I had something similar happen on Amazon. I bought a pair of winter gloves then got a letter a week later in the mail offering me $30 (twice what I paid) if I left a 5 star reviews. The letter even left a message at the bottom saying not to post a review with a picture of the letter! That annoyed me, so of course I posted a review with a picture of the letter, then Amazon rejected the review since it didn't review the product.
I'm never trusting online reviews anymore. Especially when the companies pull BS like this.
Edit: I just revisited the original email that I got from Amazon. They rejected my review because I left feedback about the seller, so I went to their seller feedback portal and left a message and never got a response. I still feel like this is a dark practice though, a review highlighting the fact the seller is farming 5 star reviews should still be posted, even though it's about the seller and not the product.
I bought a pair of Doc Martens shoes (the old classic ones) from amazon before discovering doc marteens had its own selling website. I bought a second pair there after 2 weeks not seeing the one I ordered on amazon, the very same model which made Doc Marteens famous around the world.
They both arrived the very same day.
From the seller addresses on the package, I could know which pair were coming from Doc Marteens website and which pair were coming from the amazon seller.
I put the pairs side by side to compare them.
At first sight, you couldn't tell the differences, but once you got close it was very clear there were not the sames :
- The laces were thinner on the fake one.
- The leather were thinner on the fake one.
- The sole were differents, with different markts and scripture.
- The logo at the back of the shoes was very badly reproduced.
The amazon seller had recorded an obviously fake address situated in New York city. The front of the address on google map was a store which has nothing to do with shoes or clothing business.
I posted a review telling the shoes were fake and the seller was selling counterfeit products and had posted a fake address.
Amazon informed me 24 hours later they had removed my review because I didn't stitch to only review the shoes.
believe Amazon is in the right though. Amazon has multiple sellers for the same listing. You can see the different sellers by the purchase box and switch to a different seller.
Sometimes they have multiple sellers for the same listing, and in that case, feedback for any particular seller doesn't belong in a product review. But in some cases, there's only one seller (usually based in China) and the product has very high ratings because they are gaming the system like this, and burying the feedback in the seller reviews does not really give a proper warning to other prospective buyers. I think this is a grey area between "feedback for the seller" and "feedback about the product" but a blanket policy against mentioning seller misbehavior in product reviews is one of the things that allows shady sellers to continue to get away with their games for a long time.
I'm never trusting online reviews anymore. Especially when the companies pull BS like this.
Edit: I just revisited the original email that I got from Amazon. They rejected my review because I left feedback about the seller, so I went to their seller feedback portal and left a message and never got a response. I still feel like this is a dark practice though, a review highlighting the fact the seller is farming 5 star reviews should still be posted, even though it's about the seller and not the product.