Last month I bought a case for my Kindle via a third party retailer on Amazon. When the case arrived it was too small - in their advertisement they referred to the large size Kindle 2 and apparently mine is a 9 inch Kindle DX.
I contacted the Seller about returning my product, which they told me I could do although I was still responsible for all the shipping costs. First they asked me to mail the item to their warehouse, then they asked me to ship it directly to a private address in Canterbury. I agreed to all their terms and in addition to posting it to the private address, I also sent the Seller a copy of my invoice and of our email correspondence, highlighting where the product had been shipped.
Beware the Negative Seller Review!
Three weeks passed and I still hadn't heard back from the Seller nor had I received a refund, but I did receive about three emails from Amazon asking me to log onto their site and review the seller. Frustrated, I logged on and left a negative feedback score (2/5) and a comment along the lines of, "When the case arrived it was too small. The refund process was convoluted and to date (weeks later) I still haven't received my refund."
Within hours I had an email from the Seller berating me for leaving negative feedback. Instead of being concerned about a misunderstanding or customer service gaffe, they complain that I was ruining their business, shouted at me in all-caps and then gave me instructions about how to remove my negative feedback from Amazon. Some of the highlights:
- "I am so upset that you have left a NEGATIVE FEEDBACK on our Amazon listing. I am not sure you are aware that a negative can have our account suspended. This is our family business and our source of income."
- "I am simply without words to see the FIRST NEGATIVE customer feedback in almost 500 trading days of business. This is no way to treat a good seller."
- "Are you aware that the entire Amazon network and customers see these reviews and this can cause of seller rating to drop and cause a suspension. We are very stressed about this and need this issue resolved quickly before our image on Amazon is ruined. I am still cannot belive this is happening to us..why ??? I am so upset about this!"
- "I would appreciate if you could remove this as we have been a very very good seller. I remember my wife asking me to sign a cheque weeks ago, so either it was lost or there is a communication issue. Could you be polite and remove this negative feedback .... please remove this before our sales are hurt even more."
Negative Feedback .... Disappears
Shortly after this email exchange, I logged onto my Amazon account to find that my feedback had been removed.
After changing my password, I called Amazon and was put through to a very helpful customer service person. After some digging, it was determined that the Amazon department representing Sellers removed my feedback in response to a complaint from the Seller. They apologised for not having sent me an email that informed me of the removal of my feedback - apparently that should have happened.
After a bit more questioning they told me that the review was removed because I mentioned the product, which, I was told, violates their feedback policy. The only Amazon feedback removal policy that references product mentions says, a review will be removed if:
The entire feedback comment is a product review, such as "The Acme Super-Widget lacks the sharpness and speed of the Acme Ultra Widget." However, if the feedback comment is only partly a product review but ALSO contains feedback about the seller's service, such as "Seller's shipping service was very slow, and the Acme Super-Widget lacks the sharpness and speed of the Acme Ultra Widget," then the feedback would NOT be removed.When I pointed out to Amazon that, although I referenced the size of the product, the majority of my review was about the seller and their policy clearly allows for this, I was told that they would need to get back to me because the very nice man I was speaking to was unfamiliar with the actual wording of the feedback policy. Again, he needed to speak to the Seller department to get more information.
15 minutes later the same representative called me back to apologise and say that my review would be reinstated within two hours. After more digging, it seems that it was "accidentally" deleted by someone at Amazon and that there were no grounds for removing it. This conversation happened at noon today.
About six hours later my review was still not up so I called Amazon. Again, I was greeted by a very pleasant customer service person. I explained the entire situation to her (as she didn't seem to have any record of it) and put me on hold (again) as she spoke to the Seller department. When she came back, she told me that she would need to speak to my original customer service representative (I had his name) and that only he could deal with my problem. I am supposed to hear back from him sometime tomorrow about whether or not my feedback will actually be reinstated.
Lessons
If my situation represents the typical way Amazon deals with negative feedback, then as a company, they are far more concerned with keeping their Sellers happy then their customers. My Seller didn't like my negative feedback, complained to Amazon and, in contravention of their own policy, they removed my review. They didn't contact me to tell me and, in fact, misrepresented the situation with a message on my account inferring that I had removed the feedback myself. If the seller hadn't sent me such a crazy email, I probably would never have logged into my account to re-read my feedback, which is buried deep within my profile, and as a result, I would never have known it was removed.
Moreover, if I hadn't made myself familiar with Amazon's Feedback Removal Policy, I would have accepted the word of the customer service representative and assumed that I'd done something wrong. They seem to be counting on the ignorance of customers. Finally, after all of the above, if I wasn't annoyed enough to check back, deep into my account, six hours later, I would not have called back and again, would not have noticed my feedback hadn't been reinstated.
It makes me wonder whether I can trust the Seller reviews on Amazon or whether they are fixed to benefit Sellers. The benefit for Amazon in having high Seller ratings is presumably that people tend to buy more from Sellers they trust, and Amazon sees a share of this profit. The downside, which Amazon should really consider, is that as a regular online consumer, I no longer trust these ratings nor do I trust that Amazon is handing reviews in a transparent way. Are Sellers with mostly positive reviews really trust worthy, or are they just the ones who take the time out to complain to Amazon? The result of this kind of practice is that genuinely good sellers may be penalised because consumers no longer have faith in positive reviews.
At the present time, my review has still not been re-posted and although I've been told my concern will be dealt with quickly, my faith in Amazon has been shaken. Next time you buy from a third-party on Amazon, you might want to rethink whether you can really trust their feedback score and if you've left a negative review, you might want to check that Amazon hasn't secretly removed it.
Update - Tuesday 16th March, 10 a.m.
When I got up this morning, I logged into Amazon to see that my review had been reinstated, so that's good. I am still concerned about this process and whether it is the typical way that the Amazon Seller Department handles negative complains from customers. There seems to be a bit of conflict between the department that represents the interest of customers and the one that looks after Sellers. At this point Amazon hasn't really explained to me what happened to get this entire process so off track.
I originally posted my Amazon review on Friday night and now that it's been reinstated, because it is nearly five days old, it is no longer showing up on the front page of the Seller's shop, which is where it would have been for at least a few days if it had not been taken down. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but again, I wonder about whether this was intentional.
The other point of concern is that it seemed relatively easy for the Seller to have negative reviews removed (my review was removed within eight hours of me putting it up) but it's taken me much more time and effort (and a blog post) to have it reinstated. After all of this, I am still left with the question - are third party Seller ratings on Amazon trustworthy? Is this just a wild example of everything falling apart or is this something that happens a lot at Amazon? I have more answers than questions.
I welcome anyone from Amazon to weigh in and provide an explanation. Jeff Bezos ... are you out there? Do you care?
Update 2: I've heard from the office of Jeff Bezos, apparently he does care. Here's what they had to say.
48 Comments:
Wow, this discredits all seller ratings on Amazon for me - and I've been a really heavy Amazon buyer for the last ten years.
Not sure why they would damage their brand name in such a stupid way.
Cheers
Stephan
http://codemonkeyism.com
I hope you used a credit card and issued a charge back. Sometimes that's the only way.
The whole process has been pretty eye opening... I'll update again tomorrow assuming they actually follow up with me (not holding my breath).
Send an email to Jeff Bezos. There is a good chance that he will not just make the review come back up but also kick the asses of the executives who allowed this to happen. He's serious a bout this crap.
This seems to be more of a problem with how Amazon handles ther 3rd party sellers rather than the stuff they sell themselves. I have had to contact Amazon customer service a couple of times about lost shipments, and returns and have had nothing but good experiences.
I try not to order from their 3rd party sellers too often to avoid this exact kind of thing
Amy - Please be assured that this issue is being routed to the appropriate folks at Amazon (I'm an Amazon employee) and you should hear from someone there within 48 hours.
@Denis - I've heard Bezos is a good guy who values customer service. Sending him an email might be just the thing.
@mkoby I agree - I've generally found Amazon customer service to be good. There seems to be disconnect between the people responsible for handling sellers and people like me. According to the two people I've spoken to over the phone, it's the Sellers Department who took it down and they are also the ones who need to put it back up.
@Anonymous - Thanks for the note. In fairness, if this is resolved satisfactorily I will happy update the blog entry to reflect it. This is not a personal vendetta - just a very real concern based on a number of things that have happened over the last few days.
I would suggest you to file a A-Z claim for getting a refund on the product. During the claims resolution process, forward the abusive email you got from the seller to Amazon to let them know you do not want to deal with him anymore. See http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=12880481
Under Seller performance targets, you know how you can negatively impact the seller if he's not provide adequate quality of service.
Regarding providing refunds, the seller should not be writing cheque to you. Amazon has an automated way to provide refund to buyers. All the seller has to do is click a refund button next to your order.
See
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=537736
On a related note, is the seller still selling on Amazon ?. What is the seller's name ?
@anonymous The seller did finally gave me a refund. They were very bitchy about it and claimed that they were going to do it all along but I hadn't reminded them or something crazy... I have emailed Amazon a series of emails I received from the seller because I suspect they don't conform with what Amazon would consider an acceptable standard of service. Bat shit crazy all-caps sentences, for example...
They are still selling, but I'm reluctant to publish their name as they are so completely wacky. If you drop me an email to amy.thibodeauATgmail.com I'll happily send you a link to their profile.
I am having a similar sort of problem with Amazon. I bought an item. While in transit the seller contacted me and indicated there was a mix up and the wrong item was shipped. When the item arrived I refused the delivery (because it wasnt what I had ordered) . The USPS tracking Number indicates i refused delivery but according to Amazon becasue I did not guarantee deluivery to the seller's address I cant get a refund.Which i did not understand coz I never got what I ordered. After numerous calls and emails the seller indicated if i removed al;l negative comments and feedback I would get a full refund. He stated he did not get back the item. I told him to contact USPS and fund it but he refused (which is so strange). But I removed the negative comments and he reimbursed me 150USD.The item was 220USD. I cannot remove the seller feedback and honestly i dont want to becasue it was a bunch of crap that happened. I have no clue how I am going to get back the rest of my money because I feel like I am being blackmailed.
@Vanita That is ridiculous all around. I would have done the same thing as you - reject the parcel. Why should you be responsible for the shipping costs if the merchant sent you the wrong item? Email Jeff Bezos - after I did that I had a pretty quick response and things were dealt with. You could also try the route of getting your credit card company to reverse the charge.
All in all though, it's stories like yours that make some people reluctant to buy things online. If I were Amazon I would certainly sit up, pay attention and detail with third party sellers that give their entire industry a bad name.
Hope it all works out.
WOW, this certainly is a revelation! There are so many issues here that I am now very wary of Amazon. Not only do they not protect their customers, they side w/ the sellers rather than the customers w/c makes it even worse. & the fact that you had to go to so much hassle just to get a refund is preposterous! What if for whatever reason, you could not devote all the time you have in getting your due? The very idea that you actually had to pay an additional cost for someone else's mistake is just incredible to me. It seems the arrogance of the seller & his bullying indicates that such tactics have worked for him in the past, something he most probably has abused repeatedly w/ Amazon's backing. Thank you for this insightful blog.
I am currently having nearly the same problem. Only in my case, I ordered a product, never received it and the seller ignored four contacts asking for info on the shipping. I left negative feedback which disappeared. I was told first that the feedback isn't allowed if you file an A-Z claim! Once the claim is resolved then I MIGHT be allowed to repost my feedback. I asked if they really meant that if I asked for a refund I wasn't able to tell people these were cheating scam artists? Wouldn't outright admit it, but wouldn't deny it either. Then I was told it was a technical glitch, and it would appear shortly. Eight days later and no sign. If Amazon is willing to protect scam artists like this, why should I give them money for their products? FYI - the company to avoid is wrappedupinbooks09.
Amy inspired me to try calling again and now I am being told that there is an investigation of why the feedback disappeared, but they won't allow me to post the feedback again. I told him I don't need an investigation, I just need to repost the negative feedback.
Elmo, the supervisor I spoke with next said that they will just keep investigating this but still won't allow the negative feedback to be posted. I said "So basically you will just keep delaying this and hoping I will go away." He offered no reply, note even phony reassurance that customers matter yada yada. Any chance I can get Jeff Bezo's e-mail from you? ; )
this is really amazing..and such a big company like Amazon should be resorting to such low biz tactics is really disheartening. I think the biggest lesson here is that if the seller is not amazon directly, then we should think twice before ordering the stuff from them.
I have ordered from Amazon for years. As someone else said, they have always been very reliable when they ship a product, but they let third-party vendors get away with murder.
The latest fiasco (there have been others) involves an order I placed for a used copy of the 6th edition of a book. Because their price was so low, I was concerned that they were selling an older version, so I immediately emailed them through Amazon saying to cancel the order if they had an old version.
They sent the 2nd edition of the book anyway. When I complained, they refused to pay for shipping to return the book, saying that the page I ordered from said 2nd edition, which was an outright lie. (And what about my email, which they acknowledged receiving?)
I filed a claim with Amazon who has just denied it stating that the book sent was not "materially different" from what I had ordered.
How is the 2nd edition of a technical book (a textbook) not materially different from the 6th edition?
I expect such sleaziness from 3rd-party vendors, but I thought I had covered myself with the email. I am so upset with Amazon about this. They are going to take part in ripping me off for a few bucks after the years I have been a very loyal customer and the thousands of dollars I have spent with them. Unbelievable!
i just ordered from amazon too, 3rd party, wrong item, then i googled, found this blog that inspired me to claim
let see how it turn's out
whatever happens this is gonna be my first and the last time buying from amazon, since i never had any problem from ebay.
Thanks for this enlightening post. It definitely gives me some food for thought.
As a buyer on Amazon, you definitely make me wary of whether Amazon is honest and whether the third party Sellers on Amazon are honest.
I am a Seller on Amazon and I can only speak for myself. I am honest and I have not had any negative reviews; if I got any, I would try to improve my service and not call Amazon to complain. That is ridiculous! Amazon does help me sell items, but I don't expect them to fix my problems and I feel I am responsible for my sales and the results.
So far I have only 4 ratings, because even though I've been selling items, SO MANY people don't leave any feedback or rate. It's frankly annoying, and one thing as a Seller that I wish customers would do more, is take a second of their time to leave feedback *as soon as* they receive their item, so they don't forget.
It would help so much. I don't expect thousands of reviews, and I don't claim that this "supports my family" or some b.s, but a little feedback and rates so my shop can survive against bigger, older shops and those irritating "item for $0.01" people would be great.
I've just had an incident a couple of days ago where I left a Neutral rating for a seller because on the description page, the seller did not disclose the condition of the CD and gave a rating of 'very good'.
The seller had an overall rating of 98 percent, so I felt confident that the CD would be scratch-free. When the item did arrive, CD had a substantial amount of scratches and the jewel case was in rough condition along with having a sticker on it that when peeled, would leave some ugly glue marks.
None of this was disclosed in the description. So after 3 days of leaving a Neutral rating(I should have gone for Negative mind you), I got an angry email from this seller accusing me of exaggerating and being 'cheap'(the CD was 3.49).
Hold on, was it his business to make personal comments on my spending habits? Also, isn't this fool the one who sold this 'cheap' item? Anyhow, he also left a flaming response under my feedback(be wary of sellers who love to attack negative/neutral comments with a flaming response).
My feedback was composed with an even tone and no insults. So I emailed Amazon and forwarded the harrassing email and requested that this seller not bug me anymore. I also returned the email to the seller pointing out his flaws(i didnt use obscene words but my tone wasn't as even this time). BTW, this order was from Amazon Fullfillment.
This was the first any seller has sent me an insulting email after leaving anything less than a positive review. Overall I only buy items from Amazon directly(or 3rd party sellers that use Amazon Fullfillment) since if their is a problem(which their rarely is) i can just send the item back within 30 days and get a full refund.
From my experience on Amazon(and eBay), I would tend not to trust 3rd party sellers. Yes, most of my experience have been positive..BUT, once you run into that wacko seller, it is a HUGE headache and can consume your time and energy. So I tend to avoid 3rd parties.
Interesting...
I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet that you bought the wrong item. You bought an item that was labeled for a different size (large size Kindle 2) kindle than you own (9 inch Kindle DX). Of course it won't fit. This portion is not the fault of the seller.
Now the way the seller treated you, was completely wrong. There is no excuse for that. But the item being the wrong size was your error - I can see how that could be a justifiable reason for removing the feedback as you're criticizing the seller for your own mistake.
"I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet that you bought the wrong item."
@anonymous - Are you daft? No one mentioned it because I called it out myself. In the first heading in the first section of this post.
Also it shouldn't matter if he ordered the wrong item, this is assuming the seller guarantees 100% customer satisfaction as many companies do. The catch normally is you must return the item at your own cost...kind of a sleazy trick retail companies have used for years. especially if you buy something not sold by a big box store. Again this is assuming they offer complete satisfaction.
I lost trust in Amazon. I had put a negative feed back after a week i logged back to see it and it disappears. So DON'T TRUST any feed back in AMAZON. Only good feedback appears on the page, rest all will be removed by them to promote their product.
When dealing directly with Amazon I have no problems. However I've had so many problems with 3rd party sellers, I just won't buy from them any more. Amazon always sides with these Mom & Pop ripoff outfits but fortunately American Express does not.
They do remove negative feedback regularly to protect the 3rd party crooks they broker for. So no, their seller feedback is not even slightly reliable.
If you have trouble with a company that seems to have great feedback, just google that company and I'll bet you find they have a very bad reputation. One company selling on Amazon gave me one excuse and lie after another for two months till I finally had Amex charge it back. They had outstanding feedback on Amazon but when I googled them, no one had anything good to say about that company and my experience was simply SOP for them.
So I ordered a new phone e from a seller on Amazon only to get the phone with scratches someones pictures and contacts as well as there text messages still on the phone since I needed the phone right away I just kept it and submitted my feedback of basically just the way I put it I. This comment only to get a rude email from the seller on how I quote " need to make it right and remove my comment" BC he has a family to take care of and is out of work and this is how he takes care of his family and by my comment I hurt his business if the phone had a scratch why didn't u just return it or why don't you just return it!! I am in shock who does that I only gave my honest oppinon and I would try and make things right in a positive manner if I were a business owner not be rude to my customer wow still shocked but my point is I can't find my feedback either its not showing and being new to Amazon I'm not to familiar with the steps to take but my feedback has been removed
Having similar problems. Will never do business with Amazon again.
Always takes weeks to get anything from Amazon anyway, done with the BS.
I got a $10 Amazon gift card after I removed some negative seller feedback; I know I shouldn't have removed the feedback because in reality they were selling counterfeit merch... in other words, cheap knock offs instead of the name brand listed.
I'm still not totally sure though if the claim of 3/5 equals 1/5.
Amazon, seller, product, and shipping company should all be thought of as completely separate entities when making a review.
Sellers point of view from a seller that cares but is open to the abuses of buyers.
A buyer wants to return a personal item because it was the wrong size. It was used and had the buyers menstrual blood on it before the buyer cleaned it for the return. We told the buyer Amazon does not accept returns for used personal items and we offered to send the other size at a discount. The buyer refused and filed an A-to-Z claim. The claim was denied. In retaliation, the buyer left negative feedback and stated they would remove it only if we gave then a full refund or replacement. Amazon was of no help. Our only recourse was to bring legal action against the buyer. It will cost the buyer 50 times more then the item and a court order will force Amazon to remove the feedback.
Moral - there are bad sellers and there are bad buyers.
But here's the real story. Buyers can easily abuse third party sellers on Amazon by easily getting free items, free exchanges, and refunds through leveraging negative feedback because Amazon has nothing in place to protect it's sellers. Bad sellers would not care about this because they do not care about receiving negative feedback.
If left long enough Amazon will be just a gathering place for bad sellers and bad buyers. As long as Amazon keeps receiving the 15% commission per sale, all is good in the world.
The pendulum has turned: Sellers are getting screwed now.
I'm an Amazon seller and pride myself on providing fast processing and prompt and courteous customer service. My account has two neutrals (both say "good" - odd, but whatever) and one negative. The negative one mentions seller comments that were not made by me and are not in the message history of my seller account.
Even though an Amazon rep admits this after viewing my message history, Amazon refuses to remove the feedback and the buyer doesn't seem to care.
So far my business is down several thousand dollars from projections since the negative review was posted.
I'm being screwed by Amazon blindly sticking to the exact letter of their policy and not making a common sense exception to an obvious and provable error by the buyer.
As a seller within the Amazon Market Place (3rd Party seller) I can see your concerns and that of the seller, albeit they handled the situation very badly.
Sellers do desire, seek and need good feedback, clearly only if it deserved however only about 1:10 (10%) of customers actually leave feedback and thus one or two negatives can lower a sellers overall rating. As a seller I would say that the score process is not fair at all especially as Amazon consider a Fair 3 out of 5 Score as a Neutral and calculate this as if it were a negative - I guess my seller point is well made!
Buyers can leave Product Reviews and thus alert Sellers and other potential buyers of any particular issue with a product, be it good or bad. But, out of those 1:10 customer reviews we receive around 20% are in fact product reviews so the whole "game" becomes even more complex and frustrating. Leaving a Negative or Neutral against a seller won't help other customers as one may think as it does not reflect against a particular product.
Where I very much agree with you the Buyer is that feedback should be giving in relation to the Sellers performance and not that of a product. In the case you stated I would agree that your initial score was fair and reasonable and that the seller should of addressed the cause of your feedback / complaint.
Amazons A-Z process without question backs the Buyer so if you have a genuine problem use it. Also under the DSR the customer has the right to buy, inspect and if they so wish return a product to the seller WITHOUT having to pay the return postage cost. In summary whilst the seller in question went about the matter in the wrong way, You as the customer always have the Ball in your court!
I sell on Amazon and would comment that the negative feedback feature is rather unfair. A seller can leave a response and even negative feedback on a buyer, but nobody ever sees it. The negative feedback score for the seller is seen as soon as you go to the page to buy the item, so it's really obvious.
I've done about 200 transactions over the years and still only have a feedback score of 20 or something. Nobody ever leaves feedback, unless you email them one at a time and ask them. So if I get one negative, it appears to be something like 5% and makes it sound like you are a poor seller, despite the other 199 successful transactions over the years.
Buyers can be really very fussy and demanding, and with ever downward pressure on pricing, the margins I make are very small in the first place.
I have to refund people who mistakenly buy the wrong item and then return the product with broken packaging and parts missing, which means I can basically then throw the item away, as it's 'Second hand' and pretty worthless to most people. If you're making a net 10% profit and have one transaction like this, it can sometimes mean you've have to work in effect work for nothing selling the last 10-15 items, to recoup the lost money. Of course, I wouldn't do it if I didnt want to, so it's not all bad, but buyers do need to be a bit more considerate and think about how feedback can affect small businesses. Even if such feedback is justified...
I sell on Amazon and would comment that the negative feedback feature can be rather unfair. A seller can leave a response and even negative feedback on a buyer, but nobody ever sees it. The negative feedback score for the seller is seen as soon as you go to the page to buy the item, so it's really obvious.
I've done about 200 transactions over the years and still only have a feedback score of 20 or something. Nobody ever leaves feedback, unless you email them one at a time and ask them. So if I get one negative, it appears to be something like 5% unhappy customers and makes it sound like I am a poor seller, despite the other 199 successful transactions over the years.
Buyers can be really very fussy and demanding, and with ever downward pressure on pricing, the margins I make are very small in the first place. In addition, I have to refund people who mistakenly buy the wrong item and then return the product with broken packaging and parts missing, which means I can basically then throw the item away, as it's 'Second hand' and pretty worthless to most people. If you're making a net 10% profit and have one transaction like this, it can sometimes mean you have to sell the next 10 items just to recoup the lost money on one transction. Of course, I wouldn't do it if I didnt want to, and it's not all bad, most people are great, but buyers do need to be a bit more considerate and think about how feedback can affect small businesses. Even if such feedback is justified... If you open a dispute, Amazon will refund you
I ordered a gaming mouse 11 days ago from a third party seller on Amazon and they still have not shipped it. Of course, there is a single rating on the seller's page and yep, it is indeed positive.
I have contacted the seller three times asking them why they have not shipped my package. They have yet to respond. I have to wait until February 12 to file for a reimbursement.. *sigh* I should have not used the "4 to 14 business days" shipping method.
@OrdinaryMan Is the negative rating feature unfair? Should I give a seller a positive rating for not even shipping my package over a week after I ordered it? I mean this in the most respectful way possible, but when I order an item from a seller and they never ship it or give me a reason on their delay, I have no reason to give them positive feedback.
I am not a very demanding consumer. I just want my items to arrive on the date that the seller says they will arrive. I have never had to give a seller a negative rating until now and if they do get upset for their only negative rating, maybe they shouldn't be selling on the internet.
I ordered a gaming mouse 11 days ago from a third party seller on Amazon and they still have not shipped it. Of course, there is a single rating on the seller's page and yep, it is indeed positive.
I have contacted the seller three times asking them why they have not shipped my package. They have yet to respond. I have to wait until February 12 to file for a reimbursement.. *sigh* I should have not used the "4 to 14 business days" shipping method.
@OrdinaryMan Is the negative rating feature unfair? Should I give a seller a positive rating for not even shipping my package over a week after I ordered it? I mean this in the most respectful way possible, but when I order an item from a seller and they never ship it or give me a reason on their delay, I have no reason to give them positive feedback.
I am not a very demanding consumer. I just want my items to arrive on the date that the seller says they will arrive. I have never had to give a seller a negative rating until now and if they do get upset for their only negative rating, maybe they shouldn't be selling on the internet.
Same here. Got an imported phone with arabic instructions and no UK warrenty from Samsung. When I left a review it was removed by Amazon. Amazon don't bite the hands that feed them. I have noticed Ebay do this also !!! So feedback is useless if only the good stuff remains
Same happened to me. I left negative feedback about a Marketplace seller. It was removed. I re-submitted and it was removed again. Amazon don't bite the hands that feed them!!
I've scanned through the comments here, and I thought I would add my two cents. I am a new seller on Amazon, pointed to this type of side business by a friend of mine who has made a good deal of money. I am the second "protege" of his, the first also is doing well. All three of us are VERY serious about customer service, and we take our feedback VERY seriously. With that said, both of my friends have received unfair negative feedback ratings (such as people who ordered Blu-Ray discs and then realized they have a DVD player, so they rate the seller as bad) and have not once been able to have these negative feedback ratings removed. I think what you went through was a fluke. I can tell you that with the cut Amazon takes, buying and selling on Amazon is a low-margin business, something you do because you enjoy it and want to make a few extra bucks on the side. We don't do it to rip people off, and we do our best to provide excellent customer service. The problem with ratings is, most Amazon customers don't rate--unless they have a bad experience. So far, I have had 23 orders successfully processed and have gotten 4 feedbacks. So I would say that if anything, the ratings are skewed lower than the actuals.
I found your post while doing some research about Amazon and feedback. For personal reasons and wondering why when I did leave negative feedback, often without even them a chance to fix it, I am ashamed to say, the Seller would over to replace the item right away if I would remove my feedback. I didn't even have to send in the old one. And after doing the research I have done, I really ashamed that I knee jerked to feedback without talking to the seller first.
The reason most sellers get upset over negative feedback is because they can have their seller privileges revoked if they fail to meet Amazon's Performance Targets. Less than 1% order defect rate. Less than 2.5% pre-fulfillment cancellation rate. Less than 4.5% late shipments.
Returns? That is the cardinal sin. All returns initiated by the Buyer are considered negative-even if the return was because there was no service or quality issue, the seller just didn't like it.
There are a lot of stories out there of Sellers all of the sudden being told that their privileges were suspended with little or no notice.
And since so few people do leave feedback and it seems like most people only do so when they are upset, it's not that hard to get a negative feedback rate of 10%.
Amazon doesn't make it easy to rate a Seller and they do have this weird rule about not mentioning the product which gets frustrating so people just leave. I am not sure unless you are selling a TON of stuff, that it is worth even having an Amazon store.
Your seller was wrong. Wrong not be sure about the sizes and model the case and definitely wrong in not ignoring you. But I thought you might be interested in why he went on in the email like that.
You guys (the buyers) are making Amazon richer and richer. I don't know why people shop at Amazon while shopping at eBay is much more fun.
My problem is a 3rd party vendor said the item would be shipped on 12/3 or 12/4 and delivered on 12/6. Guaranteed delivery was by 12/11 at 8 pm. It was fabric I needed for a Christmas gift I was making. On 12/12 I contacted the company and tried to get the order canceled because I don't have time to wait on them and UPS still had not received the item (even tho the company said it had shipped). But the company refused to cancel the Order... first telling me it had been shipped - until I pointed out that it had not - then telling me it was overnighted at their expense. But the feedback page will not let me leave a rating under three stars... if I try it directs me to contact the company to resolve the issue... how do you resolve an item that is already late and you needed a week ago and that the company has been misleading and basically lied about item being shipped.
I just had a horrible experience with a third party seller on Amazon. After the experience naturally I reviewed them on seller feedback with one out of five stars. Immediately they responded on the public review on amazon's website and labeled me a scammer and said I changed my story five times which I never did. This all started because the seller claimed to have sent me two orders in one package which they didn't. The package contained only one order and the packing slip reflected that but the seller insisted that didn't matter (which makes no sense). I also filed the a to z claim but talk about inconvenience and irritation. I feel violated because a bunch of things were said which weren't true by someone who literally tried to cover up one mistake with another at my expense. Individual obviously has anger management issues and trouble admitting fault. Do I trust the reviews, NO WAY! This particular seller had nothing but good ratings. From the moment I first began speaking with them it was clear customer service was absent. Between one order not having a tracking number to the amount of time the order went into shipped status something didn't make sense. It was obvious something was wrong and I was never apologized to. This person implied many things and was very rude.
If you post an honest review on Amazon telling the truth about a selling experience that was bad, they will not let you publish the review.
Amazon used to be good and would refund immediately if you buy through a seller that they (Amazon) has fulfilled.
NOT SO ANYMORE. Amazon removes honest feedback and doesn't refund easily.
I am yet to receive a refund for an item that was over $1000. I had to post it back to Amazon and they say they will refund once received. I hope the item doesn't go astray as I live in another country to the US.
Also, Amazon will not let me post an honest review of the product or seller. They refuse to publish it. This means that others can't be warned about this seller, who rips people off and doesn't send the goods described.
I just had a similar incident with a Marketplace seller. I placed a negative review after not receiving a complete order and not hearing back from the seller. After seeing the negative feedback they immediately contacted me. I ended the email exchanges after they offered to send me the missing items only after I removed my review. I complained to Amazon who gave me a complete refund under their A to Z guarantee. The seller then left a "Seller Response" in which he misstated the facts and called me a liar. I sent Amazon an email saying I felt this type of response was very unprofessional and defaming. I have yet to hear back from Amazon. I'm surprised they condone such behavior.
I just had 3 out of 5 star seller feedback rating removed. My rating was based on surprisingly rude responses (two total) from the seller to inquiries I had made about inventory availability. I had asked the seller whether they had more than one color in stock, as multiple colors were shown but what buyer had to take whichever one was randomly sent. I wanted to know if the seller actually had more than one color available, and would possibly purchase another if they did.
I was shocked by the first response ("k"), so I sent another message asking what that meant, and received another rude response. I believe such unnecessarily rude and unprofessional behavior deserves a less than pristine rating, so I left a 3 out of 5 star rating and briefly explained in the comments that the seller had been unprofessional and rude when I inquired about inventory.
The next day, my feedback was gone. Now I see a newer 1 out of 5 star rating for that seller left by someone else for similar reasons. I assume that feedback will be gone in 24 hours too.
I purchased an expensive item from a third party seller and got gray market goods. There are posts all over the internet about this same seller fulfilling orders with gray market goods sans US warranty. Getting refund took the better part of two weeks — a total hassle. Yet the seller gets a 4.8 out of 5. I notice as I scroll through pages of seller feedback reviews that many of the one-star reviews have a line going through them, as if to say they are not being counted. What exactly is going on here? And why can't we read seller feedback reviews the same way we read product reviews, with links to the reviewers other feedback, etc. Way easier to know who to trust that way. In the meantime, I am not buying any major items from third-party sellers. Way too risky.
I believe a lot of these third party seller on Amazon do not even have products in stock. I order an item that was "in stock" only to get email saying it was not in stock and wouldn't be for a long time and with instructions to cancel which I followed. I guess they either couldn't or wouldn't cancel it because after I bought it elsewhere they charged me and it was shipped, not from the seller but from Overstock. They made me jump though a bunch of hoops to return it and then charged me a 15% restocking fee. I complained to them and Amazon but they both just said I had gotten what I ordered so that was it. Turns out it would have been much cheaper to order direct from Overstock. My negative review was removed.
"If my situation represents the typical way Amazon deals with negative feedback, then as a company, they are far more concerned with keeping their Sellers happy then their customers."
In this instance, it would seem that the seller is Amazon's customer, and you are the seller's customer... Maybe that's a caveat of purchasing third party goods thru Amazon.
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