I have my own brand so I track my reviews multiple times a day, every day. I see 5 star reviews being removed from time to time and I usually just suck it up and move on.
But recently, I lost 3 of 5 star reviews within a week. It is becoming harder and harder to get reviews. Back few years ago, I would get about 1 review out of 100, but now it seems like 1 review out of 300, if I’m lucky. So losing 3 of them really sucks.
What can be the cause and is there a way to fight this?
I thought about posting this on Amazon forum but I don’t want to draw any attention to my account. Not that I’ve done anything wrong, but who knows what stupid stuff can happen with Amazon.
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- Fake reviews of course
- Reviewers being removed from Amazon will cause their reviews to be pulled also.
- I also believe that someone deleting their buyer account also causes it.
Not that I’ve ever seen.
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Yeah, this really sucks. I just saw one this morning and now it’s gone…
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Were any of the reviews from Vine reviewers? My understanding is that if they are found abusing the program, then all of their reviews are yanked.
It might not be easy to tell at this point.
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Ever get this email from Amazon? It’s not just the 1 Stars they remove… We get this email at least once a week. Never actually go back and look to see what changed because we have thousands of reviews and get a few everyday. TBH, I don’t think the bot is removing a review, I think this email gets generated by a review that’s attempting to be left but never passes the test.
If Amazon’s bots think a buyer left a fake review, they remove every review they have ever left (real or fake). Annnnnnnnnnnd, just because the bot thinks the buyer is a “bad actor”, doesn’t necessarily make that so….
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AMAZON’S TPTB do the same to us w/ feedback, not product reviews.
A glowing feedback stood for 3 days, now removed plus 2 more. We did have 3129 FB, now reduced to 3127, including one FB posted yesterday. Wonder if there’s some magic in the number 3130 that the BOTS don’t want us to reach? .
One removal may stem from nice, chatty bibliophile (sent photos of his book shelves/ book collection on particular subject) sent 5 messages(3 prior to sale, 2 afterwards). ALL positive strokes but BOTS assume something is wrong.
Disappearance is nothing new. Been going on for a year or more. Approx. a dozen 5 star FB removed as the BOTS began fiddling w/ FEEDBACK MANAGER. These Bots don’t bother to send a memo, either. FB-all positive- POOF-disappeared into the ether. . .
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None are Vine. I thought about trying out Vine but I found out that it’s not just giving away free products, I actually have to pay a fee? I steered away at that point.
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So if a buyer left a fake review on a different item, it’ll remove “all” review they ever left?
I received 2 of those emails recently but I’ve lost more than 5.
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I haven’t had any feedbacks removed but that would really suck for me as I rarely get feedbacks. May 1 a month at best.
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Lately, we’ve become a low-volume seller as we cull titles toward a move.
Had an AH-HA moment. Possibly TPTB don’t went a seller to receive more FB than titles sold monthly-which might occur since some buyers wait more than 30 days, sometimes 60, to give FB, .(noticed we had a couple of early May orders come up as FB in July.), so just remove ‘em…
Trying to think like a BOT-which causes my eyes to bulge and veins stick out on my neck! Better cease or will have a stroke!! .
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From what I understand, yes.
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Guess that explains it then. Funny thing is, negative reviews are never removed LOL
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Damnit-TPTB just removed another FB!
At this rate it should take about 2 years as we creep toward 0 (about the same amount of time it’ll take to sell our house unless the Fed comes up w/ a couple of rate cuts!)
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Thought I should leave an update here for something that happened this morning.
Since losing so many the last few weeks, I’ve been watching my review counts more often throughout the day.
I woke up this morning and looked at my review count. It was 676 yesterday and this morning, it is now 712. A whopping 36 increase overnight. The most I got was maybe 5 in one day. 36 overnight never happens, I just don’t sell that much.
I don’t see any new written reviews, just the rating count increased. The few of the written reviews that were removed aren’t back but rating surely went up.
Something is really going on here. Well for me, it worked out. It feels like falsely removed ratings were added back.
Just thought I’ll leave an update of my findings.
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Thank you for the update @justalamb! Honestly, we should all be tracking our best sellers’ product reviews anyway, but getting 36 (back?) overnight is bizarre.
FWIW, I just saw over on the Amazon Vine reddit, their reviews are having issues, too. So many posts about it that they’re all locked for duplication.
Definitely some widespread glitch (or hack?) with the whole Amazon product review system, for Sellers and shoppers.
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Update:
I started to capture screenshots and noticed something. Reviews with pictures and videos are definitely disappearing. Last time I got a picture review was from April.
Reviews without pictures/videos are disappearing also but ones with them are all disappearing.
Here’s a thread on NSFE where other sellers are reporting the issue:
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/cfa1f821-bb85-4385-aa18-1d1560a57ded
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For Vine you get 2 free Vine offers per ASIN. If you want more than that it’s like $75. We enrolled on ASIN in Vine and got 2 takers, 1 positive review and 1 negative.
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Yea, that’s why it makes sense to go all in or not at all with Vine (30). There are always a few A-holes that get free product and complain. In our experience (we do it with every product we launch), you’ll end up with a 4.5-4.7 star avg for 30. Seems to really get a new listing moving.
We do BazaarVoice reviews for Walmart. Giant PITA but the results there are normally better. You actually have to ship the inventory to the reviewer for Walmart. So it’s more costly bc of the freight but worth it because most listings on Walmart have very few reviews. We do 24 units there.