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

gizmodo.com

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

#31

Post by lvxferre »

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).

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

#32

Post by janesvilleseo »

ganoushoreilly wrote: post #30
tylerrobinson wrote: post #2

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 instructio…

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.

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.

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

#33

Post by mcny »

neolog wrote: post #15
antipodes123 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

> It's against Amazon TOS to contact Amazon's customers outside the Amazon messaging system Is there some reason the seller needs to have the buyer's contact info?

> Is there some reason the seller needs to have the buyer's contact info?

I have the same question, except I'll narrow the scope a little bit. In case the order is fulfilled by Amazon.com (FBA), is there any reason for the seller to have the buyer's contact or shipping information?

I know the seller has my information because I have a similar experience to TylerRobinson, except my gift card was only USD 5:

> 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.

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

#34

Post by avinassh »

tylerrobinson wrote: post #2

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 instructio…

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/selle...

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

#35

Post by scambier »

lvxferre wrote: post #31

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 contactin…

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.

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

#37

Post by antipodes123 »

slapfrog wrote: post #14
antipodes123 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

> > "contacted Amazon, who responded with "we'll deal with the issue and get back to you within 48 hours", which never happened" > "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." What is the purpose of telling somebody to do exactly what they just told you they already did, and insisting that it will w…

Hi there - "gaslighting", seems a bit extreme? I'm just offering some help.

The thing with Amazon is that it's super fragmented and you have to complain through the correct channels. After six years I'm still struggling to navigate at times.

General Customer service team members' KPIs are to just close tickets, that's all they care about.

Go to the Product page and click "“Report Abuse”" on the reviews.

Or email the support team and ask them to escalate the ticket to Seller Performance.

Also complain to seller-performance@amazon.com

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

#38

Post by saos »

blibble wrote: post #5

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…

I had an issue where a seller hounded me for a review. A few months later the same. Umber started asking me for Bitcoin.

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

#39

Post by antipodes123 »

neolog wrote: post #15
antipodes123 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

> It's against Amazon TOS to contact Amazon's customers outside the Amazon messaging system Is there some reason the seller needs to have the buyer's contact info?

Sellers don't get access to customer info unless they are fulfilling the product themselves.

Sellers are obtaining this through black hat methods.

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

#40

Post by saos »

antipodes123 wrote: post #9
blibble wrote: post #5

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…

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 the…

I had a seller contact me directly on WhatsApp. I reported it to Amazon and never heard back. Eventually the same number that contacted me on WhatsApp changed their display photo from company logo to an exotic woman asking me for Bitcoin payment
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