I’m an excellent Amazon customer, purchasing a multitude of things every week. I thought leaving reviews was a good thing, but I was wrong. I discovered this one day when signing on and seeing I went from being a top 10,000 reviewer to nothing. Amazon had deleted all my reviews and blocked me from leaving reviews at all. They had removed four years’ worth of legitimate reviews for no reason!
Talk about being frustrated. Now when I click the review button, I get a warning about “unusual reviewing activity” and am blocked from going further.
Your Review Goes Against Community Guidelines
I got my first warning after reviewing a children’s fishing pole. The e-mail said the review had been removed because it went against community standards. I had no idea what they meant, so I thought maybe it was because I included photos of my son in the review and maybe they didn’t want pictures of kids. So I resubmitted the review without the photos and it was rejected as well. I brushed it off as just a weird thing, but it seems that put me on their radar.
I enjoy leaving reviews so I would often just hop on and go through my purchases and review everything one by one. I thought that was what the review option was for- to leave reviews. I saw my reviewer rating going up, and it fired me up to start leaving MORE reviews and adding photos and videos. And that’s when Amazon started deleting my reviews without even telling me.
Amazon’s Community Help is Useless
The message I got said to review the community guidelines, which I did. I’d followed all the rules, so I then messaged the e-mail included with the notice- community-help@amazon.com. I waited a few days and got no reply, so I messaged again. I suspect there’s just some e-mail black hole where all those messages go, because it’s been over a year, and I’ve sent at least 20 e-mails (or more) and none have EVER gotten a response.
So I tried their instant messaging system where I get to chat with a live person. I’ve done this three times now, each time spending way too long explaining how Amazon deleted all my reviews, and each time it ends with them promising me they have fixed the problem, and I will get my reviews back. They also tell me I’ll get an e-mail about with within a day or two. The e-mail never comes, and the review block remains. So now I suspect Amazon customer service is just lying to me to get off the call.
Why Don’t You Start a New Account
I could of course just start a whole new account, but I don’t want to do that. I have Amazon Prime on my account and have years’ worth of stored orders that make it easy to look up and re-order things. Plus, I have tons of movies I’ve purchased that I would lose. I don’t want to start a new account; I just want my own account to fully function as it should. I feel like that’s not too much to ask from a company that gets a ton of my business.
I know it’s not a big deal to not be able to leave reviews, but it just bugs me when I get something particularly good, or particularly bad, and want to share. I write, it’s what I do. So cutting me off from writing and sharing my review bugs me until it builds up and I send another useless e-mail. I actually sent another one today.
As a side note, I did actually start another totally separate account for the Amazon Influencer program. That is the only thing I use that account for. I don’t buy anything with it, because it doesn’t have Prime, and I don’t leave any reviews of anything at all because I’m afraid of it getting blocked or removed. I only use it for the influencer and affiliate program.
How to Avoid Amazon Deleting Your Reviews
I’m pretty sure the reason I was blocked was because I reviewed everything I ordered, several items at a time. So don’t do that! Save your reviews for things you really have something to say about. I know some people get blocked for leaving reviews of things they got for free, but I left reviews on things I personally purchased, with many of the items coming directly from Amazon and no way I could be getting them for free.
And if you ended up here because Amazon deleted your reviews too, I’m sorry to say I’ve had no luck getting the reviews back! If anyone has had luck and would like to share how they did it, please leave a comment.
The saga continues! Click here to read the Amazon Deleted My Reviews updated post.
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🤨 It is probably a new algorithm that thought you were a bot. Amazon has had a problem with fake reviews in the past.
I genuinely hope you get an email from Amazon alerting you that it was all an error.
That’s probably it, because I tried researching and ran across a few other stories like mine- where they left several reviews at a time and then got blocked. It sucks to get punished for doing something you thought was a good thing, lol.
That’s Big Tech for you. Fake reviews on the platform are condoned, while actual human customers who buy and leave reviews get the banhammer.
Yep! It’s so annoying.
Hi, I had the exact same thing happen to me yesterday. I appealed to no avail. I have been a loyal Amazon customer since 1998. I have never been paid for any of my reviews. They were all honest, legit reviews on products that I have purchased. Now, they tell me all of my reviews over the years have been deleted, and I am banned from posting any future reviews on products that I purchase, and I can’t ask questions about products I am thinking about buying. I am furious over this because I have done absolutely nothing wrong. They will not even tell you what it is that they think you have done wrong. Some stupid computer algorithm I suspect red flags you for god knows what and then some overbearing, overzealous human moderator enforces an unfair ban. Thanks for posting this Candy. Have you had any luck yet getting things restored, or have you simply given up?
I have currently given up after copy and pasting the same e-mail every day for a few weeks with absolutely no response. It’s ridiculous, frustrating and honestly infuriating to be treated this way after being a good customer for so many years! And I still purchase stuff every week, sticking with my account because of all the movies saved up on it. If you ever get a response or get this resolved, please let me know how you did it! I am tired of wasting my time with more e-mails and customer service messaging.
Yup. Been with AMZN since it started back in the 90s. Did hundreds of reviews. This is my review. Or part of it anyway.
Thanks Dr. Sarcasm,
Your latest customer review is live on Amazon. We and millions of shoppers on Amazon appreciate the time you took to share your experience with this item.
Burned Out 5-*
from Dr. Sarcasm on February 25, 2023
Yes it’s true I worked there once…….sine scientia ars nihil est!!!!
Well. Worked at this Children’s Hospital and its not in Biloxi. Close. I left right when the author came on board(after working years there). My synopsis.
Those two CT Surgeons he worked with in the beginning? Here’s a clue. When I went on transports to pick…
See your full review
And then this: 3/15/2023, 8:09:48 AM
Hello,
You have repeatedly posted content that violates our Community Guidelines
An initial warning has been sent to you. Because of your repeated violation of our Community Guidelines we’ve removed your ability to participate in Community features.
If you would like to contact us about this decision, please email community-help@amazon.com.
Thanks for your understanding in this matter.
NONE of that is true!!!!!! I was furious and continue to send them Emails(every week) asking why. I have never had a review pulled by AMZN. I even have AMZN stock!!!! MacKenzie Scott(bezos) used to send me gifts at the beginning of AMZN. I’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars with AMZN. Bought thousands of books. And this is how I’m treated?????
I still sometimes send an e-mail just to see if someone will answer. It’s been years and still no reply at all.
Wow. How depressing. Guess I will never get my reviews back. Thank You!!!!!!
I keep hoping to reach someone. If you do happen to figure it out, I’d love it if you let me know! BTW, going through customer service chat is a waste of time. I did that twice, both times taking at least 30 min. with them “checking with their superiors” and reassuring me everything would be fixed in 24 hours…and still nothing!
After the thousands of dollars I’ve spent on Amazon, this is how they treat me? I don’t get mad, usually I just get even. Hey Amazon, are you sure you want to lose my business because of some stupid, woke reviewer decided I violated some stupid policy or another????
It’s been a couple years and I’m still blocked! But honestly, I don’t think Amazon cares about losing anyone’s business.
Same thing happened to me and I don’t even review a lot. I went to review a new paperback and got the same ridiculous form paragraph and the community guidelines email. I was going to try chat but after hearing it’s fruitless, I probably won’t bother. Definitely, this is a software algorithm gone wild.
I’ve tried the chat thing a few times now, and every time it’s been a waste of a good 30-45 min. unfortunately.
Have you tried Jeff@amazon.com?
I had the something happen to me and this what they told me got me banned. I review the new Lord of the rings TV show with this review. The Starred out word is Woke. So there is nothing in here that violates the guideline or terms of use. It is just an honest review of their disaster of the TV show they spent a billion dollars on. Time to find other places to shop.
Review Title:
Mediorcre story that has little to do with Tolkien
Review Text:
Well this my second review because Amazon doesn’t like the truth about the W*** garbage they have created. Story is probable OK, but other than names and places and general plot this has nothing to do with Lord of the Rings or Tolkien. Just about the same a as the Wheel of Time. The timeline is messed up, characters are messed up, there are plot elements that are wholy created and then you just get to the dialogue and the way the people act. Let’s just say is par for the course for material out of the Hollywood left today and would have nothing to do with Tolkien’s world or the way things actually work….but hey they call it a fantasy….so yes it is in many ways.
I haven’t, but I’ll try that e-mail, thanks!
Finally I succeeded! I was able to make them lift the ban on my account to leave reviews again.
Do not waste time with sending any email. I have 30+ emails sent (starting from 2021 to this date, yes, you heard it right!) with absolutely no response and also multiple live chat records. They just keep ignoring you. You will waste your time with the emails.
The only way to make them react almost immediately, is to create a claim at BBB (Better Business Bureau). I had the response from Amazon (from an email dedicated to BBB claims) the same or the next day that they are reviewing the case and it took them around a week or so to lift the ban (to be able to leave reviews again). I have lost all my past reviews permanently, however, I am now able to leave reviews again for my purchases.
I suggest anyone reading to try it at BBB official website.
Funny fact: I have used ChatGPT to create the claim text, which came out very professional and it worked perfectly. Give it a try:)
oh wow! I also have sent probably 30 e-mails and tried the amazon chat, all a waste of time. I would love to see the e-mail you sent!! If you can send it to me my e-mail is candy@geekmamas.com
Hi Candy, and thank you for sharing your experience. Same thing happened to me , right down to the wording of the email most of you received. Mine came this morning at 0459. I’ve left maybe ten reviews in as many years and have spent tens of thousands of dollars on ebooks for Kindle. No joke, I have nearly 8,000 Kindle books. While I did not leave many reviews, I did report a lot of customer reviews that actually did violate their so called “community standards and guidelines” over the last few years. And here’s the really strange part: yesterday I received 1,304 identical emails from Amazon thanking me for reporting bogus reviews. That’s one thousand three hundred four! In less than an hour!
>—Incidentally, someone here made an off the cuff comment blaming this problem on “…some stupid, woke reviewer.” I understand this person’s frustration, but insulting a worldview held by millions of Americans does nothing to help any of us and makes zero sense. But I digress.—<
So anyway, I did what all of you did, I sent a rather strongly worded email asking them what was going on. If anything comes of it I will report back here. Good luck to all of you, too.
Thank you for sharing your story! That is really crazy about the thousand e-mails all of a sudden! I have not gotten a reply back yet from any of my e-mails. A recent commenter said he got his ability to review back after reporting to the BBB. I tried that but the website kept getting stuck with an error so I wasn’t successful but plan to try again.
I have had the same thing happen to me after I left a negative review about an Amazon original series on Prime. I followed Alex’s recommendation and filed a complaint with the BBB this evening. We will see what happens.
I haven’t had a chance to try it yet! Let me know how it goes 🙂
It worked! Two days after I filed a complaint with the BBB, I got an email from Amazon that said the ban on my account has been lifted (see below). However my previous reviews have not been reinstated yet. I wrote some more reviews to test it out and then I got another email stating that one of my reviews about a scuba diving belt could not published because it violated the community guidelines. Just like before, it said I can edit and resubmit. But, the last time I resubmitted a review that was flagged, I immediately got suspended. I think it is best to not resubmit.
did it work for you.. I also tried the BBB review but as far as I’m aware i never heard back after.. They banned me in 2022 and I wasnt sure why considering they dont really tell you anything other than your review was against their policy.. its not like theres actual people doing this its just keywords and algorithms, and then they have a virtual bot responding to the emails they must be drowning in from people experiencing this same censorship.. unfortunately any customer who threatens to no longer use amazon isnt even a concern for them and most who do still continue purchasing due to the convenience offered by amazon. what i find most irritating is not being able to give my honest feedback to help sellers who do things well and help consumers avoid poor sellers or products.. then theres the fact we cant even post a question for the seller regarding a product if we are on the fence or need more info before pulling the trigger. If, somehow every banned commenter were to protest collectively by not using amazon and cancelling prime then maybe there would be hope in getting them to change their authoritarian policy. obv this is highly unlikely.. They would be better if instead of immediate and life long ban they implemented a suspension and reinstatement after x amount of time.. that and a dedicated team to address appeals but thats not a team that would generate profits so again unlikely.. the funny thing is that i think i was banned for editing a review after a seller sent me a free replacement a year after i had bought a phone screen i left a sub par review on.. and so i added to the end of the review “Edit: i am changing the initial review due to the seller following up and offering to send me a replacement. changed 3 stars to 5.” This, in amazon’s view.. i think is them saying sellers are buying reviews however if we leave a bad BBB review and they reach out to correc tthe situation.. wouldnt they hope we would recognize their efforts by altering the review. I believe that they would and so i believe their banning people for situations like this are ridiculous.. until i got banned the only thing i would get were those emails saying how greatly my reviews were being received and i had like 50,000 views and many many “helpfuls.” At the end of the day it was all a waste of time that we consumers were freely giving up which directly benefits amazon without them having to pay most of us (vine excluded). Sigh.. if only there were a direct competitor to go with … but amazons got a monopoly of sorts so i begrudgingly continue using them.. on the plus side, i no longer lose any time reviewing products which some of you may know can be a little bit of a time suck to get the video or pic just right and effectively communicate your experience and even add in some comedic relief when possible..
That’s an interesting petition! I see the poster got her reviews back. I have had no luck myself unfortunately.
Same thing happened to me today, and as Beau pointed out I received a bulk set of emails from Amazon claiming I reported fraudulent reviews (I did not) immediately after that upon attempting to resubmit a review I was blocked and all previous reviews removed (thousands (1457))!!
I found your site and filed with BBB just minutes ago, we will see what happens.
Thank you for providing this site and the forum for solutions.
I hope you have better luck than I did with the BBB. I was connected with a person that sounded like they had a script to stick to and said they’d send it to the “review team.” The “team” just sent me the same form e-mail back, with that same e-mail address that nobody ever answers! And the person was like, sorry can’t help and we’re done now.
Please let me know how your experience goes!
It did not work, I was denied. I have been investigating further and suspect as others do that ESG ratings are the underlying culprit to this bizarre trend. I’ll post a link to some insightful info. Ironically the standing company with the highest ESG rating is Phillip Morris (LOL). Amazon and other corporations are prepared to cut their customers throats to catch up. I believe they made some ESG friendly tweeks to their AI that scans the reviews.
Sorry to hear it didn’t work for you either! I’m not really familiar with ESG. I’ll check it out.
If that’s the case then they shot themselves in the foot with their estimation of me. I avoid assigning labels to myself beyond that of skeptic, but my ideology and values are more in line with classic liberalism than any other school of thought. Who knows. Whatever is going on is pretty ridiculous and I hope Amazon figures it out and fixes the problem, but I’m not holding my breath. I tried the BBB approach and got nowhere. Now I’m trying to learn how to remove the DRM from my Kindle books because if Bezos’ AI goon were to deny me access to my account down the road I would be out many tens of thousands of dollars.
After the ban on my account was lifted, I wrote five more reviews and then got another warning from Amazon that I violated community guidelines for a review on a freediving/scuba weight belt. My review was positive with the only negative comment being that it was expensive but worth it. Is this what we have to look forward to with AI?
oh geez. It’s so ridiculous! Maybe you used the words freediving, and AI picked up on the “free” part and figured you wrote a review on something you got for free, which would violate the terms. It’s just not worth it to bother reviews at this point! Which is so frustrating, because I always look for reviews when I’m shopping.
I wrote a review of a film I purchased and got banned after using the word WOKE in my review. I was unaware that this word is considered so offensive it would cause a ban. My understanding of the word woke matches what Wikipedia says it means: “WOKE is an alert regarding racial prejudice and discrimination. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities.”
Amazon never told me what exact words I used in my reviews that went against their community guidelines, until I appealed the ban and they sent me a copy of the two reviews I wrote. Both reviews had the word woke in them.
I lost the appeal and opened a complaint with the BBB.
I’ve been a loyal Prime customer for over 20 years and now feel targeted and a bit discriminated against.
I cannot believe that this is even legally acceptable.
wow, that seems a bit excessive that they would do that over the one word! I would like to know how your BBB complain goes. I got rejected. They were just like, yeah sorry, too bad.
I’ll keep you updated on the BBB outcome but I don’t have much hope.
People have had success with it! Not me, lol, but other people.
I am so glad I found this forum. I have been a long time Amazon Prime user and have written over a 100 reviews. Well, I received two emails today that my review have been rejected since it did not follow their guidelines, so I attempted to re-write the review since in the past that seemed to work. Well, I was unable to edit the review. A pop up came up “We apologize but Amazon is not accepting reviews on this product from this account. If you would like to contact us about this decision, please email community-help@amazon.com.”
I have never seen this pop up before so I checked my profile and noticed majority of my reviews were gone! I didn’t receive an email or anything.
I was in contact with community-help@amazon.com last week regarding another issue and they sent me a generic response. I followed up few times after without a response and sent them an email today of my deleted reviews. From everyones’ experience above, I am likely to never going to receive a response, so I just filed a complaint with BBB. We’ll see what they say.
I hope you will come back and let me know if you had any success with the BBB complaint! Your situation is very similar to mine. I’ve never gotten a response from that e-mail they give out. I think it goes right into the trash.
No success with the BBB complaint. Amazon sent an email that the ban remains. Apparently, the word “woke” is offensive to them and they will ban users who use it.
Sorry to hear that! I didn’t know woke was added to the bad “4 letter word” list lol .
I received a response from Amazon on the BBB website a day later but they provided a generic response that they noticed an unusual amount of activity. I responded back to the BBB that I do not accept Amazon’s response and provided explanations. The BBB responded few days after that there is nothing they can do and closed my case. So no luck with the BBB sadly.
Well, initially my account with Amazon was limited but as of last week, my account now is completely banned from writing reviews. As a few others experienced, if one of your reviews was flagged/not approved, I would not recommend editing your review and submitting again but I think this what triggered my account to get completely banned. I’ve reached out to community-help@amazon.com and review-appeals@amazon.com few times last week. They responded the same that they noticed an usual amount of activity…
Thank you all for the tips but it doesn’t look great for me that my account will get reinstated nor will I get my reviews back.
I did the same thing- edited and resubmitted because I thought I made some kind of error with it. One I had used a pic of my son playing with a toy and thought maybe kids weren’t allowed in photos, but that was not the problem.
I decided to follow up last night with the Community and Appeals but this time I added Jeff Bezos… I just received a response from Executive Customer Relations. They will get back to me in 3 business days. Let’s see what happens! 🤞🏻
oh wow! You may have actually gotten through to someone.
Well Jay I know how you feel I had 1457 Reviews with 720,000 views and they are all gone. All that time to write a thorough review with all the technical info and instructive steps gone. It’s the ESG ratings that is behind this.
Thanks to everyone who have shared their story about this; the same thing just happened to me. I’ve been a longtime Amazon Prime member and was a “Top Reviewer”, top 10%, “Vine Voice” and have posted hundreds and hundreds of reviews for over 15 years. Once in a great while a review might get flagged, despite the non-specific email from Amazon I’d edit and resubmit without any further problem.
Last month a review for a Paramount+ series got kicked back for some alleged violation. I tweaked it even though it looked fine and resubmitted it but they never posted it. Then last Friday when I woke up I had two reviews for a Prime Video series and another Paramount+ series kicked back for alleged violations of the community rules. I didn’t see anything suspect but when I tried to edit them I discovered I had been unceremoniously blacklisted!
I immediately tried the live chat approach and as many of you noted here some polite person who could offer no explanation or assistance said they were “escalating” my concerns and I would hear back in 24-48 hours and of course I’ve heard nothing. I also discovered yesterday that my Vine account had been shut down as well and all of my reviews have disappeared from my account.
After reading all of your posts it doesn’t look good for my prospects of getting my banishment rescinded. I’m going to try calling CS, emailing Jeff, and the BBB as others have suggested and see what happens. It really seems those of us who were prolific in generating quality, objective, and informative reviews are the ones who have been targeted.
Please let us know what happens! I was in the top 10% too, and excited to have reached that, and then it all crashed overnight with everything gone.
I do have one interesting thing to note- after my BBB contact, a few of my oldest reviews were added back. (like 3 of them from years ago) But I still can’t leave any new reviews,
Thanks Candy, I will definitely provide any updates on my attempts to get reinstated with this forum. It’s really frustrating given how much time all of us have devoted to trying to help other Amazon customers out only to get rewarded with this sort of treatment. The fact that they never are able or willing to identify specifically what the supposed infraction is leaving the reviewer to just guess is just poor practice.
During my military career for a time I was involved in contingency operations evaluations. Subject matter experts from different base organizations (police, fire, medical, etc.) would evaluate their colleagues during training exercises and I would take their input to write a report for senior leadership. Training those evaluators to write useful, objective content that not only ID’d the shortfalls (as well as things done right) and ways to improve next time was a challenge. Just saying something is bad without any details is useless and that’s what Amazon is doing here with these vague and kind of hostile messages to the customers they rely on to generate reviews. If you’re like me you hate reading 5-star reviews that just say something like: “I loved it!” or 1-star reviews that read: “The DVD case was cracked when I got it”. Apologies for the rant…stay tuned.
I understand the rant- it is frustrating! And yes, those reviews that barely say anything are so unhelpful. You rise to the top 10% because you wrote helpful reviews and people voted them as helpful. But Amazon doesn’t care. I wish I didn’t like shopping on there so much still lol.
Well I’ve decided to throw in the towel on trying to get my privileges restored to write reviews for Amazon.
I got responses from two emails to their customer service, the first one was worthless, the second one I had some back and forth with. When I asked them to explain what reviews violated their community policies the individual sent me a review from 8 months ago that they had previously accepted and posted. They would not explain what about the review was in violation. When I responded to that message I was ghosted and heard nothing back from them.
A phone number that someone had listed for customer service for Amazon in Washington state is no longer a functioning number. I have called their customer service that is outsourced overseas in the past and it is a waste of time.
I continue to be blocked although curiously Amazon prompts me to rate secondary sellers on their site all the time and they appear to accept those reviews. Anyway like the rest of you I guess I’m screwed and now I have some more free time to do different things. It was fun while it lasted.
Sounds like we are in the same boat. I gave up as well. I try to be OK with it, but it still really bothers me when I want to leave a review for a particularly bad product, lol.
All big companies eventually decline. It seems like Amazon is the leader in online sales now, but their inefficiencies and poor customer service will open the door for more competitors who are not bound by a giant impersonal corporate structure.
What really annoys me is the purging of all past reviews that were allegedly acceptable and met the “community guidelines”. It’s one thing to reject a particular review or to even ban someone from posting future reviews but to remove everything else someone has posted feels petty and vindictive to me. Oh well, life goes on.
Yes totally! I had YEARS of reviews, many with videos. All gone.
I’m so glad I found this thread, it just makes me feel less alone. I was banned in January 2022 and I’ve sent around 30 emails with no response. I tried again this week but sent it through Amazon directly but it was just an automated response. It’s been a back and forth for a few days with the same message from review-appeals@amazon.com.
I just left a BBB complaint but now I see that may not work either. Almost 3 years and I have spent a STUPID amount of money on Amazon.
I wrote the post out of my own frustration, and I understand the feeling of finding out others are going through the same thing! I still get mad every time I want to leave a review on there, but I haven’t switched to a new account because I like being able to go back through previous purchases. And all the movies I’ve purchased and saved on there. If you remember, I’d love to hear if your BBB complaint helped. As you read, mine didn’t unfortunately.
The same thing happened to me too. I have left numerous detailed one to five star reviews of a couple hundred Amazon products over the last 15 years, with a large number of likes from other customers (in contrast, many Amazon reviews are brief and nearly useless). Last year Amazon invited me to sign up for the “Vine Voices” program (per Amazon: “an invitation-only program” for “the most insightful reviewers”).
Then this year I left two negative reviews, one for an awful radio program/podcast available through Amazon, and a review of the Amazon TV Series “Reacher: Season One” (which is a poor adaptation of the popular Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child). Neither of the reviews violated any of the guidelines other than saying both programs were bad. I wrote that the host of the radio show was not knowledgeable, and the Amazon Reacher TV series isn’t faithful to the novels, had terrible acting, with needless gore and nudity. That got me banned from leaving reviews, and all my detailed liked reviews from many years were deleted (obviously for no reason on those reviews).
Amazon never responded to my questions asking for clarification of their e-mailed notices of the guideline “strikes” (they specifically said I could appeal to the provided email address). If you Google this subject, apparently there are THOUSANDS of Amazon reviewers that this has happened too in the past few years, including people on Amazon’s “Top Reviewers” list.
In addition Amazon customer service is now just awful. As with many U.S. companies, the customer service representatives now seem to be based in foreign countries, with these contracted people (not actual Amazon employees) just reading from a script. They often have poor English skills, or else they don’t actually solve your problem. The only thing you can do now is return bad or defective items and hope for a refund. However you can still get scammed if Amazon rejects the return – and they can do that now if the item is just poor-quality Chinese junk (as a lot of “Amazon Basics” branded products are). They have actually sent me mangled used tools as “new” – how am I supposed to return that? And don’t even try ordering used items anymore from the “Amazon Warehouse” – you can just get a completely damaged item, or even a totally different item that some scammer returned to Amazon for a refund.
Beware also that you must delete your stored credit card info every time, an hour or so after you place an order (the order will still go though). Otherwise if the Amazon site were hacked, the hackers can easily change the “ship to” address, and charge thousands of dollars to your stored credit card (in contrast, Ebay won’t save your card info unless you check the box to do so on the checkout page).
A life lesson learned: don’t waste any time on people or companies that give you any sort of “bad vibe,” which started to show up several years ago with Amazon. Just walk away. I had to do the same thing recently with a mutual fund company that also destroyed their customer service. Shop locally if you can.
Like Google (censoring their searches), Amazon is now awful. Just think of the millions of hours that reviewers wasted on Amazon writing thoughtful reviews, now all deleted either by Amazon’s AI or with a few keystrokes from some Amazon dork. One elderly disabled person who had left numerous book reviews (as a hobby to be helpful to other readers) posted that they were physically ill when all their reviews were deleted by Amazon.
Newly pumped-up and divorced Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is off on his yacht with the bimbo girlfriend, and obviously couldn’t care less anymore.
Thank you for sharing your story! I have always wondered how you get on that Amazon Vine program. I was a “top 10 reviewer” when my account got blocked from reviewing.