Certain Amazon third-party resellers have been hounding their customers who left bad reviews to ask them to edit or even delete their reviews
One customer who experienced being hounded by a seller theorizes that sellers have found a way to collect customer information.
Such actions are a violation of Amazon's customer product review policies.
Amazon Third-Party Sellers Hound Customers Who Leave Bad Reviews
Certain Amazon third-party sellers have found a way to contact and hound customers who have left bad reviews, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The report cites the experience of Katherine Scott, who is from New York. According to The Wall Street Journal, Scott left a negative review of a cooking spray oil bottle after realizing that it did not work as the listing advertised.
She then received an email from someone claiming to be a representative of the seller asking her to delete the review in exchange for a refund. When she refused to delete the negative review from Amazon, she received another offer for money that was double the price of the product. Scott continued to receive emails that asked her to delete the Amazon review.
According to a report by Gizmodo, other customers have come forward to The Wall Street Journal to share their experiences of Amazon sellers hounding them for posting bad reviews.
One such customer is Ben Hendin, who lives in Oklahoma. He told The Wall Street Journal that the seller of a finger splint he bought asked him to delete his negative Amazon review and went as far as to keep upping the refund amount being offered.
How Amazon Sellers Contact Their Customers
According to the report by Gizmodo, only qualified resellers are given the option to use the platform's buyer-seller messaging service, which uses a unique encrypted address and not the personal email of the customer.
Furthermore, Amazon's privacy notice states that only "customers' personal information related to those transactions with that third party" are shared with sellers.
Katherine Scott, however, has a theory about how the seller of her cooking spray oil bottle got her email address. She told The Wall Street Journal that a free gift insert was included in her package, which asked for her email address as well as her order ID.
The Gizmodo report also states that there are companies that offer a service to sellers that involves finding the contact information of customers. Companies cited in the report that offer this kind of service include Matic Chain and ZonBoost.
Related Article: Amazon Faces Biggest EU Privacy Fine Due To Alleged Illegal User Data Collection: Retailer Needs To Settle $888 Million
Preview Amazon Review Issues
Third-party sellers on Amazon are prohibited from demanding their customers to edit or delete reviews. Sellers are likewise not allowed to include inserts like the one Katherine Scott got in her Amazon delivery.
The listing, seller, and brand involved in Scott's experience have all disappeared from Amazon, per the Gizmodo report.
This is not the first time that an incident or issue has arisen from Amazon reviews. Just last month, Amazon removed a company called Choetech after it was discovered that Choetech was paying people to give five-star reviews.
In 2017, an Amazon seller disabled his customer's smart garage door after the customer left a bad review.
Also Read: Amazon Fake Review 'Spotter' App Removed from iOS App Store as the eCommerce Giant Convinces Apple
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Written by Isabella James
