I bought something on Amazon that has a few design issues affecting its functionality, so I posted a lukewarm review. The seller emailed me and refunded my credit card without asking for a return, and wants me to take down my review, which was honest in discussing the product flaws. Should I take it down?
No. You told the truth, right? Other customers need to know.
I’m gobsmacked that the seller dared to email you.
Feedback manipulation can get a Seller booted off Amazon. I don’t know if Review manipulation falls under the same rules.
That’s so f’n fishy! Definitely let Amazon know what is going on.
I am at a loss as to HOW to take down a review. Last time I was there I had an old review I wanted to deep-six, but could locate no button or such to do so.
Absolutely not; honest reviews are important to future buyers. He’s trying to buy you off.
Put up a second review saying what what you just said to us: the seller, unprompted, reached out to you and refunded your money, yay seller! And that he then asked you to do something underhanded, and you’re not doing it and shame on him.
No. You should report this to Amazon Customer Service.
Please don’t take it down. If I were buying the product, I’d want to see your review.
If the seller offered to refund your money without asking you to take it down, I’d say add that info because that is pretty cool. But since they did try to bribe you, I’d report it, post it, whatever. That’s a crappy thing that they did.
When I developed consumer products, nothing annoyed me more than when someone wrote a negative review of my product because of some problem with their order.
1 Star. GREAT product but the UPS truck drove into my flower garden!
Go write a negative review of UPS.
I realize you can’t expect all your customers to fully think through what their review is really applying to but it’s incredibly frustrating.
But, pohjonen, your review is actually on point and you should absolutely not remove it.
I agree that you should post what happened.
You have NO obligation to do anything for the vendors. They refunded your money without you requesting it. You owe them nothing for this.
Not only is your review valuable, the fact that the vendors try to get bad reviews removed is an important indicator why there might not be many bad reviews. And hopefully it’d dissuade the vendors from this improper tactic.
I had literally the same thing happen. I ordered something from Amazon. It was a bunch of parts, one of them broke the first time I used it and I gave something like a three star review and detailed what happened. An hour or so later I got an email from the seller about the review. The strange thing was, the review never showed up. He wanted to know if I would rewrite it if he replaced/refunded the part. Before I even had time to respond, he called me and very nicely asked what he could do. I told him not to bother as I was planning to replace the machine anyways. I saw a credit on my credit card a few days later and the review still never went up.
I don’t know how he did it, but some how he prevented a bad review.
Either way, I wasn’t going to change it. His product broke and I felt other people should know about it. Even if I got my money back I still felt other people should know about it. To be fair, this was a $20 item and it wasn’t a big deal to me. If it were a $100+ dollar sale I may have reconsidered taking down a bad review to get my money back (and then forwarding the emails to someone in charge).
How about reviews where the ‘problem’ is something that’s one of the basic properties of the item?
While I was reading this thread I was also checking online pricing for a 6" slide vice (40lb chunk of cast iron for the unfamiliar).
Reviewer wouldn’t recommend it because, a: it’s heavy, b: it’s too big for his bench-top drill press.
Congratulations, you’ve just demonstrated that you can’t be trusted with power tools.
Leave the review.
What if a seller makes amends and asks you to REVISE (not remove) your review. As in, he/she refunded your purchase, sent you a new item that worked properly, and then asked that you mention that? Is that ethical?
Hmmm. I think it is. It’s ethical because he isn’t asking for the review to be removed, only to be amended to reflect what he actually did.
The OP has a merchant who went the extra mile (by refunding the purchase), but then essentialy asked the OP to lie by removing the bad review, as if it had never happened; this is not an acceptable ethos.
Cool. I’ve actually done that, myself. To be honest, I never refunded anyone but I have sent out new stuff and asked the buyer to say that.
I think in that situation it would be ethical if the seller merely suggested that you may want to consider revising your review in light of his efforts to make it right.
Sometimes a part or item just happens to be bad from the get go…any seller like the one you’ve presented is on the right track, at least. Then again some sellers routinely sell junk knowingly. It doesn’t seem like your seller is of the latter kind but rather isn’t quite finessed in such instances or that he just doesn’t care.
From Amazon’s home page, click “Your Account,” then on the account page, scroll down to “Product Reviews Written by You” (it’s in the “Personalization” box). You’ll see all your reviews, and each one will have “Edit Review” and “Delete Review” buttons (they’re under the title you gave your review).
The edit and delete buttons for mine appear right above my reviews when I am logged in.
Oddly, since I posted the review someone else has posted one that specifically contradicts the issues that I had with the product. Perhaps the problems with mine were just a fluke.
Why? How does getting a refund invalidate the review?