Amazon has removed all of Susan Deonier’s product reviews from the platform, but it won’t say why. Can Amazon restore her comments?
Question
I recently received an abrupt, robotic removal of hundreds of customer reviews I’ve posted on Amazon since 2018. The company has also blocked me from adding new reviews.
Amazon did not give me a specific reason for this action, and I’ve received no response to my respectful inquiries from any human at Amazon, including two letters I sent to the Amazon executives you list on your consumer advocacy site.
My detailed, voluntary reviews consumed more than 1,300 hours of my time. If any of my customer reviews have somehow violated Amazon’s community guidelines, I want to know what I did wrong. I also want the opportunity to rectify the situation by rewriting the offending reviews. I want Amazon to restore my 654 deleted reviews. I’d also like to resume posting helpful reviews of the items I purchase on Amazon. Can you help? — Susan Deonier, Ontario, Ore.
Answer
At a minimum, Amazon should have told you why it deleted your reviews. But the company should also have a process for proving that you’re a real person and getting your reviews reinstated, and based on this case, I’m not sure if it does.
Why would Amazon arbitrarily remove all 654 product reviews without giving you a reason? That’s easy. Amazon is fighting a losing war against spammers and scammers who are trying to manipulate a product rating with bogus reviews. Your reviews must have triggered Amazon’s fraud detection algorithm, which looks for the telltale sign of a manufactured review — things like the use of superlatives or granting too many one-star or five-star reviews. (Related: I returned my iPhone, but Amazon is charging me for it. Is that fair?)
Once Amazon suspected your reviews of not being completely genuine, it cut off your account without debate.
“We have zero tolerance for fake reviews,” it told you in an email. “Our advanced technology and expert investigators stop the vast majority of attempts to publish fake reviews. We also take legal action against people and companies that buy and provide fake reviews.” (Related: I returned my defective hard drives to Amazon. What’s this $546 restocking fee?)
All Amazon would say is that your reviews violated its community guidelines. It didn’t say how. (Related: What can I do about the missing mobility scooter I ordered from Amazon?)
I’ve seen this kind of thing before. A few years ago, Airbnb developed a system that screened its users for criminal records. Airbnb naively believed that it could simply ban these users without any appeal mechanism. They were wrong. The system had issues with false positives and tagging people accused of minor crimes. Airbnb had to create a system to vet requests to reinstate their accounts, and it’s still far from perfect. (Related: My Amazon package never arrived. Now they’re hiding behind a freight forwarder.)
It’s possible that Amazon is in a similar situation. Then again, with the use of artificial intelligence increasing every day, it’s possible that the current system for vetting consumer reviews is hopelessly confused. Maybe it can’t tell a fake review from a real one. It apparently couldn’t in your case.
Here’s the real problem with your case
But the problem isn’t that Amazon is screening its product reviews. It is and it should. The problem is that it didn’t respond to your repeated requests to review your account. You put a lot of time and effort into reviewing these products and Amazon didn’t even pay you for your work. Talk about insulting!
I publish the names of the Amazon executives on my consumer advocacy, Elliott.org. You could have continued escalating your requests until someone responded. But honestly, it should have never come to that, and Amazon can do better. (Here’s our guide to resolving your consumer product.)
I contacted Amazon on your behalf. A few days later, Amazon restored your reviews without explanation.
“You accomplished in five days what I was unable to achieve during five months of fruitless attempts to get a response from anyone at Amazon,” you told me. “I am impressed and very grateful to you!”
