I've stopped buying 3rd party seller items because of this. Now, I'll only buy items sold directly by amazon.
For example, I bought a little portable projector last Christmas. In the box was a big bar of Swiss chocolate and leaflet offering me a tripod in return for a five star review. The projector wasn't as good as the description made out. It wasn't terrible, just not as good as they claimed. So I left a three star review. I started getting texts from the seller asking, and then demanding I remove the review - they weren't offering me anything in return. And the texts came from the sellers name which changed slightly every time, so I couldn't easily block them or reply to them. It took two months for them to give up and leave me alone. I've had similar less extreme experiences with other sellers.
I did complain to amazon, who said they would take action. A few weeks later the seller disappeared from amazon, so I assume they received enough complaints to take action.
But..... the seller reappearance with a different name. They had the same product range and descriptions.
Amazon doesn't care and is totally complicit in all this.
The problem as I see it is that so much commerce is concentrated on to a small number of platforms (amazon, ebay, wish etc), which leads to sellers getting desperate to get to the top in searches. I mean, I can understand sellers doing this when their livelihoods depend on it. It's still not right though and amazon should fix it.
Only 3rd party sellers are allowed in India due anti-competitive/eCommerce regulations, Couple of years ago I left a negative review for an item when the seller/manufacturer who failed to uphold their warranty statement as described in their product listing calling out the false statements in the product listing.
The seller reached out to me on LinkedIn, Out of frustration I blocked the seller on LinkedIn. I still feel bad about the entire scenario, I wonder whether I was too harsh.
Now there are several products on amazon.in where ordering requires you to interact with the seller on WhatsApp, e.g. Name board, You need to message via WhatsApp to the seller with the text. So obviously they pester you to leave a positive review through WhatsApp.
If Amazon cared a bit about Privacy, they would have integrated it part of ordering process in the website itself. Compared to Amazon, even Uber is better at masking customer's phone number from drivers(They route it through their number).
You're right about the whole phone number masking thing. It's pretty simple to implement these days, so any platform that doesn't do it is probably not all that concerned about looking after their customers. There's a taxi ordering startup here in Dublin where I live that has only 10 employees and they use phone number masking, if they can do it then there's no reason why Amazon can't.
Yeah they were violating the regulations with Cloudtail & Appario and with growing pressure they've no choice now.
But still there are loads of sellers claiming to be an 'Amazon Brand'[1] on their listing. If Amazon does have something to do with them, Then again it's a violation of the regulations.
Then, What about 'Amazon Basics' products[2]? I'm sure Amazon manufactures them.
The whole thing is messy and keeps changing according to the 'Mega Billionaires' fight to hold their position, But if this results in temporary consumer choice until one of them wins and we have to pledge our souls then it's fine with me.
It's good to know that small players care about Privacy in Dublin, Then again it's the small players who can; Trillions of $ doesn't come without hiding bones in the closet.
It could be argued that the taxi driver needs a customer's phone number if there is a problem, so therefore it wouldn't be an issue under the GDPR. The app developers probably only mask numbers as a courtesy, and not necessarily as a legal requirement.
They were chucked off the platform only to return and start from scratch again. I feel they may have been one of the few settlers who pushed Amazon a bit too far with their behaviour.
If Amazon was on the ball they would use all that fancy AWS AI stuff to spot when banned sellers reappear.
If a seller pushes the boundaries a bit too much and Amazon is forced the ban them, they really don't care if they sign up again using a different name.
If the seller has a strategy worked out on how to get good reviews quickly then they can keep repeating this process safe in the knowledge that they're making money and Amazon are making money as well.
For example, I bought a little portable projector last Christmas. In the box was a big bar of Swiss chocolate and leaflet offering me a tripod in return for a five star review. The projector wasn't as good as the description made out. It wasn't terrible, just not as good as they claimed. So I left a three star review. I started getting texts from the seller asking, and then demanding I remove the review - they weren't offering me anything in return. And the texts came from the sellers name which changed slightly every time, so I couldn't easily block them or reply to them. It took two months for them to give up and leave me alone. I've had similar less extreme experiences with other sellers.
I did complain to amazon, who said they would take action. A few weeks later the seller disappeared from amazon, so I assume they received enough complaints to take action.
But..... the seller reappearance with a different name. They had the same product range and descriptions.
Amazon doesn't care and is totally complicit in all this.
The problem as I see it is that so much commerce is concentrated on to a small number of platforms (amazon, ebay, wish etc), which leads to sellers getting desperate to get to the top in searches. I mean, I can understand sellers doing this when their livelihoods depend on it. It's still not right though and amazon should fix it.