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Ask HN: An Amazon vendor wrote me a letter asking for reviews

9 points by AndrewLiptak ↗ HN
This was a deeply uncomfortable moment earlier today: I got a letter from the owner of a vendor who sells on Amazon — I purchased something from them a month ago — writing that reviews were crucial to getting notice, that it was hard, they had kids to feed, and they'd invested tens of thousands of dollars in their business, and asked for a positive review.

On one hand, I get it: the churn of online selling is brutal, and I can understand where they're coming from. On the other, reaching out to me via mail (physical mail, not email!) is definitely against Amazon's rules for their sellers.

I emailed them to tell them how uncomfortable their letter made me, and asked them to delete my info from their databases. Should I report them to Amazon?

15 comments

[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 44.4 ms ] thread
devenblake
Do they really have kids to feed? If so, who can blame them?

Or it could be scummy marketing technique.

If it's the former you could significantly worsen someone's financial situation. If it's the latter you could stop a couple letters of scam mail. An easier solution would be to knock a couple stars off your review and go no further; if they continue the spam someone down the line won't be so merciful.

ev1
This is one of the most common Aliexpress (which many Amazon sellers are) store scams.

They will continually send you fake "kids with cancer" pictures, fake begging about how your non-5-star-review will kill their shop, send you mp3s of crying babies, tell you that it's too expensive to ship unless you purchase their second $1 donation item [ex: https://i.redd.it/h3iqfg70i7h61.png - scam].

It is all scam. If you ever browse r/aliexpress, search for scam and it's the exact same thing you now see playing out on Amazon. It's the same sellers using the same "leave 5 stars review for free $5 Amazon GC" images, cards in boxes, etc.

They also offer out of platform refunds (like "give us your paypal email") which then they will chargeback you on

carmen_sandiego
"I have kids" seems quite different to "my kid has cancer".
ev1
They do everything on the spectrum from "I can't feed my kids if you leave me 4 star review" to spamming your phone number with pictures of bald children from google image search.
jvm_
Amazon is brutal, 1% defect rate. 1.75% gets you a 72 response window before they shut your account. So, 2 bad orders per 100 and your out of business. You basically live in fear of bad reviews and cases being opened against you. Defects are opened a-z claims or feedback with 1 or 2 stars.

If your lively hood is under that constant pressure to perform, I can see why they'd request feedback that way.

Just explaining their side.

I'd just ignore it, it's someone trying to survive.

airhead969
Obligatory theme song for the reseller introductory video:

Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle

I wonder how crappy and dangerous products still survive: bribing customers? boiler room review manufacturing? listing recycling? scatter sending + listing recycling?

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quickthrower2
Feedback is probably enough. I don’t think the person is being evil they are just misinformed about how to run a business. Customer is first and keep sob stories for friends or family. They should politely ask/remind people to leave genuine reviews, not sob story but I get why desperate people do that.
airhead969
I think the business owner is counting on the gullibility of American buyers to "do good." Prince 419 agrees.
airhead969
It's up to you. If there's no bribe, is there any moral hazard in committing honesty rather than buying-into hard-luck story sympathy exploitation?

Many glowing 5-star items are 99% fake, built with bribes. These items are then recycled with new junk by changing the pics, name, and description.

Try https://fakespot.com to analyze items for potentially-fraudulent reviews.

bradknowles
The one that got me was when I left a bad review for a product, and then a few days later I got a letter from them offering me a coupon, but only if I would remove the negative review.

Amazon gave them my name and address.

I don’t do reviews for any products anymore.

chevill
That would just make me want to review products even more. Is it possible to edit your original review and mention that they tried to bribe you as a response instead of simply attempting to fix whatever issue you had with the product?
techrat
I tried this. I edited my review to reflect what had happened to me since... and Amazon deleted it.

Amazon doesn't give a fuck.

rdtwo
Yeah scammer wins when you do that. Amazon has a policy that ends up protecting scammers by not allowing vendor reviews under the item. The scammer then has your bad review deleted for a policy violation .
cm2012
People click products with reviews on them.

Products with reviews convert to purchase better.

The Amazon algo favors products that gets clicks and purchases.

Very few people will leave reviews for products without being asked.

All of your competitors solicit reviews.

Therefore, if you don't solicit reviews, your product languishes at the bottom of the search results page, regardless of quality.