Amazon sellers contact customers leaving negative product reviews: Report

Some sellers on Amazon are reportedly contacting unhappy buyers requesting them to revise or delete their negative reviews by offering them as much as twice the amount of the product as a refund.

Although it is a violation of the terms sellers agree to, they have been doing so in order to raise their overall average star rating on the platform, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

Sellers who ship products via Amazon are only permitted to communicate with customers via Amazon’s official channel. In fact, customer data is supposed to be shielded from sellers and brands, according to Amazon's terms.

The terms of service also prohibit sellers from requesting that a customer remove a negative review or post a positive one, the report said.

Quoting New Yorker Katherine Scott who ordered an oil spray bottle in March, it added that while the product had about 1,000 glowing reviews and a 4.5-star rating average, it didn’t work as advertised.

When Scott left a negative review of the $10 product on the site, she received an email from someone claiming to be from the customer service of the product's brand.

“We are willing to refund in full... We hope you can reconsider deleting comments at your convenience okay?... When we do not receive a response, we will assume that you did not see it, and will continue to send emails," the message read.

However, Amazon denied sharing the email addresses of customers with third-party sellers.

When Scott refused to delete her review, declining her request for a refund, another representative wrote, “A bad review is a fatal blow to us... Could you help me delete the review? If you can, I want to refund $20 to you to express my gratitude."