Amazon have treated me appallingly

[Claire Goldthorpe]

I have been a loyal customer to Amazon for nine years.
Since purchasing fire TV last year and becoming a prime member my purchases in 2017 alone total 183. Not to mention my subscription. I have spent money through Amazon this year then any other company.
I have left product reviews on purchases dating back to 2015, 230 in total. Along with seller feedback and prime TV reviews.
On Tuesday evening this week I logged on to leave a product review for the delivery recieved that day. All of my reviews had been deleted and I was unable to leave the review I had hoped to write.
I contacted them on Wednesday morning to report the issue, I was told my issue would be passed to the relevant team and I would be contacted within 24 hours.
Six days and five calls resulting in the same ending (24 hours, blah blah blah) i decided to have another attempt at at least confimin my personel information and bank details were secure. As I attempted to log on to my account the password was not recognised. I began the reset password procedure and was asked a security question, this was to give the full name of the account holder. I put my name in three times and ended up being locked out of my account.
While I was on hold to customer service who were failing to log me back into my account I received an email saying all my reviews had been deleted following a breach of policy and that they decision was final and even if I decided to contact them to appeal they may not respond.
I'm so upset and appalled. How can this be ok? I was told only 24 hours beforehand that my account was now secure and that nobody had accessed my profile or deleted my data.
No right to appeal?
Please can anyone offer any advice on where to go with this.
Many thanks.

 

[pcgeek11]

Did they tell you what the " breach of policy" was?

Did you breach the policy?

 

[purbeast0]

First post is an Amazon rant? Yeah that doesn't seem fishy...

 

[Claire Goldthorpe]

Did they tell you what the " breach of policy" was?

Did you breach the policy?

No! They just sent a generic email stating that is was them who removed it and I had in some way breached policy. Their decision was final. And they have they right not to respond to any attempts from me to contact them or appeal

 

[Claire Goldthorpe]

First post is an Amazon rant? Yeah that doesn't seem fishy...

I'm shocked. In nine years I've never had to so much as question any of my many delivery times. I expected more. Much more.

 

[Claire Goldthorpe]

No! They just sent a generic email stating that is was them who removed it and I had in some way breached policy. Their decision was final. And they have they right not to respond to any attempts from me to contact them or appeal

I'm not aware of any wrong doing on my part. If im wrong then I accept the review I question should be removed, I'd even accept a temporary suspension while they investigated me. But permanent removal of the right to review and all of my reviews I cannot accept.

 

[shortylickens]

Appallingly.

 

[Captante]

Sorry OP but my bet is you are leaving out some relevant details.

 

[Malogeek]

I'm shocked. In nine years I've never had to so much as question any of my many delivery times. I expected more. Much more.

Your delivery times? What does that mean in the context of your reviews? Are you a vendor for Amazon?

What's the use of joining a public forum to complain about a company censoring you if you don't post what was censored? Without that, you're just blowing hot air to no one.

 

[Thebobo]

Man that must suck. Its extremely frustrating to not have control.

I can't believe they didn't tell you or won't tell you what the the breach in policy was. How would you know not to do it again? Have you called them and asked them?

 

[bradly1101]

I'm not aware of any wrong doing on my part. If im wrong then I accept the review I question should be removed, I'd even accept a temporary suspension while they investigated me. But permanent removal of the right to review and all of my reviews I cannot accept.

Can you share a typical review you gave, especially if it was negative?

 

[Claire Goldthorpe]

Sorry OP but my bet is you are leaving out some relevant details.

Man that must suck. Its extremely frustrating to not have control.

I can't believe they didn't tell you or won't tell you what the the breach in policy was. How would you know not to do it again? Have you called them and asked them?

Apologies for the lack of experience that must be clear in my forum. First time I've ever needed this level of advice.
They have responded stating I breached their review creation policy. Not how or how many times. Their decision stands - full removal Of all my feedback, reviews, including the prime tv related stuff and permanent suspension is final. They also stated that they won't respond to any further contact.
Happy days! Way to go Amazon.

 

[Claire Goldthorpe]

I only ever reviewed they products that I was pleased with. It was all honest reviews, I just gave seller feedback if I was unhappy with my purchase. That goes directly to them and isn't public. I didnt want to leave bad reviews based on the impact one bad review can have on a seller.

 

[Thebobo]

Maybe they think your post is from a review service

Were you reviewing for products given to you for reviews?

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/message.jspa?messageID=3871451

 

[RichUK]

Aawwww, poor baby.

 

[XavierMace]

How much were you being paid for reviews?

 

[Stopsignhank]

I only ever reviewed they products that I was pleased with. It was all honest reviews, I just gave seller feedback if I was unhappy with my purchase. That goes directly to them and isn't public. I didnt want to leave bad reviews based on the impact one bad review can have on a seller.

How much were you being paid for reviews?

Ding Ding Ding, I think we have a winner.

"Dear Amazon merchant,

I would like to review your product and give it a good review. You know that one bad review can have an impact on you, what will you do to make it worth my while to give you a good review

Yours truly,
CG"

 

[bradly1101]

The web untangles (I think). Only took 'til #17.

 

[who?]

If you only leave positive reviews you may appear to be a shill who is posting phony reviews.

 

[Elixer]

While I was on hold to customer service who were failing to log me back into my account I received an email saying all my reviews had been deleted following a breach of policy and that they decision was final and even if I decided to contact them to appeal they may not respond.
...
Please can anyone offer any advice on where to go with this.
Many thanks.

On the off chance this is actually legit...
Why did you pick these forums for Amazon issues as your first post? Both sites start with the letter "A"?
This site doesn't come up when you type "Amazon banned account" (well, it does now, thanks to you!), so, what brought you here, instead of the normal "shopping/deal" forum sites or the other social media destinations?

Spoiler

I also assume you are now going to write a negative review for Anandtech?
"My first post on Anandtech, and I am upset and appalled at the responses I got!"

 

[Malogeek]

I'm sure OP could be "persuaded" to write a good review for AT

 

[Insomniator]

Who cares about their own Amazon reviews?

Its like people who have 100's of yelp reviews... you are not a food critic... get a life.

 

[Coalfax]

Doubt the OP will be returning being they have been outed for possibly being a shill paid reviewer for something and Amazon had a problem with them. Funny that...

 

[Mike64]

Who cares about their own Amazon reviews?
Its like people who have 100's of yelp reviews... you are not a food critic... get a life.

I disagree. 17 years after creating an Amazon account, I've reviewed only a handful of my purchases from them (in all that time, I've posted a whopping 53, according to my profile), and I'm certainly not one of the far-too-many people who believe themselves obligated to post reviews (or answer product questions with "sorry, I don't know, I gave the XYZ to my son in another state") just because Amazon or the seller sends me email asking me to. But I do think thoughtful, detail-oriented user reviews are often more helpful than many "professional" reviews, and Amazon certainly encourages and even solicits them, and if I do bother to write one that doesn't in fact facially violate their loosey-goosey TOS, I think it should stand or that I should at least be told in something other than totally vague terms what's wrong with it...

That being said...


I have to agree that several things sound really fishy here. (And if Amazon actually "bans" people they think are shills, I'm actually glad to hear it - even if they do it unfairly from time to time - since the general impression I've gotten is that except when they're publicly exposed for it, they all but tacitly encourage it, to boost their own profits... Yes, I'm afraid I am that cynical.) ETA: Also, fwiw, "appalling" is an awfully strong word. I find it "appalling" that 50% of the US electorate voted for Donald Trump for POTUS. Amazon hiding one's reviews, on the other hand, barely registers as "annoying"...

I once had some of my reviews "hidden" by Amazon. But they were for books I had not bought on Amazon (or anywhere, thankfully, I'd borrowed them from my library) and they were anything but positive, bordering on what I suppose a hypersensitive type might've considered "personal" attacks on the authors/copyright holders, and I hadn't written all that many other reviews in general at that point. Otoh, they certainly didn't hide all my reviews, nor lock down or do anything else screwy to my account in general. I did complain, or rather asked rather pointedly for an explanation, but of course I didn't get get one (nor for matter did I actually expect to.) For a while I totally boycotted Amazon reviews, not posting any at all and myself "hiding" all of the ones Amazon had let stand. But eventually I got bored with that and started reviewing stuff again and, for whatever the reasons, the ones Amazon had hidden were unhidden at some point. (I assume, but really don't know, during some sort of later random "auditing" at which point I'd posted quite a few more reviews (varyingly positive and critical) of products I had in fact bought from, or at least on, Amazon.

If anyone is wondering, the reviews in question were slams - actually, merciless obliterations would be a better description - of a couple of the posthumous Dune-prequel so-called-literary excrescences, including comments along the lines of wondering just how desperate for money Frank Herbert's heirs must've been to have abetted the books' publication, even ignoring their participation in their authorship despite clearly not having inherited even a microscopic fraction of Frank's talent. (Although I enjoyed the Dune books, once through was enough and I wasn't what you'd call a "fan" of even Frank himself. But his books were deathless masterworks by comparison to any of the far-too numerous "prequels" that were published after his death. And since the said heir(s) had made themselves "public figures" at least as author(s) and copyright holder(s) of the books, I thought my comments weren't unfairly personal.) At some point I edited them to remove the worst of the "personal" aspects, though maybe even adding a little more content-oriented condemnation. Dunno if that was the tipping point or my having bulked up my overall review count.

 

[zinfamous]

This aggression will not stand!