Not quite the same, but I had a seller open an inquiry through Amazon to send me a message well after a sale (a month or so). I thought it was odd. I got an email something to the tune of, "Regarding the issue with your order". I thought - what issue? There was no issue, no problem to speak of. I bought a jacket and it was delivered and that was that. I open the ticket, and it's a tin can rattle for a 5 star Amazon review.

At what point the review system becomes a net liability for Amazon?

Some of these scams are completely fixable by system policy (the "build up reviews on product A, then swap the listing to sell product B instead" phenomenon, bad curation of poorly related products sharing a review pool) and some are definitely fixable with a moderator's banhammer. But if they continue to let the system rot, eventually customers will stop trusting the reviews entirely.

Of course, it's not like they seem too concerned with product quality and consumer trust anymore.

Interesting/disgusting. Not what Show HN is for though: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

Oops this should have been a tellhn . Sorry about that

Why do they keep asking for 5-star review s? To me this seems illogical. Just ask for a review (without explicitly specifying you want 5 stars) - that's legal and will have the same/better effect.

Everyone knows everyone wants 5 stars. Provided they agree to submit a review they will put 5 stars if everything is great. And in case they are unsatisfied they won't put 5 stars no matter how you nag them anyway.

No, it won't have the same effect, a lot of people only bother leaving reviews if they've encountered something negative about the product/service, but obviously if you give them a gift card if they leave a review, they're more likely to do it because it benefits them.

This is pretty common among third party Amazon sellers.

They’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Amazon has high standards for seller ratings based on reviews. The proportion of unsatisfied customers leaving negative reviews is exponentially higher than those satisfied leaving positive ones.

They’re doing their best to feed themselves.

I've gotten similar things in recent years, but most of them promise some sort of discount or free tiny trinket from their store if you do it. I've never had the time or energy to follow up.

This looks like the next step in that rewards progression though.

Out of curiosity, if you had chosen to review the product on your own, how many stars would you have given it?

No way I am gonna give it 5. The product is worth 3 stars maybe

Fair enough. I don’t review purchases pretty much ever but my thinking is generally pretty binary.

For example, I bought a squeegee the other day and it works just fine so if somebody offered me $20 to write a 5 star review I’d probably do it (It would read “Good squeegee, works as advertised”).

Now if the people that sold me an incomplete lockpicking kit asked for a 5 star review I’d tell them to fuck off.

Amazon is complicit. When I've left I review about cards offering money for reviews packaged with an item I've ordered, Amazon has deleted my review.

When I've followed up, they told me it's actually against the rules to call sellers out for this behavior - your reviews can't mention "promotional materials", even if they came IN THE BOX of what you purchase.

Disgusting. Should be a case for the FTC (or equivalent agency in your country). Also, competitors should sue Amazon for such anti-competitive behavior.

I got a hand written postcard recently from a seller asking for a review. Threw it in trash tho

I'm thinking maybe I'll post the review, get the gift card and then redeem it before deleting the review.