According to recent reports, some third-party sellers on Amazon are tracking down users who leave negative reviews and offering refunds or gift cards in an attempt to convince them to change their minds.
The Wall Street Journal reports that third-party Amazon sellers are employing a number of tactics to boost the review scores of their items, including offering customers that leave negative reviews incentives to change them It is estimated that around 56 percent of all products sold on Amazon come from third-party sellers, and while they’re not meant to be able to contact Amazon customers directly, many are managing to do so.
ROMEOVILLE, IL – AUGUST 01: Workers pack and ship customer orders at the 750,000-square-foot Amazon fulfillment center on August 1, 2017 in Romeoville, Illinois. On August 2, Amazon will be holding job fairs at several fulfillment centers around the country, including the Romeoville facility, in an attempt to hire more than 50,000 workers. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
According to the WSJ, some sellers are utilizing “email extraction” and “reviewer lookup” services to access the contact details of certain customers. One customer, Katherine Scott, described to the WSJ how she left a negative review for a kitchen oil spray bottle and just one week later received an email from someone claiming to be a customer service rep for the company she purchased the spray bottle from. The representative offered to refund Scott’s money in exchange for deleting her negative review.
The message Scott received states: “We are willing to refund in full. When we do not receive a response, we will assume that you did not see it, and will continue to send emails… We hope you can reconsider deleting comments at your convenience okay?”
Scott asked for a refund but refused to take down the review and promptly received an email from another customer rep offering her $20 to remove her review, double what she paid for the oil spray bottle. Scott told the WSJ: “It was so creepy. They emailed me directly about it over and over.”
Amazon says that it only provides third-party sellers with “customers’ personal information related to those transactions with that third party.” An Amazon spokesperson clarified to the WSJ: “We do not share customer email addresses with third-party sellers.”
Jeff Bezos arrive at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 4, 2018, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Scott told the WSJ that she believes that the sellers received her email address by including a “free gift” insert with her order. In order to receive a free cooking thermometer, Scott was told to enter her email address and Order ID on a webpage, which she did. These inserts directly violate Amazon’s policies but appear to be quite common.
As the Journal reported earlier this year, Amazon’s platform is also filled with fake reviews and bogus ratings. Some brands offer free gifts in exchange for 5-star ratings, which distorts the ratings of legitimate customers.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com