Call Kurtis Investigates: Is Amazon Editing Buyer Feedback?
STOCKTON (CBS13) - Is Amazon editing negative reviews? A Stockton woman says her negative feedback vanished.
Within a half hour of posting a negative 2-star review on Amazon, Sandy Parker says she got a nasty email from the third party seller.
"It said. 'please remove your lie feedback,'" she said.
She says she then realized Amazon removed the review, and won't let her post another one. She's upset she can't warn others about this seller.
"Even if they completely disagreed with me, don't call me a liar," she said.
Amazon does say online, it only removes feedback if it's obscene, gives a name, email address or phone number.
Sandy insists her post was clear of any of that.
Public relations expert Doug Elmets says sanitizing reviews is dangerous.
"If they are limiting what the purchaser is seeing, then it calls into question the credibility of the company," he said.
Amazon told Sandy in a web chat, "We received a number of negative feedback about the seller." The rep said the seller is no longer on Amazon. However, we checked and found the seller is still selling on Amazon.
CBS13 repeatedly reached out to Amazon which initially claimed it may have removed her review because it thought the seller resolved the issue thru a refund. After we pointed out that was not listed as a reason in Amazon's own removal policy, the company admitted it made a mistake.
Amazon reposted Sandy's review and gave her the option to revise it.
"How can I trust any purchase I make on Amazon.com if I can't trust the feedback," she said.
Amazon now tells us it removed the review accidentally. And it should never have happened.
