From Gizmodo.com…
These days, most of the merchandise on Amazon’s online marketplace isn’t actually from Amazon.
An estimated 56% of all products sold on the platform come from third-party sellers. Now, these sellers aren’t supposed to be able to email their Amazon customers directly, and doing so outside of Amazon’s official channels violates the platform’s terms of service.
However, a concerning new Wall Street Journal report shows that some sellers are still finding ways to get in touch with buyers and hound them about editing or deleting their negative reviews, and some companies even offer “email extraction” and “reviewer lookup” services so sellers can hunt down unsatisfied customers.
One such customer the Journal spoke with is New Yorker Katherine Scott, who said she left a negative review for a kitchen oil spray bottle that she bought in March after the product didn’t work as advertised. A week later, someone claiming to be a customer service rep from the seller reached out via email to offer her a refund in exchange for deleting her review.
