Hello,

Thank you for calling the article to our attention. It is against our policy to have merchants solicit favorable reviews in exchange for gifts and we have suspended the merchant responsible for the scheme. Additionally, it is not our policy to arbitrarily delete reviews that fall within our guidelines. We've corrected that problem as well and will work to ensure we do better next time.

We appreciate your feedback and hope to see you again soon.

Best regards,

Jeff G.
Amazon.com

^^ this. I typically skim through the negatives to find out if they are legit or someone complaining about a non-issue.

@hollywood2590: Who says I've ever used e-bay?

I mean honestly, if its not sold by Amazon you actually have to click on something that says "see all buying options"...

That's not true. You do not have to click on more buying options to actually purchase something not sold by Amazon. For example: [www.amazon.com]

That item is not sold by Amazon. It's clearly stated that it's sold by someone else but you don't see their rating and it does not force you to see it before you can buy it.

Do note there are TWO PLACES to post reviews. You can post a review for the product OR you can post a review for the seller.

This was a case of the buyer being mistaken where to post his review on the "bribe". He should be posting that on the seller feedback, NOT the product review.

However, Amazon customer service should've told the buyer where the appropriate place to leave feedback in regards to the bribe is.

This was a case of the buyer being mistaken where to post his review on the "bribe". He should be posting that on the seller feedback, NOT the product review.

However, Amazon customer service should've told the buyer where the appropriate place to leave feedback in regards to the bribe is.

On the other hand, if it is 3-5 stars, I will check the reviews. THEN if it is only sold by a 3rd party seller, I'll check the ratings of the seller. If the seller has a bad rating, I can then choose to go elsewhere to buy the product but atleast the product itself did not get trashed along the way.

The reviews are for informational purposes only. There is always some inherent risk in them. Any website that has reviews needs to be looked at with a grain of salt. Hasn't a friend ever steered you wrong about a movie or restarant? How about Consumer Reports? I have gotten stuck with things from Consumer Reports because of poor recommendations(at least from my point of view.)

Amazon does not make money off the ratings, they provide it as a service because it add value to their customers. They seem to be trying to manage them although there is no direct income from them- only costs.

I don't see any value to Amazon in trying to manipulate the ratings. It seems like a thankless service. There doesn't seem they can do much to make everyone happy.

I would like to see their response to the OP, I am sure he will get some communication from Amazon. What is their policy on bribes, and why was it not carried out this time? They did screw up here, I just think it was a mistake and not some conspiracy.

Why would just the fact that they offer third party merchandise stop you from buying from them? Is third party merchandise evil? I don't see the logic at all.

Amazon has a conflict of interest, if they let posts outlining Astroturfing for fake 5star reviews stand, people will figure out the reviews are garbage and not buy the products, hurting sales....

...which affects Amazon's advertising dollars or other revinue structures, so they remain edited.

its all about money, not customer safety or the spread of accurate information.

The fact that a seller was difficult to deal with (Amazon or third party) or that it took forever to ship has nothing to do with the product and should not be written in a product review

You could at this point just say "agree to disagree" to our competing interpretations, but here's the kicker: if the "Customer Review" section is for reviews about the Amazon experience as well, then why are the reviewing powers not limited to only people who have purchased that particular product? Because it is a product review, written by the Customer, hence "Customer Review." I understand the frustration at the lack of a forum disgruntled customers sometimes have, but the "Customer Review" page is not this forum to voice distaste with Amazon. It is not a public feedback mechanism about Amazon, it is public user reviews by customers of the actual product. Have you ever used Amazon? 99% of reviews (all good ones, and certainly all good ones that follow the rules) are about the intrinsic merits of the product.

"Going to the site, there are 4 items that come up when I search for anti-snoring mouthpiece. Let's go through the decision making process of a consumer. One is much more expensive than another = out. Two of them are the same item in single and double packs. The fourth item is less expensive than the others. Let me check the page. Hmmm...lots of 5-star reviews. since it is cheaper and rated highly, I will purchase that one. If I read a review that said the company was offering free merchandise to get reviewers to rate the reviews higher, I would remove that device from consideration."

I agree. This particular case is an exception to the rule. Not everything on Amazon is sold by Amazon (I'm not talking about third party sellers in general, some products are available exclusively via third party sellers, such as medical products I've ordered). In cases such as these where the manufacturer is the seller, the fact that the manufacturer who happens to be the seller is paying people to write good reviews is important information. But only in this exceptional circumstance.

The fact that Amazon allows outside sellers to sell through Amazon is cause enough to never buy from Amazon.

@Cyberxion101: Oops. I suck at coding. For some reason that came out as straight text. Here's the link to the review in question.

[www.amazon.com]

If a review like this one can get by without setting of Amazon's alarms, I think it's fair to say that the company's excuse for deleting this guy's is straight-up bullshit.

So, to get back to my original point, I am not reviewing the product, I am reviewing the product as purchased through the Amazon.com portal. Amazon is selling their services as a central marketplace for many things and citing problems with anything related to the purchase is a public feedback mechanism that can help inform others of the plus/minus of your transaction.

Going to the site, there are 4 items that come up when I search for anti-snoring mouthpiece. Let's go through the decision making process of a consumer. One is much more expensive than another = out. Two of them are the same item in single and double packs. The fourth item is less expensive than the others. Let me check the page. Hmmm...lots of 5-star reviews. since it is cheaper and rated highly, I will purchase that one. If I read a review that said the company was offering free merchandise to get reviewers to rate the reviews higher, I would remove that device from consideration.

The fact that the reviews are spurious or redacted to change the review of the purchase experience is relevant to my enjoyment of the product and my assignment of value.

I mean honestly, if its not sold by Amazon you actually have to click on something that says "see all buying options" which takes you to a separate screen that lists the sellers. From there the seller rating is prominently displayed, along with a clickable percentage so you can check them out. You have to look at this to order.

I can't believe the complete willingness of people to go online and randomly buy something from someone they know nothing about. If you're too lazy to do even the slightest amount of research you get what you deserve.

Which is in this case a 4 star product which was docked a point for not liking the sellers attitude.

So in short, it is disclosed, hence the "Vine Voice" under their names.

It's really annoying when people post seller reviews instead of product reviews, and Amazon probably picked up on this, not realizing this was a rare exception to the policy. He probably was not communicating with someone high up on the Amazon ladder so they likely did not have the authority to override the policy.

Anyway, I think your comment grossly exaggerates the situation. I have never had a problem with Amazon.

Slam the vendor on the seller review page, NOT the product review page. People can check seller reviews for themselves, it's not necessarily relevant information. Product reviews are widely read, but this does not mean you can or should use it as a forum to voice your complaints. At the very least, if you absolutely must run your mouth about the seller, DON'T DOCK STARS. When you dock stars for things the sellers do, you are selfishly and irresponsibly reducing the overall rating of the product for something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PRODUCT ITSELF.

Honestly, learn to use the system. That's how it works. Those are the rules. Your opinion is overriden by Amazon and thousands of annoyed people tired of reading seller reviews on product pages.

It's not that hard, I don't know why people have such a difficult time understanding it.

The bribe itself should have been escalated by the CS person and dealt with. I bet(hope)the CS guy made a mistake and Amazon will be talking to the OP, and the seller will be changing their policy.

@Rectilinear Propagation: I too never knew about seller ratings until now.

@consumerfan: It should be disclosed that you did not pay for the product and that is was sent to you free of charge in order for you to review it...

Actually, the Vine Voice reviews are noted as such - I just happened to see one for the first time last week, and it was immediately recognizable as something unusual because of the green type/font used for the "Vine Voice" indication at the top of the review. It made me curious enough to click-through and read a bit about the program. Which then led me to consider writing more reviews than I do currently in the hopes of being chosen for the program, which is exactly what Amazon is hoping for, I would imagine.

@maxx22: This.

It's also a good way to see if that reviewer has bad taste or no sense.

[en.wikipedia.org]

@hollywood2590: It's not surprising because Amazon never told the OP in their replies that this was even an option.

I don't know why you would expect everyone to be born knowing everything about how Amazon works but that's not the case. If you want people to use a certain feature you have to tell them that it exists.

Not to split hairs, in general I agree with you, but I think it is important to get to what Amazon is thinking.

I think the issue is you rated the seller high because that was before the bribe, and you couldn't go back and edit it. You then put the bribe issue in the product review, and they said that you shouldn't be talking about the seller there.

As far as that policy goes, I kind of agree with them. I think if you initially put the information in the correct place (seller feedback) they would not have deleted it.

There should be a place for a followup on the seller ratings, like they allow for product reviews. And more importantly they should look into bribes by sellers.

I don't think Amazon is being devious in this regard, they have a policy that makes sense in most instances. I think a low level employee spent about 10 seconds on this and is not really paid to think at any high level. A big company like this is very bureaucratic and some policies are often followed at the expense of common sense.

Paid-for reviews undermine the believability and usefulness of reviews. If I can't trust positive reviews, they'll fail to encourage me to buy a product.

"To start, I'm sure you can check my account information but I would say I am a fairly good amazon customer. I am a member of Amazon Prime and regularly make purchases on Amazon that easily total thousands of dollars each of the last several years and have lately been contemplating making several large electronic purchases on Amazon. I am also an amazon seller with 100% positive feedback and so am interested in the integrity of your "amazon marketplace" service. As both a customer and seller on amazon the feedback features you offer are important to me and certainly have an influence on what I purchase and what people purchase from me. I am very concerned when I read stories like this one recently posted on consumerist: http://consumerist.com/5223821/amazon-deletes-reviews-that-mention-pay-for-play-review-schemes

I would like to hear some public clarification of your policy with regards to amazon review "astro-turfing" "pay for 5-star reviews" and similar practices by product manufacturers and third party-sellers before I can in good conscience continue to use Amazon to buy and sell items.

Specifically I want to hear what you are doing to ensure the integrity of the feedback on your site if you will not allow those with such experiences to express that in product reviews."

@hollywood2590 and @frank64: "No negatives from the person who sent this in to Consumerist."

That's correct. The sequence started when Amazon asked me to rate the seller transaction, and I gave it 5/5 on 4/13. Shipment was prompt, and the product works pretty well (not perfectly) for me. You can see it on the feedback page, I'm Robert M. It was after submitting this that I got the bribe email and everything else occurred.

@willdude: "I feel like we're missing something here."
Not much - a few unimportant details. I sent Consumerist about triple the screen shots they published, and they did a good job of summarizing.

"Secondly, it's not like they were offering him money to post a good review."
Whether you pay for it in $20 bills or bubblegum, there's a difference between a paid advertisement and a spontaneous review.

It's not that I doubt the people who posted five-star reviews had a good experience with the device - as I mentioned, it worked pretty well for me.

My real complaint about Amazon is about the ethics and deception:
1. The reviews are skewed in a way they wouldn't be if they were all spontaneous.
2. Amazon knowingly allows paid advertisements to be mixed with real reviews in a way you can't distinguish. This is anathema to reputable media organizations - you'd never see an ad in Time or the Washington Post that looks like a news article or a letter to the editor. They're required to be in a different font and layout. (I'm not saying reviews for other products aren't really paid ads - I'm saying in this case, Amazon knows about it and does nothing.)
3. While Amazon has two places I know of to note that reviews are being astroturfed, neither one of them are right on the product page, while the astroturfed reviews are.

It's not there.

[www.amazon.com]

[www.amazon.com]

If I am wanting to see a movie, I read in the paper a review of the movie, I don't care the the reviewers popcorn was cold in New York. Two separate issues. After I decide which movie to see, I then might decide which theater to see it at and then go to read reviews of theaters in my area.

I realize in this case the issue is blurred, but you don't seem to realize that there is normally a difference. You should rate the duck high in the product reviews and rate the seller low in the seller feedback. That gives the best information to a prospective buyer.

Let's say there is a 5 star product - it's a brilliant product. But the only way to get hold of this product via Amazon's website is using a third party who breaks it or causes some degredation of service.

You don't get that product in the same way that ordinary consumers must and therefore your experience of the product is not the same.

Yes, I want to see your review as an experienced reviewer. But I also want to know that you were sent that product differently.

Skipping books and dealing with other stuff, I always read reviews starting with the worst (1*) and moving up. I specifically look for negative comments about various features at which point, I can decide for myself whether it is important.

I also look at "see other reviews" from the poster. If the poster only writes 5* reviews or this is the only product they have ever reviewed and give it 5*, then I tend to ignore it. I also ignore the 1 line "I bought it for my wife and she likes it..." nonsense.

These reviews can be valid and important, but they need to be read carefully.

It's more of a psychological phenomenon than anything to do with eBay.

Part of it is confirmation bias. You expect that TV to be good, so you search for things that confirm that bias.

Uh no, no he didn't. The third-party seller also makes that product, so the review was spot on and should have stayed.

I don't understand why people bother leaving a review at all if they're not going to say what's good/bad about the product.

The issue isn't about the seller so much as it's about the reviews. If the reviews are biased, I'd like to see so on the reviews page itself.

@frank64: This was the manufacturer. He had every right to comment on the behavior of the manufacturer. The fact that he was being bribed for a good review would make me concerned that the medical device is not as good as they'd like people to believe. And that's scary.

Amazon should have contacted the seller/manufacturer and advised them that bribes for good reviews are a no-no.

I agree that this incident makes Amazon's reviews even more suspect.

I have long noted the way a positive review at Amazon is posted immediately, while a mixed or negative review will get posted a week or two after submission.

I too am a member of Amazon's Vine program, and my casual observation is that most AV reviews tend to be positive -- apparently members are so thrilled to get free stuff that they go with the flow.

Like the other Vine member commenting above, I have posted some scathing reviews and have not been "uninvited".

I will say, however, that my negative reviews always get numerous "not helpful" comments, while positive reviews almost always receive "helpful" feedback.

Well, I'll leave it to other customers to figure out the hard way which reviews are truly helpful, after they order a book that puts you to sleep faster than Sominex.

I agree with other commenters that these shenanigans do nothing to maintain Amazon's good name...

[www.amazon.com]

Checked the reviews. Honestly, who knows if they can be trusted? So I did the next logical thing. I checked the seller rating.

In the last 30 days 92% positive, 5% neutral, 1% negative.

The surprising part? No negatives from the person who sent this in to Consumerist.

The option to rate the seller is there for a reason. To rate the seller. This seller sucks. So rate them there. Use the product rating space to rate their product.

The product was freely admitted in the review to deserve 4 stars. Yet he gave it 3. Why? Because of the seller. Which isn't want the product review is rating.

For the denser people in the crowd:
In the product review section - review the product
In the seller review section - review the seller

I dunno... It really bothers me when, for example, I run into 1-star reviews of items because Amazon messed up on shipping. Those really muddy the waters; I'd rather just have a straight review of the product.

This is a different matter, though. I think I'd want to know when a company was bribing people for 5-star reviews...

@frank64: Well then, shouldn't that have been Amazon's response? The way they put it makes it sound like there's no place to warn people about the crap the businesses try to pull.

Still, I think the place to warn people about fake reviews is where said fake reviews are getting posted.

I bought a toy for my son that had an obviously faulty design and it broke 5 minutes after he started playing with it (it was expensive- over $50, to boot!). Come to find out that there were TWO listings on Amazon for this exact same toy, one had nothing but glowing reviews, while the other listing had a bunch of bad reviews that noted that the toy broke immediately.

Of course, I ordered from the page that had the glowing reviews because I never saw the other one until after the toy had broken. If I'd seen the bad reviews there is now way I would have paid over $50 for it.

I tried to post a bad review on the page that had all of the good reviews, and it was NEVER posted.

SHADY. The bottom line is that you can't always trust Amazon reviews.

They do have that. When you buy from a third party they ask you to review that transaction. You are then not reviewing the product.

They are two separate review areas. That way if I get a book late or in bad condition, I can complain there and it won't hurt the product.

This case gets blurry because the third party is the manufacturer.

Secondly, it's not like they were offering him money to post a good review. They were merely offering him another of the item he already purportedly liked. If he didn't like it and wasn't going to write a good review of it, this offers no further incentive to write a good review. To me, they're just trying to ensure that people who already like their product get the word out. I don't see anybody complaining about a "pay for play" scheme when Consumerist posts a success story about some company who made right on a customer's bad experience by giving them something for free.

However, the aspect of Amazon's review censoring is pretty dumb.

My review would extol the virtues of the duck and slam the vendor. From OP's post of Amazon's response, they reserve the right to edit the post and summarize my praise, but remove the slam. That changes the context of my review and changes the answer to the one question a new user wants answered - "Would you purchase this item again?" From my original review, the answer would be No. From the Amazon redacted review, the answer would be Yes. That is a dishonest business practice.

Given that this is a growing issue -- and already a problem in the amazon comments, where someone reviews the author's personality or politics, the shipper's speed, etc., instead of the actual book/product -- it would make sense for amazon to make multiple categories available in reviews in other area of the store, particularly when dealing with a third-party seller. Consumers should be able to rate the seller and the product at the same time, on the same screen, when reviewing a third-party seller.

This would benefit the vast majority of 3rd-party sellers, who abide by the rules and ship fast and provide good service, but don't get a lot of seller-reviews because most people don't use that process. If people could review product and seller at the same time, they'd be much more likely to review the seller. And it would highlight the handful of scammy/bad sellers like this one.

This seems like a gray area, and I can understand both sides. On the one hand, it's unfair to products and manufacturers when people make a poor review based on their experiences with the seller--you see this occasionally with one-star book reviews because the Marketplace seller was slow in shipping, or never delivered. That shouldn't be allowed.

But if the manufacture itself is both the seller and the party whose behavior leads to dissatisfaction, that seems like it would be relevant to the review.

That's a flat out lie. I can probably go to 10 random items and find at least 5 reviews that say "arrived quickly, packaged well" or some other eBay-esque type verbiage.

I'm sure there excuse is that nobody has flagged those reviews for ummm, review. Which of course is about as useful as me sticking my fingers in my ears and saying "la la la I can't hear you."

They've set up a system that can be abused mightily, and they just don't care.

The solution would be to allow posting non-rating comments seperately from reviews, possibly with specified types (e.g. shipping, service, etc), so that you can note down their behavior seperately from the product.

Which wouldn't do any good if they didn't put it nearby, but I digress.

Full disclosure: Amazon bribes me to review things all the time. I'm a "Vine Voice". They send me free stuff, I write reviews.

I've written glowing reviews. (If I had a firstborn, I'd trade him for more raspberry chipotle sauce.) And I've written downright vicious reviews. A friend who is an author read one of my reviews and refused to give me a draft of her latest book.

Other than sending free stuff (which is the impetus for the review,) Amazon has done nothing to influence my reviews in any way. I go back now and then and check them for comments, and they've never been changed. After a few strongly negative reviews I expected to be invited to leave the Vine program, but it hasn't happened. Based on my own experience, I'm quite satisfied with the way Amazon handles reviews.

As for this particular review, I'm not entirely sure what to think. Amazon says:

Can Amazon.com customer reviews be removed?

In certain cases, yes. A customer review should focus on specific features of an item and the customer's experience with it.

[www.amazon.com]

Strictly speaking, describing the company's astroturfing is outside of the "specific features of an item and the customer's experience with it."

As a potential buyer, I'd want to know about the astroturfing, but then I have no way of knowing if a five star review is genuine or not. Describing the astroturfing makes all five star reviews suspect, fairly or not.

At this hour I'm not sure what should be done, but something should be done to protect the integrity of the customer review process. Calling the manufacturer out in a review is an imperfect solution at best. There has to be a better way.

I have often hailed Amazon for what appeared to be "doing the right thing". Companies that follow that philosophy have earned a great deal of respect from me. This, along with other recent Amazon news makes me think they've lost a bit of their cool.

If this guy was willing to give an inaccurate review for free stuff, he is part of the problem. Everyone who gives inaccurate reviews on Amazon is part of the problem - including people who give inaccurate negative reviews in retaliation for perceived fake positive reviews.

There are other forums for dealing with what this company is doing. You can create a comment thread under the product listing and inform people there. You can give the seller a negative review. You can report the seller to Amazon.com (through the proper abuse report form so it goes to the right person).

Amazon did everything RIGHT here, and they're being criticized for it. They saw an obvious shill review, and they deleted it. That is what should happen.

Except stage reviews (see UserName), simply because the only people who read them are the actors, and we don't want to quote them if they're bad!

Anyway, back on topic...Amazon's policy on this is appalling. I could understand the book analogy (not fair to the author to downrate a book because of the seller), but these guys MAKE the product. It's like giving a book a bad review because the author promised to send you a signed copy if you gave it 5 stars.

Not cool.

As far as the bootlegger goes, the MPAA might be interested...

Well, if someone mentioned that the manufacturer was bribing people to give good reviews, you might take that into consideration about the quality of the product.

I buy a TON through Amazon... and their customer service is still very good for the basics (because you don't actually deal with them) but if you've a problem beyond returning something you're in trouble.

Used to be if I called I would get someone very helpful with good language skills, I call now I get someone in India (and I don't have a problem with that in principle) who can't seem to manage to go off script and actually help me at all.

interesting... are you suggesting amazon should start a star review policy of business owners?

I rely heavily on Amazon reviews for my purchase decisions. I hate the idea that they might be stacked.

This type of response from Amazon makes it seem like they are just as sneaky as the offending seller. Lack of trust in their review process can only hurt them. You fail Amazon

It don't like it when I look at a review of a book and I find that there is a one star review because some third party seller mailed it late. It has nothing do do with the book, and is unfair to the author.

Knowing what I know after having read this article, I don't see why I should continue to support a company with shady business practices. -1 customer for you Amazon, until you better explain this brouhaha.

Nice submission Bob.