then your review gets taken down. saw this recently on Reddit too - https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/p0cdeo/sellers_on_amazon_india_are_openly_bribing/ https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/p0cdeo/selle...
- thedougd 5y ago
  The review count has become a red flag for me. I regularly see extremely niche items that might sell 20000 units over 5 years with 20000 reviews.
- adolfojp 5y ago
  I got one of those bribery cards with a purchase. The item wasn't good. I posted a 1 star review of the product with a photo of the card to warn others. Amazon didn't approve the review because it didn't comply with its standards or whatever. Amazon is complicit in all of this.
blibble 5y ago
I had this... a third-party seller started harassing me via email to submit feedback so I did... I gave them a two star review with something along the lines of "kept pestering me to leave feedback" then they started emailing me demanding that I remove it, which I ignored then they started phoning the number for the delivery, which happened to be an elderly relative (as they were the order recipient) contacted Amazon, who responded with "we'll deal with the issue and get back to you within 48 hours", which never happened my prime subscription will now lapse (having been a prime member for more than a decade)
- decremental 5y ago
  The third party sellers shouldn't get access to your contact information. On DoorDash, calls go through DoorDash's system. Same with text messages. No one gets the other person's real number. I've had one restaurant that always calls me right after I place the order to ask me for my phone number to put into their system for future orders. I always tell them no, I prefer to go through DoorDash instead. A similar system should be in place at Amazon.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Rebelgecko 5y ago
    I've seen a pretty common scam where items are sold for "too good to be true" prices, only to be cancelled a few days later. I assume this is to harvest people's contact info
    - second--shift 5y ago
      Aha - that's what this is. I keep wondering why many sub-20$ items on eBay keep getting cancelled on me. The equivalent item on Amazon is usually 20-25$ (but doesn't quality for free tier shipping on its own) so I shop eBay for same - half the time or more recently it's either a) a drop-ship from Amazon even in its box/packaging, or b) cancelled as 'buyer requested cancel'. I knew it was a scam but I didn't know what for. Good thing I ship to a PO box and use a generic C/O name.
dheera 5y ago
Sellers frequently contact me asking me to change my review in return for some gift card. Pro tip: Change the review, take the gift card, spend the gift card, and then change the review back. That should disincentivize this behavior. Oh and of course, don't use your real phone number.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
antipodes123 5y ago
Long time Amazon Seller here. It's against Amazon TOS to contact Amazon's customers outside the Amazon messaging system, and they are really heavy handed against sellers breaching this. If you complain to Amazon that the seller is contacting you outside the Amazon messaging platform and harrassing you, then Amazon will close their seller account. Alternatively you can threaten to report them to Amazon for this and they will go away.
- glasss 5y ago
  I appreciate the input. No seller has personally reached out to me but I'll pass this along to my friends who seem to be a bit less lucky
- tostonescon 5y ago
  I had a seller hassle me on my personal email after me telling them to stop asking for removal of an honest review in exchange for a replacement of a poorly made product. Literally could not find a way to tell Amazon, so I left a review on their seller page. Amazon deleted that review because "product was fulfilled by Amazon" Amazon is a dumpster fire these days.
55555 5y ago
If they are really getting the reviewers' emails from Amazon, I wonder if it's done by gaming customer support or doing some sort of password reset.
ravroid 5y ago
I bought a cheap $60 or $70 drone on Amazon and eventually gave it a 3-star rating. I was hardly being critical of the product at all, just gave an honest review. The next day I received an email from the company offering me $100 Amazon giftcard to remove the review.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  Mind sharing the name of the product? (email in profile) Hoping to farm this with a few Amazon accounts. Feel like I can probably make a grand in about an hour of work which is competitive with my day job. If I do a return after receiving the gift card, I think I could turn this up.
kfprt 5y ago
Too much of technological 'disruption' is just ignoring laws, protections, and just making the experience worse at great cost to society.
thraway12 5y ago
Yeah this shit has got to stop. I'm sorry that you're competing on a platform that is overly sensitive to the truth, but hound Amazon, not your customers. And if you don't like it, maybe use all that fervor to organize and start competitors that aren't sensitive to that kind of truthtelling from customers: take all of the vendors who are disfavored by the platform and run something that isn't skewed. The tech has been out here for long enough that someone needs to make an amazon competitor.
lvxferre 5y ago
In plenty countries, repeatedly trying to contact someone after the person said "don't contact me" would be grounds for suing the contacting party. And given Amazon clearly doesn't give a fuck about sellers hounding customers, that would be my first bet. So, people in this situation might be interested in actually replying one of those messages, with the following: "I will not remove the review. Please stop contacting me. Further contact will be understood as [harassment|disturbance of peace|etc.], acc. to [insert law in your country], and passive to litigation." Also, unless the goods in question are expensive, resist the temptation to accept a refund, in exchange for removing the review. When you're dealing with dishonest sellers, it's well worth to get a small burden (no refund) to give them a bigger one (bad rep).
- scambier 5y ago
  I've seen people accept the refund and then edit the review to not only make it clear that the product is shit, that the seller is refunding products for good reviews.
Animats 5y ago
I rarely order from Amazon any more. It's become as bad as eBay. You're just buying from somebody selling from their garage.
- cheese_van 5y ago
  Yeah, me as well - buying direct, if possible, or from another vendor. Amazon is not trustworthy. Sure, it merely provides a common marketplace, but one expects a certain beneficial gatekeeping, which seems absent. It is commonplace to see ordinary items priced many, many times over value: say a pvc elbow for hundreds of dollars. I've wondered, "What happens when some mope accidentally buys one of these?"
MattGaiser 5y ago
I endlessly get gift card offers for good reviews. Made hundreds of dollars from this. It’s incredible that they will pay you the cost of the item for a review.
barneybooroo 5y ago
I once negatively reviewed a drone on Amazon. Their EMEA boss emailed me out of the blue wanting to set up a phone conversation to convince me otherwise. Really needy and gross! I reported this to Amazon who said that wasn’t “meant to happen”, but I doubt any sanction came from that.
- remir 5y ago
  I reported this to Amazon who said that wasn’t “meant to happen” The simple fact that third party sellers can contact buyers by email is enabling this crap. All Amazon has to do is build some messaging system so all communication between sellers and buyers happen on Amazon instead of by email. In case of abuse, it could be reported easily.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
spoonjim 5y ago
Just like Lotus Notes was posting revenue growth in 2008, as a clearly dead product, I wonder if Amazon fails to realize how much consumer trust it has lost because their sales continue to increase. I have gone from an Amazon-lover to an Amazon-hater because of a few bad third-party seller experiences and while I still buy a lot of stuff on Amazon I: * usually avoid third-party sellers * refuse to buy food or baby products at Amazon * have shifted some of my purchasing to trusted brands that curate a collection of good products, like Trader Joe's and Uncommon Goods.
bigger_inside 5y ago
I'm of two minds on this. We all hate getting calls and mail from people and being hounded time and time again - in fact, I have a certain history of blocking people just for that. So all the anger is understandable. I share that annoyance. However, I find it curious that the article never once turns its eyes on the monopolization of online commerce and the monopolization of communication in Amazon's walled garden as a problem. Rather, it goes with this "tech company must handle this" approach that, in the end, deputized a powerful monopolist as an enforcer for rules, supporting its tactic of monopolizing communication within amazon's systems so amazon can read it all (and undoubtedly analyze it all), which then strengthens that monopolist's stature, since we're now also dependent on it for enforcement (the facebook, twitter, youtube problem all over again) AND it can use it to drive those very sellers out of the market with cheaper knockoffs, which we know amazon does regularly. In the end, these actors aren't gaming amazon because they're bad apples and crooks; they're gaming it because amazon has become the only game in town, their entire economic existence is dependent on these reviews, AND their walled garden overlord is only keeping them to gut them and take their stuff. Breaking out of it is anoying; but from their perspective, it's also eminently reasonable. Also, classic journalism: they used clearly outrageous examples to whip us up into supporting this problem construction to make these small sellers the bad guys (highlighting the crooks) - leaving the monopolist hulk that creates the structure in which they all now have to play unexamined.
- rlpb 5y ago
  > since we're now also dependent on it for enforcement This, I think, is the root of the problem. In the case that Amazon takes control of the situation (you don't really have a relationship with the third party seller; you have a relationship with Amazon), then despite what they claim, they should be held legally responsible. In the UK we have a legal concept of "vicarious liability". An employer is liable for an employee's actions, regardless of culpability. The employee could be in breach of all agreements and instructions from its employer, yet the employer is still liable. We also have harassment laws. These should be extended to allow victims to hold Amazon liable as if they're a first party in the case that their "third party" sellers are untouchable (as they usually are). Amazon (and other companies) shouldn't be allowed to act as a middleman without also taking on that liability. It should be up to them to recover their costs from the third party, not the consumer. This would correctly incentivize the big players to ensure that their third party sellers behave. Instead, what we have right now is a legal system that allows them to effectively collude to shirk that responsibility entirely.
eric4smith 5y ago
It's not only Amazon reviews. But also Google My Business reviews. Not to mention Yelp. One of our businesses depend a lot on GMB reviews. Fortunately we're good about customer service and doing a good job, so 98% of our reviews are 5 stars. However, in a couple of cases, customers gave us one star for things we had absolutely no control over, or something that was quite trivial and could be resolved in a minute or two. It's insane what that very tiny segment of reviewers will do. There is good and bad about this. We've found a few bad reviews are actually a good thing, since people have said directly to us that we seem like a "Real" company. They know that reviews are gamed a lot these days. And they realize that real companies make mistakes. So we take those "L"'s and move on. I don't agree with the heavy-handedness, but I understand they some do it. These guys are taking it too far though.
xunn0026 5y ago
Heh, this seems mild. Try reviewing one of the real estate "entrepreneurs" in tourist cities that have a few flats for rent. You know, the ones you find on Booking.com or on AirBNB. I was literally threatened last time. Which is why I only use actual hotels since.
DoubleGlazing 5y ago
I've stopped buying 3rd party seller items because of this. Now, I'll only buy items sold directly by amazon. For example, I bought a little portable projector last Christmas. In the box was a big bar of Swiss chocolate and leaflet offering me a tripod in return for a five star review. The projector wasn't as good as the description made out. It wasn't terrible, just not as good as they claimed. So I left a three star review. I started getting texts from the seller asking, and then demanding I remove the review - they weren't offering me anything in return. And the texts came from the sellers name which changed slightly every time, so I couldn't easily block them or reply to them. It took two months for them to give up and leave me alone. I've had similar less extreme experiences with other sellers. I did complain to amazon, who said they would take action. A few weeks later the seller disappeared from amazon, so I assume they received enough complaints to take action. But..... the seller reappearance with a different name. They had the same product range and descriptions. Amazon doesn't care and is totally complicit in all this. The problem as I see it is that so much commerce is concentrated on to a small number of platforms (amazon, ebay, wish etc), which leads to sellers getting desperate to get to the top in searches. I mean, I can understand sellers doing this when their livelihoods depend on it. It's still not right though and amazon should fix it.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  > But..... the seller reappearance with a different name. They had the same product range and descriptions. But don’t they loose all their reviews, which they clearly care so much about?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - DoubleGlazing 5y ago
    They were chucked off the platform only to return and start from scratch again. I feel they may have been one of the few settlers who pushed Amazon a bit too far with their behaviour. If Amazon was on the ball they would use all that fancy AWS AI stuff to spot when banned sellers reappear.
- 5y ago
shellfishgene 5y ago
It seems like this is a problem that will solve itself, after this article and some more coverage make this well known scores of people will probably order stuff and leave bad reviews to get refunds and maybe even additonal money back. The selles can't possibly keep doing this for more and more fake reviews.
noja 5y ago
How are the sellers linking a review to an identity? Are people reviewing with their full names?
- masterof0 5y ago
  I think you provide them with your shipping info, right? address, name, phone number, etc.
  - noja 5y ago
    Yes, but how is that linked to a review?
magoon 5y ago
Amazon appears to allow this, judging from their inaction every time I report it.
andrew_ 5y ago
With returns to third party sellers so difficult, I'm not sure why anyone would bother buying from them. I've yet to find a better price by a third party. Would like to hear some reasons why they were preferred for some purchases.
matttrotter 5y ago
Not surprising really. That landscape has become so competitive. To make a profit requires a pristine product page and reviews section.

178 points by rexreed 5y ago

The situation with Amazon reviews has become unbelievable. I recently purchased a $20 item with around 30,000 reviews, overwhelmingly positive. $20 was a reasonable market price for this item from any retailer. There was a card inside the box from the seller saying they’d send me a $15 gift card for posting a 5-star review and then forwarding them proof I had posted it to some gmail account. I followed the instructions, and like clockwork got $15 back on Amazon. When reviews become so critical to item visibility it should be no surprise that they are gamed, but it’s still a shame that it’s come to this.

throwawaysea 5y ago
It’s probably best to ignore reviews and just shop based on critical reviews or recommendations from friends. And even then it is better to purchase directly from manufacturers rather than risk getting counterfeits. I’m not sure what value middlemen like Amazon add other than fast delivery, which most people can live without.
- dkdk8283 5y ago
  Three star reviews are all you should read these days. It’s typically unbiased / unemotional and objective. 1 and 5 star reviews don’t tend to be reliable.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    I had started doing this inadvertently with book reviews, but I think you’re right that this practice can apply to most products.
- donmcronald 5y ago
  > shop based on critical reviews There’s nothing critical about them anymore. They’re all affiliate marketing sites. Have you noticed there are no bad products anymore? Their only goal is to convince you to buy something. There’s no expertise. RIP johnnyguru.com :-(
netizen-936824 5y ago
Curious, if you knew the seller was gaming the system then why did you play along? I take it you're not hard out for $15.
- bombcar 5y ago
  If the item is good and I’d give a five star and the $15 encourages me to do so I’ve no major problem with it. I did it once to see if it worked and it did.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Rebelgecko 5y ago
Amazon also takes down reviews that mention paid reviews Edit: In Amazon's defense, they've apparently banned one of the companies (Mpow) that makes a product where I've had my review deleted
OnlyLys 5y ago
I've experienced this but with Google Maps. A highly rated pizza chain in my city (4.8 stars out of 6000+ reviews) is giving out free desserts if you rate them 5 stars. I've called them out on it years ago, but it seems that they are still doing it today: https://goo.gl/maps/1L8zdhWgwDK8b8Cy6 https://goo.gl/maps/1L8zdhWgwDK8b8Cy6.
- jancsika 5y ago
  It's one thing to promote mediocre pizza with a free dessert. It's quite another to try to unclog a toilet with a monetary bribe you got to delete a shitpost about a broken plunger.
- dawnerd 5y ago
  Shake shack does this too. They opened one up nearby and simply changed the location of a well performing store across the country to where the new store was so they could open with thousands of positive reviews.
ganoushoreilly 5y ago
There was a great sky talk at Defcon this week about groups that literally have catalogues of stuff people choose from, order, then get PayPal refund for the 5 star reviews (multiple merchant sites not just Amazon). Some of it is pretty expensive stuff (3D printers, batteries and more). I don’t have an answer for a fix but I definitely just ignore reviews now.
- janesvilleseo 5y ago
  Not surprised at all. My sister in law apparently has been getting free stuff/refunds for all sorts of stuff. From what I have been told it’s a network of groups coordinating on FB. Seems quite sophisticated. She has gotten 1000’s of dollar of items. And yes they post items saying who is interested in this item or that and then people respond saying yes or no.
avinassh 5y ago
Same case in India as well. Here sellers bribe money to consumers, asking to write a five-star review. I have had sellers call me multiple times to leave a review. If you mention in the reviews that seller is harassing you for fake reviews and other reviews might be paid, then your review gets taken down. saw this recently on Reddit too - https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/p0cdeo/sellers_on_amazon_india_are_openly_bribing/ https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/p0cdeo/selle...
thedougd 5y ago
The review count has become a red flag for me. I regularly see extremely niche items that might sell 20000 units over 5 years with 20000 reviews.
adolfojp 5y ago
I got one of those bribery cards with a purchase. The item wasn't good. I posted a 1 star review of the product with a photo of the card to warn others. Amazon didn't approve the review because it didn't comply with its standards or whatever. Amazon is complicit in all of this.

blibble 5y ago

I had this... a third-party seller started harassing me via email to submit feedback so I did... I gave them a two star review with something along the lines of "kept pestering me to leave feedback" then they started emailing me demanding that I remove it, which I ignored then they started phoning the number for the delivery, which happened to be an elderly relative (as they were the order recipient) contacted Amazon, who responded with "we'll deal with the issue and get back to you within 48 hours", which never happened my prime subscription will now lapse (having been a prime member for more than a decade)

decremental 5y ago
The third party sellers shouldn't get access to your contact information. On DoorDash, calls go through DoorDash's system. Same with text messages. No one gets the other person's real number. I've had one restaurant that always calls me right after I place the order to ask me for my phone number to put into their system for future orders. I always tell them no, I prefer to go through DoorDash instead. A similar system should be in place at Amazon.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
  I've seen a pretty common scam where items are sold for "too good to be true" prices, only to be cancelled a few days later. I assume this is to harvest people's contact info
  - second--shift 5y ago
    Aha - that's what this is. I keep wondering why many sub-20$ items on eBay keep getting cancelled on me. The equivalent item on Amazon is usually 20-25$ (but doesn't quality for free tier shipping on its own) so I shop eBay for same - half the time or more recently it's either a) a drop-ship from Amazon even in its box/packaging, or b) cancelled as 'buyer requested cancel'. I knew it was a scam but I didn't know what for. Good thing I ship to a PO box and use a generic C/O name.

dheera 5y ago

Sellers frequently contact me asking me to change my review in return for some gift card. Pro tip: Change the review, take the gift card, spend the gift card, and then change the review back. That should disincentivize this behavior. Oh and of course, don't use your real phone number.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

antipodes123 5y ago

Long time Amazon Seller here. It's against Amazon TOS to contact Amazon's customers outside the Amazon messaging system, and they are really heavy handed against sellers breaching this. If you complain to Amazon that the seller is contacting you outside the Amazon messaging platform and harrassing you, then Amazon will close their seller account. Alternatively you can threaten to report them to Amazon for this and they will go away.

glasss 5y ago
I appreciate the input. No seller has personally reached out to me but I'll pass this along to my friends who seem to be a bit less lucky
tostonescon 5y ago
I had a seller hassle me on my personal email after me telling them to stop asking for removal of an honest review in exchange for a replacement of a poorly made product. Literally could not find a way to tell Amazon, so I left a review on their seller page. Amazon deleted that review because "product was fulfilled by Amazon" Amazon is a dumpster fire these days.

55555 5y ago

If they are really getting the reviewers' emails from Amazon, I wonder if it's done by gaming customer support or doing some sort of password reset.

ravroid 5y ago

I bought a cheap $60 or $70 drone on Amazon and eventually gave it a 3-star rating. I was hardly being critical of the product at all, just gave an honest review. The next day I received an email from the company offering me $100 Amazon giftcard to remove the review.

renewiltord 5y ago
Mind sharing the name of the product? (email in profile) Hoping to farm this with a few Amazon accounts. Feel like I can probably make a grand in about an hour of work which is competitive with my day job. If I do a return after receiving the gift card, I think I could turn this up.

kfprt 5y ago

Too much of technological 'disruption' is just ignoring laws, protections, and just making the experience worse at great cost to society.

thraway12 5y ago

Yeah this shit has got to stop. I'm sorry that you're competing on a platform that is overly sensitive to the truth, but hound Amazon, not your customers. And if you don't like it, maybe use all that fervor to organize and start competitors that aren't sensitive to that kind of truthtelling from customers: take all of the vendors who are disfavored by the platform and run something that isn't skewed. The tech has been out here for long enough that someone needs to make an amazon competitor.

lvxferre 5y ago

In plenty countries, repeatedly trying to contact someone after the person said "don't contact me" would be grounds for suing the contacting party. And given Amazon clearly doesn't give a fuck about sellers hounding customers, that would be my first bet. So, people in this situation might be interested in actually replying one of those messages, with the following: "I will not remove the review. Please stop contacting me. Further contact will be understood as [harassment|disturbance of peace|etc.], acc. to [insert law in your country], and passive to litigation." Also, unless the goods in question are expensive, resist the temptation to accept a refund, in exchange for removing the review. When you're dealing with dishonest sellers, it's well worth to get a small burden (no refund) to give them a bigger one (bad rep).

scambier 5y ago
I've seen people accept the refund and then edit the review to not only make it clear that the product is shit, that the seller is refunding products for good reviews.

Animats 5y ago

I rarely order from Amazon any more. It's become as bad as eBay. You're just buying from somebody selling from their garage.

cheese_van 5y ago
Yeah, me as well - buying direct, if possible, or from another vendor. Amazon is not trustworthy. Sure, it merely provides a common marketplace, but one expects a certain beneficial gatekeeping, which seems absent. It is commonplace to see ordinary items priced many, many times over value: say a pvc elbow for hundreds of dollars. I've wondered, "What happens when some mope accidentally buys one of these?"

MattGaiser 5y ago

I endlessly get gift card offers for good reviews. Made hundreds of dollars from this. It’s incredible that they will pay you the cost of the item for a review.

barneybooroo 5y ago

I once negatively reviewed a drone on Amazon. Their EMEA boss emailed me out of the blue wanting to set up a phone conversation to convince me otherwise. Really needy and gross! I reported this to Amazon who said that wasn’t “meant to happen”, but I doubt any sanction came from that.

remir 5y ago
I reported this to Amazon who said that wasn’t “meant to happen” The simple fact that third party sellers can contact buyers by email is enabling this crap. All Amazon has to do is build some messaging system so all communication between sellers and buyers happen on Amazon instead of by email. In case of abuse, it could be reported easily.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

spoonjim 5y ago

Just like Lotus Notes was posting revenue growth in 2008, as a clearly dead product, I wonder if Amazon fails to realize how much consumer trust it has lost because their sales continue to increase. I have gone from an Amazon-lover to an Amazon-hater because of a few bad third-party seller experiences and while I still buy a lot of stuff on Amazon I: * usually avoid third-party sellers * refuse to buy food or baby products at Amazon * have shifted some of my purchasing to trusted brands that curate a collection of good products, like Trader Joe's and Uncommon Goods.

bigger_inside 5y ago

I'm of two minds on this. We all hate getting calls and mail from people and being hounded time and time again - in fact, I have a certain history of blocking people just for that. So all the anger is understandable. I share that annoyance. However, I find it curious that the article never once turns its eyes on the monopolization of online commerce and the monopolization of communication in Amazon's walled garden as a problem. Rather, it goes with this "tech company must handle this" approach that, in the end, deputized a powerful monopolist as an enforcer for rules, supporting its tactic of monopolizing communication within amazon's systems so amazon can read it all (and undoubtedly analyze it all), which then strengthens that monopolist's stature, since we're now also dependent on it for enforcement (the facebook, twitter, youtube problem all over again) AND it can use it to drive those very sellers out of the market with cheaper knockoffs, which we know amazon does regularly. In the end, these actors aren't gaming amazon because they're bad apples and crooks; they're gaming it because amazon has become the only game in town, their entire economic existence is dependent on these reviews, AND their walled garden overlord is only keeping them to gut them and take their stuff. Breaking out of it is anoying; but from their perspective, it's also eminently reasonable. Also, classic journalism: they used clearly outrageous examples to whip us up into supporting this problem construction to make these small sellers the bad guys (highlighting the crooks) - leaving the monopolist hulk that creates the structure in which they all now have to play unexamined.

rlpb 5y ago
> since we're now also dependent on it for enforcement This, I think, is the root of the problem. In the case that Amazon takes control of the situation (you don't really have a relationship with the third party seller; you have a relationship with Amazon), then despite what they claim, they should be held legally responsible. In the UK we have a legal concept of "vicarious liability". An employer is liable for an employee's actions, regardless of culpability. The employee could be in breach of all agreements and instructions from its employer, yet the employer is still liable. We also have harassment laws. These should be extended to allow victims to hold Amazon liable as if they're a first party in the case that their "third party" sellers are untouchable (as they usually are). Amazon (and other companies) shouldn't be allowed to act as a middleman without also taking on that liability. It should be up to them to recover their costs from the third party, not the consumer. This would correctly incentivize the big players to ensure that their third party sellers behave. Instead, what we have right now is a legal system that allows them to effectively collude to shirk that responsibility entirely.

eric4smith 5y ago

It's not only Amazon reviews. But also Google My Business reviews. Not to mention Yelp. One of our businesses depend a lot on GMB reviews. Fortunately we're good about customer service and doing a good job, so 98% of our reviews are 5 stars. However, in a couple of cases, customers gave us one star for things we had absolutely no control over, or something that was quite trivial and could be resolved in a minute or two. It's insane what that very tiny segment of reviewers will do. There is good and bad about this. We've found a few bad reviews are actually a good thing, since people have said directly to us that we seem like a "Real" company. They know that reviews are gamed a lot these days. And they realize that real companies make mistakes. So we take those "L"'s and move on. I don't agree with the heavy-handedness, but I understand they some do it. These guys are taking it too far though.

xunn0026 5y ago

Heh, this seems mild. Try reviewing one of the real estate "entrepreneurs" in tourist cities that have a few flats for rent. You know, the ones you find on Booking.com or on AirBNB. I was literally threatened last time. Which is why I only use actual hotels since.

DoubleGlazing 5y ago

I've stopped buying 3rd party seller items because of this. Now, I'll only buy items sold directly by amazon. For example, I bought a little portable projector last Christmas. In the box was a big bar of Swiss chocolate and leaflet offering me a tripod in return for a five star review. The projector wasn't as good as the description made out. It wasn't terrible, just not as good as they claimed. So I left a three star review. I started getting texts from the seller asking, and then demanding I remove the review - they weren't offering me anything in return. And the texts came from the sellers name which changed slightly every time, so I couldn't easily block them or reply to them. It took two months for them to give up and leave me alone. I've had similar less extreme experiences with other sellers. I did complain to amazon, who said they would take action. A few weeks later the seller disappeared from amazon, so I assume they received enough complaints to take action. But..... the seller reappearance with a different name. They had the same product range and descriptions. Amazon doesn't care and is totally complicit in all this. The problem as I see it is that so much commerce is concentrated on to a small number of platforms (amazon, ebay, wish etc), which leads to sellers getting desperate to get to the top in searches. I mean, I can understand sellers doing this when their livelihoods depend on it. It's still not right though and amazon should fix it.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
> But..... the seller reappearance with a different name. They had the same product range and descriptions. But don’t they loose all their reviews, which they clearly care so much about?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- DoubleGlazing 5y ago
  They were chucked off the platform only to return and start from scratch again. I feel they may have been one of the few settlers who pushed Amazon a bit too far with their behaviour. If Amazon was on the ball they would use all that fancy AWS AI stuff to spot when banned sellers reappear.
5y ago

shellfishgene 5y ago

It seems like this is a problem that will solve itself, after this article and some more coverage make this well known scores of people will probably order stuff and leave bad reviews to get refunds and maybe even additonal money back. The selles can't possibly keep doing this for more and more fake reviews.

noja 5y ago

How are the sellers linking a review to an identity? Are people reviewing with their full names?

masterof0 5y ago
I think you provide them with your shipping info, right? address, name, phone number, etc.
- noja 5y ago
  Yes, but how is that linked to a review?

magoon 5y ago

Amazon appears to allow this, judging from their inaction every time I report it.

andrew_ 5y ago

With returns to third party sellers so difficult, I'm not sure why anyone would bother buying from them. I've yet to find a better price by a third party. Would like to hear some reasons why they were preferred for some purchases.

matttrotter 5y ago

Not surprising really. That landscape has become so competitive. To make a profit requires a pristine product page and reviews section.