Banned from Amazon reviews

Unit74

Unit74

Final Approach
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Mar 8, 2014
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Unit74
Got an email that I have been banned and all my reviews removed. They claim I’m in cahoots with someone or some business for being compensated for reviews and the decision is final. I buy maybe 3-5 times a month, sometimes less and don’t know anyone who does sell and never been”compensated “ for a review. Hell, I only review things unless they are really good or total crap anyway. So I don’t review all of what I get, only if there is something I feel is important for another buyer before they buy.

Amazon “reviews” is all cryptic and won’t barely speak to me. Won’t even tell me what happened, just your banned. I suspect my password was jacked but who knows at this point... oh, yea, they do, not me.

Anyone else been suspended for no reason?
 
Unit74 said:
Got an email that I have been banned and all my reviews removed. They claim I’m in cahoots with someone or some business for being compensated for reviews and the decision is final. I buy maybe 3-5 times a month, sometimes less and don’t know anyone who does sell and never been”compensated “ for a review. Hell, I only review things unless they are really good or total crap anyway. So I don’t review all of what I get, only if there is something I feel is important for another buyer before they buy.

Amazon “reviews” is all cryptic and won’t barely speak to me. Won’t even tell me what happened, just your banned. I suspect my password was jacked but who knows at this point... oh, yea, they do, not me.

Anyone else been suspended for no reason?
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An acquaintance got banned by Amazon. His account was hacked, in fact he only did a couple of reviews. So he was suspicious, he asked for copies of the reviews since he had done so few. They were willing to give him them, and he sent back almost none of those were his. He was a Prime member, so they closed his account, and opened a new one giving him credit for the remainder of the prime he paid for, and migrated the order history. He did have to create a new email address which he was annoyed by, and re-setup his Alexa speakers. The diatribe on the email was really funny, though. :)

Good luck,

Tim
 
Several years ago Amazon edited one of my reviews to remove a negative comment. I no longer write Amazon reviews.
 
The only reviews I've ever written were for products from Home Depot, and on some online forums. All positive.

We should have a forum here where we can leave reviews on POA members.
 
I can tell you from personal experience that they treat their authors horribly.
 
For those curious, Amazon does provide Two Step Verification.

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Sac Arrow said:
I can tell you from personal experience that they treat their authors horribly.
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I had lunch with a friend last week who sells quite a bit of equipment on Amazon. Hates them with gusto. Demand pretty much forces him to sell there, but he’d drop them in a heartbeat if he could.
 
Most of my reviews on Amazon (and elsewhere) are very positive because I generally research my purchases extensively before I take the safety wire off my wallet and actually buy something. But I've written a few scathing ones, too, as well as reviews with all kinds of innuendo, double entendre, scatological humor, suggestions that a product only be assembled while drunk, and even a reference to the Mafia in one case.

Only a very few reviews have been rejected; and after looking at them, the thing they all had in common was that I used some company's trademarked name other than Amazon's or that of the company that made the item being reviewed. That apparently is a very big no-no.

I had an unusually scathing review rejected about a week or two ago. At first I wondered if it was because of how negative it was. But I resubmitted it substituting generic words for trademarks (specifically, "rotary tool" for "Dremel" and "duct tape" for "T-Rex Duct Tape"), and it was approved. Both terms were related to how I temporarily fixed the item because a replacement part was going to take four to eight weeks to arrive.

I suspect that Amazon has robots read the review first, scanning them for objectionable words and trademarks, before they ever get to a human editor. I also know that all pictures and videos are human-reviewed. The ratio of how many users found an author's previous reviews helpful most likely factors into their algorithms somehow, as well.

As for shill reviews, I can understand why they would want to stop that practice. But again, I suspect that these suspected cases are detected by algorithms, not by actual people.

For what it's worth, Amazon does have a department that will correspond with customers about review problems, but they don't take incoming phone calls. You have to call customer service first, and then the "Community" department will either call or email you.

Rich
 
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I didn't know @Ted DuPuis was moonlighting at Amazon! <--- that thar was a joke. which smiley do I need?
 
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Ted DuPuis said:
The license plate for our truck will be "IBAN4U"
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Watch out for trademark infringement.

IBAN stands for International Bank Account Number and is a number attached to all accounts in the EU countries plus Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Hungary. The IBAN is made up of a code that identifies the country the account belongs to, the account holder's bank and the account number itself
 
Ravioli said:
Watch out for trademark infringement.

IBAN stands for International Bank Account Number and is a number attached to all accounts in the EU countries plus Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Hungary. The IBAN is made up of a code that identifies the country the account belongs to, the account holder's bank and the account number itself
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I can ban IBAN. ;)
 
Buddy was a huge Amazon leg humper. Bought everything from them, movies, music etc.

He bought some items that were expensive but returned them because he didn’t like them. Amazon decided to cancel his account. Because they cancelled his account he lost the movies and music he bought also.

Now he hates amazon.
 
Jamie Kirk said:
Buddy was a huge Amazon leg humper. Bought everything from them, movies, music etc.

He bought some items that were expensive but returned them because he didn’t like them. Amazon decided to cancel his account. Because they cancelled his account he lost the movies and music he bought also.

Now he hates amazon.
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I picked up the new Tony Bennett/Diana Krall CD last week at a local store. The cashier mentioned that kids wonder what a CD is - they download everything. CDs and DVDs are physically in my possession. Technical books I buy in hardcopy. I buy very few books for download. Yes, I'm paranoid.
 
murphey said:
I picked up the new Tony Bennett/Diana Krall CD last week at a local store. The cashier mentioned that kids wonder what a CD is - they download everything. CDs and DVDs are physically in my possession. Technical books I buy in hardcopy. I buy very few books for download. Yes, I'm paranoid.
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They wonder what a CD is??? How about 45s, 33s/LPs, cassettes, 8 tracks, and reel-to-reels??

Heck, I even remember 78s.

Damn I feel old.
 
Jamie Kirk said:
Because they cancelled his account he lost the movies and music he bought also.
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That's what I don't get. How can they say you're "buying" a movie, song, whatever -- if you only have the use of it while you have an account? If you can't download the unencumbered digital file, or don't have it on physical media, you haven't bought it. You're just renting it for an indeterminate period.
 
DaleB said:
That's what I don't get. How can they say you're "buying" a movie, song, whatever -- if you only have the use of it while you have an account? If you can't download the unencumbered digital file, or don't have it on physical media, you haven't bought it. You're just renting it for an indeterminate period.
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Never read the small print but my legal assumption is you are agreeing to the right to use their purchased media for a price. You don’t actually own it.

I believe this happened to iTunes users also in the past.
 
Shill reviews are a huge problem but I don’t see how an algorithm is going to find them. If 50 of my friends buy something from my company and then leave glowing reviews, how does Amazon know that we know each other?

Yes, I know I don’t have 5 friends, but work with me here.
 
bflynn said:
Shill reviews are a huge problem but I don’t see how an algorithm is going to find them. If 50 of my friends buy something from my company and then leave glowing reviews, how does Amazon k ow that we know each other?

Yes, I k ow I do t have 5 friends, but work with me here.
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5.... a bit generous don’t ya think......? And you can’t really count Fakebook as “friends” anymore.....we can see through that....
 
murphey said:
I picked up the new Tony Bennett/Diana Krall CD last week at a local store. The cashier mentioned that kids wonder what a CD is - they download everything. CDs and DVDs are physically in my possession. Technical books I buy in hardcopy. I buy very few books for download. Yes, I'm paranoid.
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How's the CD?
 
I used to like Diana Krall. Then that CD got stuffed into the Bose in the bedroom, and I heard it every. single. damn. morning. Usually twice, if not more. Wifey had a really bad habit of hitting snooze instead of shutting it off, and she was getting up way early at that time. A month or six of that and I hope I never hear it again. Ever.
 
bflynn said:
Shill reviews are a huge problem but I don’t see how an algorithm is going to find them. If 50 of my friends buy something from my company and then leave glowing reviews, how does Amazon know that we know each other?

Yes, I know I don’t have 5 friends, but work with me here.
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If I were coding a shill-detection system for an online seller, I would begin with behavioral analysis of the user's actions before the purchase was even made. Did the user shop around, or just zero in on a specific product? Did they compare the product with others? Did they read reviews left by others? In other words, how different was the user's behavior from that of a typical buyer?

The system would also take note of how many of that item had been sold both historically and recently. A sudden spike in sales for an item that previously had a rather flat sales pattern, or of sales by a particular third-party seller, would raise suspicion.

Next the system would check whether the timing of the review seemed right. In most cases, vendors know exactly when a product was delivered, right down to the second. Reviews posted immediately upon receipt of the product would be considered more suspicious than reviews posted after a few hours or days, especially if the product was one that would require a bit of time to assemble, evaluate, etc., as determined by the average timing of reviews left for that product by other customers.

The content of the review would then be analyzed for excessive use of superlative adjectives and adverbs, either positive or negative. (Paid negative reviews are a real thing.)

The customer's review history would also be examined. Have all their reviews been either five-star or one-star reviews? That would be unusual enough to raise suspicion. Most people occasionally buy stuff that falls somewhere in between.

If enough suspicious factors were identified, a flag would be triggered for a more thorough human review than usual.

Note that none of the factors, by themselves or in aggregate, would result in a review being rejected or a reviewer being banned. All of the unusual behavior or patterns can be explained in legitimate ways. For example, a sudden spike in sales could be explained by advertising or by a positive post on an enthusiast forum for a product, and there are people who do know exactly what they want to buy when they first visit a site. So a human, not a robot, would have to make the final decision.

But algorithms could be used to narrow down reviews that smell fishy.

Rich
 
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bflynn said:
Shill reviews are a huge problem but I don’t see how an algorithm is going to find them. If 50 of my friends buy something from my company and then leave glowing reviews, how does Amazon know that we know each other?

Yes, I know I don’t have 5 friends, but work with me here.
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They know who your friends are. They know who is in your contact list, who you send email and texts too and they know who talks to and about you in their emails and texts.

They know.
 
JOhnH said:
They know who your friends are. They know who is in your contact list, who you send email and texts too and they know who talks to and about you in their emails and texts.

They know.
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We are talking Amazon, not Google/Apple........oh wait.... yea, you are right. My bad.
 
DaleB said:
I used to like Diana Krall. Then that CD got stuffed into the Bose in the bedroom, and I heard it every. single. damn. morning. Usually twice, if not more. Wifey had a really bad habit of hitting snooze instead of shutting it off, and she was getting up way early at that time. A month or six of that and I hope I never hear it again. Ever.
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I made that mistake when I made "Unchain My Heart" (Joe Cocker) my phone's alarm sound. There's a big difference between hearing the initial chord and lyric when you're all ready to listen to music, and being jerked awake by it when you're fast asleep.
 
Rushie said:
I made that mistake when I made "Unchain My Heart" (Joe Cocker) my phone's alarm sound. There's a big difference between hearing the initial chord and lyric when you're all ready to listen to music, and being jerked awake by it when you're fast asleep.
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Yeah, but even if it's not your wakeup... after a couple months hearing that same song, or same couple of songs in a row, every stinkin' morning will sour you on anything.
 
I got banned for giving a positive review of the Influenza Vaccine.....



JK here.
 
Unit74 said:
We are talking Amazon, not Google/Apple........oh wait.... yea, you are right. My bad.
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Maybe if you use their phone app because the data is right there for the taking, but I don't think they'd work too hard at harvesting PII from a computer. They're business is selling stuff, not people.

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
Maybe if you use their phone app because the data is right there for the taking, but I don't think they'd work too hard at harvesting PII from a computer. They're business is selling stuff, not people.

Rich
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Their business is selling stuff "to people". The more information they have on people, the better they can market their stuff to people.
 
RJM62 said:
Maybe if you use their phone app because the data is right there for the taking, but I don't think they'd work too hard at harvesting PII from a computer. They're business is selling stuff, not people.

Rich
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Yeah, because they're such nice, selfless people. Why do I not see the logic in your statement, but only your own blinded self-interest? Because really, the self interest of Google, Amazon, Apple, et al, is to get as much personal information about their customers as possible, whatever the means..
 
There is a guy at my office who leaves his ringer on once in a while; regularly enough that we all know whose phone it is.

It plays this song:

So when his phone rings, and he's not around to answer it, we stop working and jam. The guys around me all play air guitar until his phone stops ringing.

The bummer part is; it stops ringing before the part that happens at :22 seconds in. You're all set to do the air jam, then... nothing.
 
Sundancer said:
How's the CD?
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I've always liked Krall and Bennett individually. What surprised me most, was that I liked the Bennett/Gaga CD more than this one. I think it's because I'm used to Krall always doing pop/jazz/standards, and Gaga, away from the outlandish outfits, is a remarkable singer and this was her first foray into the standards/jazz genre.

PS - I did not like the latest version of "A Star is Born" other than the dog.

Disclaimer: my parents owned a music & appliance store, and I grew up on the American Songbook (as it's referred to) as well as their records of the big bands of the 30s & 40s. Beatles were ok, not fond of Mick Jagger, I think I have every recording by Ella, the Count, the Duke, Aretha, and to me, The King is Nat, not Elvis.
 
Hank S said:
Yeah, because they're such nice, selfless people. Why do I not see the logic in your statement, but only your own blinded self-interest? Because really, the self interest of Google, Amazon, Apple, et al, is to get as much personal information about their customers as possible, whatever the means..
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I don't think it's so much that they're "nice, selfless people" as that they just don't think there's a whole lot of value in mining data beyond people's shopping activities.

Rich
 
JOhnH said:
Their business is selling stuff "to people". The more information they have on people, the better they can market their stuff to people.
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I've been an Amazon customer for more than 17 years, and they've never target-marketed anything to me except products related to items I purchased or looked at on their site. I have many other interests about which they know nothing, as evidenced by the fact that they never market products related to those interests to me. So all I can really say is that if they're using data mining to target market, they're doing a pretty poor job of it.

Rich
 
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