Backlash over Amazon Customer Crackdown Continues

by: 1st Armored Div. 1971-1973

I am not losing sleep over them. I am out there buying merchandise sometimes based on reviews and if they are lying about the product then they are misleading customers who are buying the product.

by: thebobman

Commercial use? You mean like those people that list thousands of products they dont own on ebay and when sell, just use their prime account to directly ship to the buyer.

by: Ming the Merciless

Reviews have been abused across the net.

IMO, they should be eliminated.

by: Moonwishes

Today I am very happy that there are reviews. I needed a new pair of slippers and found a pair that I really liked but was concerned as I have hard to fit feet. So, I looked at the reviews, many complained that the slippers were too wide. Others mentioned it but no big deal. With those reviews I was able to be hopeful that the slippers might fit, so I ordered them and they showed up on Monday - What happy feet I have. They fit perfectly. If not for the reviews, I might not have tried them. In this instance the reviews did what they were suppose to do. I was happy to write my own review on them as well, even though I got them for 'free'. Prime shipping, and my discover card cash backs plus some extra cash through ebates. :)

I have been participating on the Amazon Vine program for years, and I can see the good reasons for product reviews. Like when my husband who will generally eat anything was gagging over the last food item we were sent to try. Nasty. Some people might like them, I have no clue, but they looked like dog biscuits and tasted horrible even if they were organic.

I have found some wonderful new brands and some great products, but good or bad I leave an honest review which is the whole point. Too bad that some miss the point.

by: Marie

@thebobman

I was wondering the exact same thing.

by: donald

Lets hope it works. I was swindle earlier this year by one of their buyers.

On another topic. Has anyone of you sellers experience a new Amazon payment system. The old Amazon Payments Inc and the new Amazon Services LLC.  I noticed that today. Half of today's sale revenues were in each of the two Payment systems. I had to do two separate transfers.

by: comments

Hats off to amazon on this one. If they are banning people for fake reviews and commercial buying then amazon will be a better place for it. I wish ebay was offering me the same protection when I buy on ebay and some idiot uses their prime account and amazon script to use my identity to buy items.

Everytime I buy something on on another site and it comes from amazon drop shipping and prime abuse I always worry I will be somehow linked to the seller if they have too many returns or if they inaccurately describe an item forcing me to send back the item directly to amazon.

I am also afraid that a dropship seller will buy a product with a stolen creditcard leaving me to answer for their crime.

This will also save amazon a ton of money in prime shipping discounts for people who do not have prime accounts.

What amazon should do instead of suspend the buyers though is to allow buyers to only rate items they purchased and stop offering prime shipping discounts on gift purchases. This way they won't have to do mass banning and avoid the bad press.

by: epuise

Ah... Prime Abuse...
Drop Shipping products
- you source on Amazon & have Amazon ship...
while you are an eBay 'Seller'
- who basically does nothing a lot of us must do:
1. Source merch. w/ OUR money
2. Store those products, clean & dry
3. Take photos, describe
4. Pack, go to P.O.
I have no sympathy... sorry.

by: FeelingFroggy

No sympathy here either. Amazing how many people claim they are being picked on. Are these the same people who like to use Amazon as a two way street and think that they are getting away with something. AMAZON IS ON TO YOU. So don't do the WHY ME card when you know exactly what rules you are playing by. No sympathy.

by: Vernfern

Fake reviews on Amazon has been a problem, but are definitely a minority. Like Moonwishes states above, the honest reviews are great for clothing items where fit can be an issue, and I use appreciate them when shopping for shoes and clothing.

But I had an experience where an item received glowing reviews - a lot of them, with just a small number of complete opposite reviews. I purchased the item and indeed it was very poor quality as indicated in the few poor reviews. I posted a poor review as well and was essentially attacked by other "buyers" who questioned my honest review by placing nasty comments to mine. Clearly the seller had people post fake reviews for their product. I would hope these buyers and this seller got the boot.

As for drop shipping, sorry but I have no sympathy for the flippers who use Amazon as an eBay fulfillment center. If the seller has products on both platforms and runs out, I can understand that but let the buyer know and why. I do not like receiving an eBay purchase in an Amazon box simply as I suspect I should have bought from Amazon in the first place.  

by: LasVagueness

Kudos to Amazon for clamping down on review abuse.  

by: FidoMaster

As a comparison, legit job boards and aggregators clearly identify 3rd-party recruiters.  The good ones allow jobseekers to filter out 3rd parties that don't have a contractual relationship with the hiring employer and are simply respamming the job posting.

#EBAY and other marketplaces should provide consumers/buyers similar tools and require sellers to provide clear transparency around listings and items that are not owned or under the direct control of the seller at the time of order.

That said, $EBAY should disallow entirely the particular dropship model variant that is so common on their platform whereby 'sellers' source and purchase items only AFTER the buyer has placed an order. (eg. eBay buyer places order, THEN dropshipper orders through $AMZ to be delivered to buyer direct from AMZ).  

Naturally that's not about to happen anytime soon because eBay is more concerned with GMV and collecting fees than actually ensuring a level playing field for sellers along with transparency and providing a great experience for buyers.

by: dander

You break the rules don't cry when your account is suspended

by: RKTOYS

Meanwhile, they let clowns like this continue to sell:

https://www.amazon.com/Transformers-Generations-Voyager-C
lass-Toy-assorted/dp/B00T041RQ8/ref=sr_1_38?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1523066754&sr=1-38&keywords=transformers+power+of+the+primes

"InStock Group" lists the wrong description with the wrong photos with intent to mislead and there goes Amazon tilting at windmills.

by: eXtinctBay

Think this is a move to hurt eBay?

Could be. There has always been a rule against dropshipping using your Amazon Prime account. Now Amazon has decided to finally enforce this.

Although there still may be methods to skirt this rule, the obvious offenders have now been effectively put out of business (at least with the IP address they used on Amazon). There were some dropship artists who had all their packages sent as ''gifts''. It was easy to figure that one out.

One poster recently stated that AMZ dropshippers account for the majority of the transactions on eBay. Definitely not true or accurate, but this will affect many EB sales, this is for certain.

by: Marie

Not everything is about Ebay.

by: Moonwishes

I follow the Amazon forum at Amazon and at times the forum (or perhaps it is one of many) on Facebook. On Amazon when someone suggests something that is against Amazon rules, they are told it is against rules with no nonsense of 'you aren't supposed to do it, but do it anyhow if you want'.

On the FB thread I have been surprised at how much bad advice is being distributed, and if you try to correct it, you get dumped on. That forum on FB is  a perfect place for Amazon to skim seller names to find and suspend sellers for not following the rules. No wonder some sellers seemed to be confused! Many of them also seem to be international sellers from various oriental countries. To many on that FB forum seem to value profit above anything else such as honesty and integrity.