Is Amazon Hiding Negative Reviews? One Customer Wonders Where A 2-Star Post Went
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Can you trust Amazon reviews? A customer says she relies on feedback before ordering from the website and recently wrote a negative review and it disappeared. Where did it go?
When trying to return a broken Wii, Sandy Parker says the third party on Amazon initially didn't give her a full refund. So she posted a negative review.
"I rated the seller 2 stars out of 5," Parker said.
Within a half hour she says the seller emailed:
"Please remove your lie, feedback."
Parker didn't comply and complained to Amazon. The seller eventually sent the rest of the money but she says Amazon removed her review and wouldn't let her post another one.
"Even if they completely disagreed with me, don't call me a liar," Parker said.
Amazon does say online it will only remove feedback if it's obscene, gives a name, email address or phone number. Parker insists her post was clear of any of that.
Public relations expert Doug Elmets says sanitizing reviews is dangerous.
"The reviews. That's what gives the company credibility," Elmets says."If they are limiting what the purchaser is seeing, then it calls into question the credibility of the company."
KCAL9 reached out to Amazon which admitted it may have removed her review, because the matter was resolved. We pointed out that is not listed as a reason for removal in its policy. Amazon then re-posted Parker's review and gave her the chance to revise it.
"How can I trust any purchase I make on Amazon.com if I can't trust the feedback," Parker said.
An Amazon rep now tells KCAL9, It removed the review accidentally and it should not have happened.
