Fed up with Amazon 11 November 2020 at 9:15PM in Praise, vent & warnings 9 replies 322 views

Carlsdad

I have just done review of an item I bought on Amazon recently, and it's been rejected. No specific reason given other than that it didn't conform to Amazon's 'guidelines'. I could see nothing wrong with the review, which was very positive, but it appears that it's not suitable. So how do I know what I have done to breach the guidelines? Well, I don't, so that will definitely be the last review I write for them. If they think that I have nothing better to do than to plough through their morass of do's and don'ts, then they are mistaken. This is now the third time this has happened. Enough is enough.   Rant over.

missile

Hope you feel better after your rant :-)

jonesMUFCforever

Why bother with reviews? - I certainly don't rely on them as you can never tell which are genuine or not.

Yahoo_Mail

jonesMUFCforever said:

Why bother with reviews? - I certainly don't rely on them as you can never tell which are genuine or not.

Yeah, I rarely rely on reviews now.  It's often unclear if the person giving the review has any idea how a product is supposed to work so you have no idea if a bad review is justified or not.

Remember back in May looking for some weedkiller spray.  Almost all products had a number of "top reviews" that revolved around the product not getting rid of weeds.  Hard to see how everyone gets away with selling useless weedkiller but hey ho.  Then I saw a review that said (paraphrasing) "Sprayed weeds with this in the evening, still there in the morning. Doesn't work" and realised that apparently, most people expect the process for weed killing to go as follows...

1. Spray weed with weedkiller.
2. Weed immediately bursts into flames.

So I just bought one that seemed reasonably popular and from a well known brand and it worked just fine.

LadyDee

The only reviews worth reading are the negative!  I don't care that Auntie Jane like the colour of the widget bought for her birthday.  I do care that the widget didn't do what it was meant to.

cymruchris

Carlsdad said:

I have just done review of an item I bought on Amazon recently, and it's been rejected. No specific reason given other than that it didn't conform to Amazon's 'guidelines'. I could see nothing wrong with the review, which was very positive, but it appears that it's not suitable. So how do I know what I have done to breach the guidelines? Well, I don't, so that will definitely be the last review I write for them. If they think that I have nothing better to do than to plough through their morass of do's and don'ts, then they are mistaken. This is now the third time this has happened. Enough is enough.   Rant over.

Are you by any chance writing reviews in exchange for free products? And are annoyed that the review hasn't been published which means you won't get your payment? 

Amazon do seem to disallow reviews in a number of cases - particularly if you use a brand name in it. Something like:

'These earphones are so much better than the Bose ones I had last year'

'This bluetooth speaker has such a lovely quality to it, unlike my Sony one that went straight back two weeks after I ordered it'

If anything in your review is negative to a third party - that can be a reason why a review may not be approved. But if you're not writing reviews for reward - then it doesn't really matter does it? It's only a review.

IvanOpinion

cymruchris said:

Carlsdad said:

I have just done review of an item I bought on Amazon recently, and it's been rejected. No specific reason given other than that it didn't conform to Amazon's 'guidelines'. I could see nothing wrong with the review, which was very positive, but it appears that it's not suitable. So how do I know what I have done to breach the guidelines? Well, I don't, so that will definitely be the last review I write for them. If they think that I have nothing better to do than to plough through their morass of do's and don'ts, then they are mistaken. This is now the third time this has happened. Enough is enough.   Rant over.

Are you by any chance writing reviews in exchange for free products? 

If I come across those I immediately thumb them down.  Such 'social media influencer' wannabes would sell their children for a freebie or a few quid - not worth the pixels required to generate them.

oldagetraveller1

I was thinking of purchasing an item yesterday. Looked at the reviews, all 5 star, about 80% of them showed as "Vine Customer Review of Free Product".

Didn't buy it!

ElefantEd

Hang on, you can sell your kids for freebies? Where? I have several I would happily exchange!

miniemma

LadyDee said:

The only reviews worth reading are the negative!  I don't care that Auntie Jane like the colour of the widget bought for her birthday.  I do care that the widget didn't do what it was meant to.

You can't even rely on negative reviews anymore.  Companies have been known to leave negatives on their competitors' products.  I tend to read only the 3 star reviews now.