This ain’t "SEAmod" anymore

[UserID]

Side note, this ain’t Susan anymore: read first Amazon reply

[papy]

That reply is BONKERS. And Sellers are rightfully calling it and “SEAmod” out.

---

ETA:

NSFE OP full text

Facing numerous instances of blatant fraudulent behavior from buyers, why doesn’t the Amazon platform learn from eBay and allow sellers to have a buyer blacklist feature? Why is Amazon not taking action on this matter?

by Seller_f2bk0lnJNJmBs
updated 5 days ago

Today, I am writing this article with a very frustrated mindset. If there are sellers who have experienced the same situation, please leave your comments to draw attention from the Amazon platform and prompt an investigation to change this situation.

Nine orders, nine returns and refunds. The customer is Solomon, KY42240. I hope all sellers who see orders from this customer can promptly cancel them to minimize losses.

Our products are high-value items, with a minimum selling price of USD 100 and some reaching as high as USD 800. The customer has repeatedly purchased nine products from our account within two years, and has requested a refund for all of them.

From the perspective of a buyer, if there was an issue with the product after the first purchase, most customers would lose confidence in the brand. Based on Amazon’s excellent after-sales and logistics services, such customers might accept an exchange for the first time. This represents the mindset of the majority. Ultimately, if the product still does not meet expectations, such customers might not purchase from the same brand again.

Now, let’s consider this customer who placed nine orders from 2021 to 2023 and returned all of them. What we are curious about is, if there is an issue with the product quality, why does the customer keep placing orders repeatedly? If there is no issue with the product quality, why request a full refund for every order?

Let’s speculate for a moment. The customer might be exploiting Amazon’s free return and exchange feature, attempting to obtain products from various sellers on the platform for free, engaging in fraudulent behavior against the Amazon platform. As everyone knows, Amazon has millions of sellers, and every day there are many returns going back to the warehouse. Therefore, Amazon warehouses do not have enough staff to open boxes and inspect the items returned by customers. Perhaps the buyer is stuffing a bunch of garbage inside, maybe returning other sellers’ defective products, or perhaps even returning a concrete brick. Such buyers can exploit this loophole to freely use various products from different sellers, and they can use the same method to get all the products they need for free, obtaining all their household items for free. This is manipulating Amazon, a provocation to the Amazon platform.

Is there really nothing Amazon can do about these buyers? We don’t think so. The reason Amazon allows such buyers to exist is that it doesn’t have much hurts on Amazon itself, and the only ones harmed are the sellers.

For example, a buyer orders FBA products, and Amazon gets commissions and logistics delivery fees from the seller. Then, the buyer returns the product. Although Amazon refunds the commission to the seller, the logistics fee is not refunded to the seller. Amazon still earns a profit from the logistics aspect. If Amazon learned from eBay’s blacklist feature and sellers added such buyers to the blacklist, the buyer would not be able to get products from Amazon, leading to a loss of a buyer group for Amazon. At the same time, Amazon would lose the profit from the FBA delivery fee. Over time, Amazon’s interests would be affected. We have reason to believe this is why Amazon is not taking action. We tried reporting this buyer through abuse behavior, SAFE-T, and investigation team channels, but we didn’t receive any response. We even wrote to the Amazon CEO’s email and were told the following: “You sent an email to an unresponsive email address. If you have any issues, please contact the Amazon support team.”

Are there no channels for sellers to appeal in such cases? Does Amazon just let these buyers engaged in fraudulent activities do as they please? By not taking action, does Amazon want all sellers who have experienced such things to lose confidence in Amazon? Do Amazon want more sellers to leave? As a globally renowned sales platform, don’t you want to get better and better?

We sincerely hope that more sellers who have had similar experiences come forward to share their stories. By making this article more prominent, we hope relevant teams will see it and provide a solution for such cases, it will prevent us from losing confidence in the platform.

Thank you!

[Pepper_Thine_Angus]

@papy

That reply is BONKERS

92

ouch

EDIT:
But the OP is also out of their mind if they think that all their “research” will convince Amazon to take action.

Susan simply shouldn’t have responded.

[papy]

@Pepper_Thine_Angus

Susan simply shouldn’t have responded.

Real Susan would simply have focused on this part:

@papy

Nine orders, nine returns and refunds. The customer is Solomon, KY42240. I hope all sellers who see orders from this customer can promptly cancel them to minimize losses.

Our products are high-value items, with a minimum selling price of USD 100 and some reaching as high as USD 800. The customer has repeatedly purchased nine products from our account within two years, and has requested a refund for all of them.

And possibly suggested that the Seller open a Buyer abuse case with Seller Support, documenting the repeated orders and refunds…or even offered to follow up herself. Or reminded the Seller that if FBM they can cancel these orders, etc. Something concrete and actionable.

[oneida_books]

@papy

That reply is BONKERS.

Oh the one hand I agree … on the other it does actually state Amazon’s point of view of being buyer-centric. The question is why would she go there?

I started to email her and see if anything has changed … but decided not to this time.

I looked at other posts on her profile … which I think do seem to be her ( well, the new version the fits the NSFE anyway). But have to admit a couple are questionable!

Now this one seems odd … because there’s no tag for Glenn in the OP.

[Pepper_Thine_Angus]

@oneida_books

I like this post

@oneida_books

The second post is correct

Both of the above posts are something every member here would have responded with, and would have been flagged off the face of the forum for.

[papy]

I think that Susan uses the SEAmod account sometimes.

I do not think that every SEAmod post is Susan.

@UserID’s example does not seem to be Susan, to me.

She would have offered something other than just snark and ignoring the issue, IMO.

[JustForFunStuff]

Wondering if SEAmod has now been turned into a bot?
Definitely unusual responses.

[Dogtamer]

@oneida_books

…
I looked at other posts on her profile … which I think do seem to be her ( well, the new version the fits the NSFE anyway). But have to admit a couple are questionable!
…

The day before (i.e., on 22Nov`23) you posted this yesterday, I noticed this new development on every NSFE Profile’s Posting History I checked (including SEAmod’s) described here:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/5dc336ea-8f75-44f7-9e13-a99e7686d1f5?postId=348e0338-a1ae-4c91-8243-cb8ba0a66476

yes, something has gone wrong with the posting history. There is a bug (what else is new around here) and it keeps repeating the same last 20 ir [or] so posts over and over. Maybe they will fix it…

May I ask if you are currently experiencing the same phenomenon?

[wadeorcas]

Late to the party and just read the original post. Appalled but not surprised.

[bookwormapril]

I saw that on a profile I checked recently (two, three days ago maybe) – the posting history all wrong.

[oneida_books]

@Dogtamer

yes, something has gone wrong with the posting history. There is a bug (what else is new around here) and it keeps repeating the same last 20 ir [or] so posts over and over. Maybe they will fix it…

May I ask if you are currently experiencing the same phenomenon?

I see nothing wrong with my posting history, but I do with others.

[Lost_My_Marbles]

@Dogtamer

May I ask if you are currently experiencing the same phenomenon?

September 6, 2023 … KJ_Amazon opened a case with us to discuss Why is Amazon editing all my posts from Months ago?.

At that time, Amazon was editing posts from OSFE which then was showing as a double with NSFE handles. This seemed to be a beta tester issue. Not sure what Amazon was attempting to do but, after we and others provided info, the NSFE profile posts that were showing up on the OSFE profile were removed along with the double postings that Amazon had been creating as edits. We assumed at the time that this was Amazon’s attempt to clean up the data from the data merge from OSFE to NSFE where there were beta crossover (duplicate) data in their system(s).

It wouldn’t surprise us if this current issue with profiles and what is showing as their posts is another attempt to clean up data (which then has created this current issue). Since beta tester data has been cleaned up, it might be the group of forum members (who selected to start new and have a new profile and an old profile) that are now experiencing something like the beta tester group did. The parameters around those two groups would be similar when it comes to how Amazon was handling their data.

[Dogtamer]

@Lost_My_Marbles

…
It wouldn’t surprise us if this current issue with profiles and what is showing as their posts is another attempt to clean up data (which then has created this current issue). Since beta tester data has been cleaned up, it might be the group of forum members (who selected to start new and have a new profile and an old profile) that are now experiencing something like the beta tester group did. The parameters around those two groups would be similar when it comes to how Amazon was handling their data.

I suspect ol’ Billy O’Ockham would agree, as the available evidence would seem to suggest that your thesis would probably satisfy his long-famed Razor, re: the most-likely explanation proving true much more often than not.

[oneida_books]

So I questioned a SEAmod post …

So I believe it’s her … maybe.

[Pepper_Thine_Angus]

That’s Susan!

Sounds like she is in honest mode now and doesn’t care what others think, kinda like me!

[oneida_books]

I believe shes been “Assimilated” … by the borg!

[Dogtamer]

@oneida_books

I believe shes been “Assimilated” … by the borg!

All Things Change, Save The Truth.

The Truth here is that neutering Susan H.’ role in administering the Global Fora continues to pay unexpected "dividends’ (perhaps better-described as deficits).

[papy]

@oneida_books

So I believe it’s her … maybe.

So is she saying she was being extra kind and helpful during the Discourse KTLO years but not now?

[oneida_books]

@papy

So is she saying she was being extra kind and helpful during the Discourse KTLO years but not now?

I took it she was just showing it was really her by her comments and saying that things were rough for her before, which they really were after DarrenK in the KTLO era.

• No funds to speak of. Evidenced in the lack of mods
• The need to use several posters in the US to help by giving them Leader status
• She was head of all ASF’s and had to deal with all issues whether US, UK, or wherever
• The forum abuse by some posters to the extent of which we will likely never know

Compare that to the NSFE, where she has far less of a role to play in management. She is now able to just respond and contribute.

The (hopeful) comment about “steadily working to win trust” is her eternal optimism. She is the one and only Amazon employee that I could say truly cares about the ASF’s and was content to stay within the ranks instead of working her way to another position.

The only good thing I can say about the NSFE at this point - I guess you could say that the NSFE is lacking some of the “contention” (being polite) of the OSFE.

ETA - AND (a good thing) that SEAmod is still around … even though she is extremely limited in what she can do.