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Spam Businesses

Amazon Marketplace Shoppers Slam the Spam (fortune.com) 120

Spammy follow-up email messages are turning off Amazon Marketplace shoppers. Shoppers who buy from Amazon's Marketplace typically like the convenience and prices. But many are also unhappy about the barrage of emails that sellers send them after the purchase, notes Fortune. It adds: Sellers deluge often inboxes with requests for product reviews, inquiries about how the process went, and sales pitches for more stuff. Considering the comments on social media, feedback from friends and family, and in posts in Amazon.com's customer service forum over the past two years, this problem is not getting any better. There appears to be no way to opt out of this email flood, which is odd, given Amazon's self-professed zeal for great customer service. One shopper in Amazon's customer forum thread posted a response from an Amazon service representative that apologized for the notifications and noted that the feedback had been forwarded to the company's "investigations team."
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Amazon Marketplace Shoppers Slam the Spam

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  • Funny thing is (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Colin Castro ( 2881349 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @03:03PM (#52991059)
    This kind of customer service used to be appreciated. A follow up asking if the product arrived on time and if it was what they wanted and such was a nicety. I have gotten a few and as long as they aren't multiple ones or a random one asking me to buy other things from their amazon shop I don't care.
    • by Anonymous Coward
      If I purchased their product, I've initiated a relationship with this company and I do not mind the follow up e-mail. A single follow up e-mail, that is. What I would have a problem with is getting a barrage of e-mails from companies that sell similar or competing products espousing the virtues of their superior versions. That, I'd have a problem with.
      • Re:Funny thing is (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Obfuscant ( 592200 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @03:16PM (#52991137)

        If I purchased their product, I've initiated a relationship with this company

        No, you haven't. You've initiated a relationship with Amazon. You're on the Amazon website and you pay Amazon. You don't deal with the vendor directly, and there is no business relationship to use as an excuse for unsolicited commercial email.

        What I would have a problem with is getting a barrage of e-mails from companies that sell similar or competing products espousing the virtues of their superior versions.

        What about companies that barrage you with requests for positive feedback and reviews and wanting to know how the product you haven't gotten yet is working out? You have to realize that the "how is it working" part of the email is just an excuse to spam you for good feedback, since they KNOW you can't tell them how well it works before it has even arrived.

        • by Anonymous Coward
          Amazon is simply handling the money portion of the transaction, the seller is the vendor, I'm aware of that when I make the purchase. It is typically shipped directly from the vendor. Often, the vendor is the actual manufacturer.
      • Re:Funny thing is (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @03:59PM (#52991387)

        If I purchased their product, I've initiated a relationship with this company and I do not mind the follow up e-mail.

        It isn't a "followup" since there is no human behind it, and there is generally no way to directly respond to the email. It is just machine generated spam, trying to generate a statistical response. If I receive one message, I delete it. If I receive another from the same vendor, I go to Amazon and give them a one-star review. If you do this too (and I hope you do) then do NOT mention the spam as a reason for the bad review. If you do that, Amazon will remove the review, since reviews must be about the product and not the company selling it. So just make something up instead.

        If enough people do this, the spam will stop.

        An even better solution would be for Amazon to allow the customers to opt out of having their email shared with vendors.

        • Re:Funny thing is (Score:5, Informative)

          by DRJlaw ( 946416 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @06:10PM (#52992039)

          If I receive another from the same vendor, I go to Amazon and give them a one-star review. If you do this too (and I hope you do) then do NOT mention the spam as a reason for the bad review. If you do that, Amazon will remove the review, since reviews must be about the product and not the company selling it. So just make something up instead.

          You blockhead. They do that because, I assume, you are reviewing THE PRODUCT through a PRODUCT REVIEW. Your review will appear under THE PRODUCT listing on Amazon, which is used by both Amazon, that Marketplace vendor, and all the other Marketplace vendors.

          You honestly haven't figured this out yet? Despite the fact that when you search for the product it displays an Amazon purchase link (usually) and things like "24 new from $XXX.XX" and "5 used from $XX.XX"?

          You want to go to your order history, click on the order, and magically there will appear a button labeled "Seller Feedback." Seller feedback is expressly supposed to be about the company selling it, so I'm not going to buy any cover-your-*ss follow-up that claims that you were referring to that button.

          Hint: there's also a "Package feedback" button that you can use to complain about Amazon's packaging for the Amazon warehouse-fulfilled orders, which might actually provide feedback to the people who packaged the order.

          Stop polluting the product reviews with made up issues because you can't be bothered to figure out how to review a vendor properly.

          • What's more, Amazon stops promoting (i.e. hides) sellers with poor feedback ratings/ratios. They can't penalize individual bad sellers when just the product reviews are negative... any company could be selling an item that isn't very good.

        • WTF? Then you're just wrecking the reviews for what may be a perfectly good product that might be available from a different vendor.
    • Re:Funny thing is (Score:5, Informative)

      by Obfuscant ( 592200 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @03:11PM (#52991097)

      This kind of customer service used to be appreciated.

      By whom? By people who are incapable of autonomously complaining when something wasn't what they ordered or didn't work as it was supposed to?

      I've gotten spam asking me if the product was working well TWO DAYS before it was scheduled to be delivered. And then repeated spam about the same product when I don't answer the first one. I've had them offering to give me money to write a positive review or feedback.

      Count me in the "don't buy from spammers" column. And the companies behind the Amazon Marketplace are not who I ordered the product from -- that was Amazon. "Sold by" means nothing when I'm actually on amazon.com buying it.

      I doubt Amazon will do anything about this, just like they don't do anything about the outright scammers and misrepresentations.

    • Re:Funny thing is (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DeMechman ( 750857 ) <demechmanNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Friday September 30, 2016 @03:11PM (#52991103)
      Its certainly appreciated, however when its for a $2 roll of tape that is where its silly.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      Nine emails and multiple text messages so far from one vendor including notification of an account created for me on their site. All of this for a single purchase of some tea bags. I didn't expressly ask for this much follow-up and there's no way for me to turn it off. Even the text messages have a cost, however trivial, which I did not consent to (amazon never sends me texts because I turned off the shipment notifications feature, something this vendor has ignored).
    • I bought a car... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I bought a car from a used car lot. They are known for well kept upper end vehicles. In the last 12 months, I've received 2 emails from them. At 3 months, an email asking how I felt about the car and if there were any issues I'd like them to address, and then another reminding that I was due for service.

      That is follow up that I appreciate.

      My email spam rules send most Amazon communications to the spam folder and I'm an Amazonaholic.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      > A follow up asking if the product arrived on time and if it was what they wanted and such was a nicety

      A followup asking if the product arrived on time is pointless since the seller can quite easily track the package they sent themselves.

      Asking if the product was what was wanted is also pointless since the customer can initiate a return if they decide they don't want it after all.

      All I want is an order confirmation and a link to report problems if necessary. In other words, what Amazon themselves do no

    • by Anonymous Coward

      I posted a bad review for a product, and the vendor actually got my billing phone number from amazon.

      While this was a bit surprising to me, the bigger issue was why this Chinese company was calling my eastern time zone home at 1030pm on a Sunday night, asking me to remove the post.

      Amazon, quit sharing my info

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      This kind of customer service used to be appreciated. A follow up asking if the product arrived on time and if it was what they wanted and such was a nicety. I have gotten a few and as long as they aren't multiple ones or a random one asking me to buy other things from their amazon shop I don't care.

      No it didn't. It never has... In fact some time ago this behaviour used to be called harassment instead of marketing. We aren't talking about a post sales call about your new car offering a free oil change here, we're talking about Amazon handing over your email address so you can be spammed over over a $2 trinket bothering you to rate it and buy more shit from the same people. Seriously, I bought a $5 12v car adaptor and they sent me 7 fucking emails after the fact.

      • Do you know what that kind of seller follow up reminds me of? Homer Simpson's everything is OK alarm [youtube.com]. Instead of the normal and rational method of having the customer contact the seller in the event that there is a problem (normal alarm that sounds when something is wrong), the seller continuously harasses the customer to check if everything is OK (everything is OK alarm).

  • by Anonymous Coward

    all emails come from the same address so I just have a "Fuck Amazon" filter in Inbox for anything coming from marketplace.amazon.com

  • email is easy to ignore or filter. phone call follow-ups would be over the top imo.
  • by DiSKiLLeR ( 17651 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @03:16PM (#52991135) Homepage Journal

    If enough people do it, they'll start to get put onto gmail's spam lists....

    • If enough people do it, they'll start to get put onto gmail's spam lists....

      Being a long ago Minecraft user thought I'd give it another go, tried to download it last night and the hosts file blocked it.

      So many entries used s3.amazonaws.com I had to be more specific (like searching alphabetically through the S's) , rebooted and Linux Mint blocked the download :)

      Amazon is a tad intrusive.

      But a hosts file doesn't help with Email.

      • rebooted and Linux Mint blocked the download :)

        It wasn't the Linux way of doing things, minecraft-installer was; not that Linux Mint blocked a site, just improper usage.

  • akin to.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @03:23PM (#52991167)

    It must be a uniquely American thing to equate massive levels of attention with good service. As a Brit now living in the US, all the unwanted interruptions you get when you're just trying to enjoy a slow, peaceful restaurant meal really took some getting used to.

    I swear servers actually wait for you to fill your mouth before they comes over and ask "Is everything OK" every 30 seconds.... and whats with the rush to clear plates from the table? especially even before everyone at the table has finished eating? That's considered the height of bad manners in pretty much every other country I've ever lived in or visited.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The sooner they get you out of the table and paid, the sooner they can get another set of paying customers at that same table. From what I gather, the waiter's pay is mainly on the throughput of the table times the tip, so they have an incentive to get you moving as quickly as possible. Its good for them, but bad for the restaurant. Perverse incentives are everywhere.

      • Table turnover is good for restaurants, too. A typical restaurant wants to turn over every table at least three times during the dinner hours. That's tough to do if each table takes two hours or more, so they want to rush you through your meal. Frankly, the only ones negatively affected by high table turnover rates are the customers.

      • The sooner they get you out of the table and paid, the sooner they can get another set of paying customers at that same table.

        Not even remotely the issue here. Most restaurants are at this capacity maybe one night per week if they are lucky, and the nicer and higher budget and typically fuller the restaurant the less you get this insane high-speed service.

        The tip thing is real, but the throughput is not. They put the effort into you because they want the best possible tip and they assume you are there for fast service (cultural thing)

    • by Anonymous Coward

      It's bad manners in the US as well, but a lot of chain restaurants will do this to prompt you to leave so they can sell another meal at that table. They really don't care if you're happy, you already ordered the food. They just care that you pay and the next pperson gets a chance to pay as quickly as possible. The tip system in the US pushes this as well, with wages laughably low making it necessary to make an income based on bulk numbers of customers.

    • It must be a uniquely American thing to equate massive levels of attention with good service. As a Brit now living in the US, all the unwanted interruptions you get when you're just trying to enjoy a slow, peaceful restaurant meal really took some getting used to.

      I'm American, and have only lived in America, and I really hate this practice too. Drives me nuts.

      A couple years ago, I lived in northern New Jersey where there's a bunch of Italian restaurants. At one, that looked family-owned, it was totally ov

      • How's that tasting for ya?

        Dear God do I hate that phrase. It makes me suspicious that there's some reason it shouldn't taste good. "How is everything" is such a better way to pose the question.

        • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

          Is it considered polite/acceptable in the USA for the waiter to pass plates over, or reach across the table/other people's food? It isn't in the EU.
          There, waiters are taught to ALWAYS serve from the diners left side, and that the best kind of service is so discreet that the diner didn't even notice it happened. Truly good waiters take pride in turning that into an art form.

          • Is it considered polite/acceptable in the USA for the waiter to pass plates over, or reach across the table/other people's food? It isn't in the EU.

            What's this "polite" thing you speak of? Here in the US, we barely have any manners at all, and we sure as hell have no idea what proper sit-down restaurant service is supposed to look like.

            There, waiters are taught to ALWAYS serve from the diners left side, and that the best kind of service is so discreet that the diner didn't even notice it happened.

            Waiters

            • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

              >> I guess they don't have any booths in Europe?

              Obviously I'm generalising and this is all my experience, but they're really pretty uncommon especially in nicer restaurants. You see them a lot more in pubs and (mostly American/American-influenced) fast food chains though.

              Exceptions are obviously made when serving from the left is not practical, but in most restaurants and when it is practical, it's usually done.

        • How's that tasting for ya?

          Dear God do I hate that phrase. It makes me suspicious that there's some reason it shouldn't taste good. "How is everything" is such a better way to pose the question.

          Sorry, I misspelled that phrase; it should read:
          "How's that tastin' for ya?"

          I think it might be a regional thing. I heard it all the time when I lived in Arizona, for instance, but not in the northeast.

          "How is everything" is a more cultured way to speak. So in southern latitudes you won't hear that.

          • by imidan ( 559239 )

            Even worse, in my experience, is when I am eating my meal, but apparently too slowly for the waiter, who comes to the table to ask "Are you still working on that?" Which seems to imply simultaneously that there is something deficient in the way that I've been eating and that consuming this particular meal is a chore that would best have been avoided.

            Also, what's the deal with appetizers that come out at exactly the same time as the rest of the meal? Why are these things called appetizers and not side dish

            • I haven't noticed the problem with appetizers, but I don't order those anyway, but for those few times I'm with someone who does, they always come out well before the meal. Maybe that's a problem with certain restaurants, or just lousy timing from the kitchen that night.

              For the obnoxious waiter, the only thing I can suggest there is give him a 10% tip and write a note on the check about the lousy, rushed service. That's the one really good thing, in theory, about the US custom of tipping: lousy service ca

    • Re:akin to.... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot&worf,net> on Friday September 30, 2016 @05:07PM (#52991735)

      It must be a uniquely American thing to equate massive levels of attention with good service. As a Brit now living in the US, all the unwanted interruptions you get when you're just trying to enjoy a slow, peaceful restaurant meal really took some getting used to.

      I swear servers actually wait for you to fill your mouth before they comes over and ask "Is everything OK" every 30 seconds.... and whats with the rush to clear plates from the table? especially even before everyone at the table has finished eating? That's considered the height of bad manners in pretty much every other country I've ever lived in or visited.

      Well, it's American to not spend hours on a meal, actually. I know, I traveled to Italy and had many great meals, and spent a couple of hours or more at the restaurant. That was fine, I was on holidays and was enjoying the leisurely experience.

      Back home, well, things are a bit more rushed, so having efficiency really helps. I don't want to have to look for a waiter to call over so I can have my glass refilled. Just like I don't want to have to wait 10 minutes to get a waiter to get me my bill. (Yes, I like it when they automatically come and refill my glass, as well as print me out my bill and leave it at the table. Of course, if they hover around waiting for me to pay it, that's another thing, but if they drop it off and let me deal with it when I'm able, I'm happier.

      Having to get the attention of a waiter can be the most annoying thing ever.

      • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

        Sure its faster when you finally get to the table but that time saving is lost waiting for the table. Thats another wierd US thing, the belief by businesses that its OK to keep people on hold on the phone forever (due to unusuaslly high call volume) or waiting in the entryway for 30 minutes before you even get answered/seated. I bet you never had to wait 30 minutes to get a table in Italy.

        • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

          ...that said I'm quite happy to believe that in Italy, it took you half an hour to walk from the only free parking spot to the restaurant.

        • <quote><p>Sure its faster when you finally get to the table but that time saving is lost waiting for the table. Thats another wierd US thing, the belief by businesses that its OK to keep people on hold on the phone forever (due to unusuaslly high call volume) or waiting in the entryway for 30 minutes before you even get answered/seated. I bet you never had to wait 30 minutes to get a table in Italy.</p></quote>

          Yes, this is one of the bigger differences I noticed when visiting or livi
          • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

            >> I realize it's just a cultural thing, but it's quite obvious if you're used to something else.

            It goes a little deeper, because its actually a side-effect of the belief by large US companies that they don't need to provide good customer care because you as a customer have no alternative. Given every store in the US is a chain, and all US companies do the same things, it's actually not far wrong. In Europe most restaurants are actually not chains so there's more competition.

      • by Alumoi ( 1321661 )

        I don't want to have to look for a waiter to call over so I can have my glass refilled

        Why the fuck is so hard to pick up the bottle and pour yourself a drink? I hate it when the slave comes to top up my glass, whether I want it or not.
        But you're spot on with the bill.

      • This is one of the things I've never understood about restaurants in the U.S. and Europe. In Korea (and I suspect a lot of other Asian countries), each table in the restaurant has a button. When you want a waiter, you push the button. It adds your table number to a list of tables requesting service, and the waiter(s) simply goes to each one in the order their button was pressed. No wasted trips by the waiter just to ask if you need anything when you don't, no wasted time waiting for a waiter to randomly
    • It must be a uniquely American thing to equate massive levels of attention with good service.

      No, but it's the only way to differentiate full service restaurants from their cheaper and more convenient fast-food counterparts. I've seen many restaurants which go out of their way to keep all condiments behind the counter, rather than leaving them at the table, and don't bring them out with meals that would likely require them, either. Then your server has to make a special trip just for your request, and mayb

  • Give one email address to computers, and reserve another one just for known humans. 35k unread from assorted semi-autonomous systems? Who cares. If you actually need something in there you've got search and filters. That way human correspondence doesn't get lost in the noise.

    • Or, better yet, use subaddressing [wikipedia.org], also known as plus addressing. I use a different subaddress for every merchant site I buy from and keep track of it all in keepass (along with unique random passwords for each). When I start getting spam to that address, I change my address on the site and move on. Some places, like AliExpress, don't allow plus signs in email addresses, so I configured my mail server to also use the underscore as a sub address delimiter. It's a good thing, since AliExpress is particular

      • Or, better yet, use subaddressing, also known as plus addressing.

        They're on to your trick. I know, because I do that all the time, or try to. One or more of the common javascript packages used in web commerce simply does not accept any non alphanumeric character in the local part of an email address. You cannot enter a "+" and have it accepted.

        Then when you call customer service to report the problem, you wind up talking to someone with no internet messaging knowledge at all, who tells you that a '+' is invalid in email addresses because their website doesn't accept it

    • Give one email address to computers, and reserve another one just for known humans. 35k unread from assorted semi-autonomous systems? Who cares. If you actually need something in there you've got search and filters. That way human correspondence doesn't get lost in the noise.

      I used Spamhaus for that, but it's being filtered by almost everybody now.

      https://www.spamhaus.org/ [spamhaus.org] it's grown, haven't seen this new page; it was simpler than the page suggest: NameToUse.HowManyEmailsAllowed.SpamhausAccount.

  • I dont want all the canned please rate use etc emails. I do want to get hey it came broken can you send the part or do I have to replace the whole thing etc. Those all come from the same domain.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I had one particularly bad case where they kept sending the messages under the guise of "hey, if you liked our product, give us review" with, of course, lots of "buy more of our stuff" content.

    So I gave them a review that said it was a pretty good product, but it was from a spam happy vendor. Surprisingly, they paid attention and stopped it.

  • My thoughts have been that these marketplace sellers think they are on EBay and need to get a positive on each and every sale. Maybe they do... on EBay. But on Amazon there is plenty of opportunity to leave feed back in the reviews and buyers like me look to those reviews primarily and consult the star rating later. Not everything is EBay, thank god, and these guys need to learn the difference.
    • My thoughts have been that these marketplace sellers think they are on EBay and need to get a positive on each and every sale

      Forget the marketplace sellers. Even friggin Amazon itself thinks they're eBay. Worse, they want to be eBay!

  • While I can certainly see the point of view that it can be annoying, I'd rather get the emails than not. Every time I've had an issue with a defective item, being able to respond to the seller's email and either get a refund or a replacement has been quick and easy. They seem almost desperate for you to give them a good review. Going through Amazon itself when a problem arises is a little more tedious. I do think you should be able to opt out if you wish though.
  • This is absolutely what I've been experiencing. About 75% of my Marketplace transactions get a "follow up" email. Usually my failure to respond results in a second email before they give up. If I do leave feedback, and it is anything less than 4/5 or 5/5 for the PRODUCT, I'll get calls on my cell phone (credit card number of record) about 10% of the time. I average around 75-100 small Amazon purchases of a few dollars each during the year (I really hate going out to stores), and so I get at least one or two
  • Isnt this technically a violation of the (you) CAN-SPAM (whenever you want) Act?

    • <quote><p>Isnt this technically a violation of the (you) CAN-SPAM (whenever you want) Act?</p></quote>

      I think not. If you have a business relationship with someone (you purchased something and an eMail address was provided somehow), they can eMail you.
  • they know that they can send you info about your purchases via emailso they also spam you a little, they know they are getting past spam filters, (both software and in the mind/eyes of the users) they are not malicious or evil intent or anything, they just want to sell more stuff, i just delete them, they are using my money to mail me things i like to buy so i dont want them to be annoyed with me,
  • I usually get a single email from Amazon marketplace vendors asking if I am happy with the product and giving a contact if there is a problem.
    On several occasions, I have used this contact to ask questions or report problems and I have found the vendors to be very responsive. I've even had defective products replaced with no hassle on several occasions.
    Most of the time, I don't have a problem or question and I just delete the email. I don't view it as intrusive.
    These days, it seems every contact with any bu

  • There appears to be no way to opt out of this email flood, which is odd, given Amazon's self-professed zeal for great customer service.

    Well, when you buy from a Marketplace seller you're not buying from Amazon, so...

  • I am evaluating a well known security scanning package. Found a bug that would be a showstopper for us and have their engineer escalating to the tech team.

    In the meantime, am getting buried in spam from marketing. The last email I sent them was along the lines of "the only thing I want to hear from you is that you've fixed the bug". It is really pissing me off.
  • by jxander ( 2605655 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @04:31PM (#52991557)

    Overstock is so much worse. It's insane

    I bought one or two things over there a couple months ago, and received a barrage of emails daily. An absolute unmitigated shitstorm of spam. And they came from several different addresses (domains?), and were assigned to several different mailing lists, so marking one as spam and/or unsubscribing wouldn't stop the deluge.

    I think it's mostly under control now, but what a mess that was...

  • Amazon Marketplace Shoppers Slam the Spam

    Hey, this is a family website! Take your smut elsewhere, pervert. I don't care what you do in the privacy of your own basement, but I don't wanna hear about it.

  • I get these all the time and I give them bad reviews every time.

    Imagine going to the grocery store and buying a weeks worth of groceries and after a couple days vendors and mfg's whom you never had any contact with for the groceries you just bought start sending you email to see how the product was, if it worked and to give the (always) a 5 star rating.

    I get enough email as it is, I don't need to be spammed by the companies of the products I buy.

    If a product stands out, I normally leave a product review, if

  • I completely left the amazon eco-system over this. Loss of convience sucks.. but no more spam for every thing i purchase...

    • I don't know why others here don't do the same thing. Amazon has lost me over their poorly implemented and run "Marketplace" mess. Newegg is coming very close (I still shop there, but much less than I used to). When I want to deal with sketchy sellers shipping from who-knows-where, I'll go to eBay where at least things seem to be somewhat under control.

  • I have many email accounts. Some only for family, some for friends, some for business... and some for spam or folks I'm pretty sure will spam.
    I have one account with aliases that are good for 24 hours, 72 hours, 1 week, then are never used again.
    It's a pain in the neck, but once you've set up mail servers all day long, you get to the point where puppet or salt can set up your server, configure it, and cron maintains the throwaway accounts.

    The biggest issue is family or friends that get hacked, or servers th

  • I have a host of eMail addresses and aliases ... roughly 10 are in common use. I don't get a lot of spam, because I have never given out or published my eMail addresses willy-nilly ... there were times, ten years ago, when a dozen messages a year were the norm for me, today it's about five messages a week. One eMail address is used exclusively for purchases via PayPal and my two Amazon accounts (I have a US and Canadian account with them) and since I am an electronics hobbyist, there are a fair number of sm
  • by Salgak1 ( 20136 ) <salgak.speakeasy@net> on Friday September 30, 2016 @05:13PM (#52991749) Homepage

    . . . . I had a Marketplace Seller who sent me a request for Feedback for 8 consecutive days.

    I gave them feedback: One Star, titled "Adequate Item, but seller spams for feedback"

    Amazon sent me a nastygram saying my review wasn't "helpful". . .

    Have not left a review for a Marketplace item since, , ,

    • The problem is that Amazon has separate feedback mechanisms for the product and the seller. And in the case of the former, they commingle all the product reviews together regardless of the seller. No matter if you buy a roll of tape from Amazon, Bob's Warehouse (fulfilled by Amazon), or Alice's Emporium (self fulfilled), the product review will be listed for all. So Amazon isn't wrong about negative seller feedback in a product review being unhelpful. The problem is that seller feedback isn't very obvious t

  • I get one email asking how packaging or service was. And I ignore it. I don't get repeat emails. What are these people buying?

    FTFA: “I buy literally everything on Amazon, from hangers to batteries,” noted one disgruntled shopper.

    Oh. So "Shoppers" don't "slam the spam". Some extreme Amazon shoppers slam the spam. Gotcha.
  • I live in the same state as Amazon so shop Newegg.com due to the taxes, all of my purchases are through them. I've gotten nothing related to my purchases, and use no filters (other than what Hotmail.com and Gmail.com might provide).

  • Hello, I understand your concern related to the changes you wanted us to make. I have made all the necessary changes to your account. I assure you that you won't face the problem again. I've issued a $5.00 promotional certificate to your Amazon.com account, which will automatically apply the next time you order an eligible item sold and shipped by Amazon.com. The promotional certificate doesn't apply to items offered by other sellers on the Amazon.com website and won't cover the purchase of gift cards,
  • by Cheviot ( 248921 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @07:17PM (#52992321)

    I get a lot of these. I buy used books on Amazon, all at least graded "good" or better. In Amazon's description, Good means the book includes a dust cover. About a quarter of the books I order arrive with no dust cover and they get a one-star review and an explanation why.

    Then the e-mails start. The seller wants to give me a discount to make things right. I explain that I've already wasted as much time on the order as I'm going to and it's well worth whatever discount that they might give me to let people know that they messed up.
    Next up is the full refund offer email. I reply, asking if they even read my email. I explain that they're wasting even more of my time and I'm even less inclined to remove my review now as I was before.
    Occasionally at this point I get the begging email. What can we do to make this right? Let us know and we'll do it. I reply that if I hear from them again, I'll order from them again and give that item a one-star review too.

    That shuts them up.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    It's gotten horrible out there. Amazon at least provides a way to report fraud. Craigslist..... 80% of all apartment ads are "www.roomsters.com", a subscription service that posts fraudulent, low cost apartments to lure subscribeers to their site. Then they pull an "Ashley Madison", with repeated fake invitations if you fail to show further traffic, and offer bargain basement subscriptions "$10 for one month!!!" that they actually charge $30 for, leave it running, and refuse to cancel the service. The other

  • This is probably obvious to most of you, but would be a night and day difference for the rest. Just keep two email accounts; one for humans, another for "robots" - and never mix the two. I have done this for at least 9 years. I get about one spam email per month on the ~decade-old human account, with no spam filter! The account that I give to the online stores, etc., is spammed up pretty good, but I don't bother checking it at all unless a purchase is significantly behind delivery. (Disclaimer: I use a
  • The fix:

    Every email comes from XXXXXXX@marketplace.amazon.com where XXXXXXX is an anonymized address. No order info comes from an @marketplace.amazon.com address, so this is solely used for anonymized, recorded (by Amazon,) buyer/seller communications. Set a filter to drop all @marketplace.amazon.com mails to "spam" or to "begging" or whatever, and live a carefree life.

    The details, as I understand them (and I am not affiliated with Amazon, plus this may have changed, but this was the experience I had w

  • The simple solution is this: anytime you get these unsolicited emails with no way to globally opt-out from Amazon, just go give the product a 1 star review and say: "I will continue to issue 1 star reviews until Amazon allows me to opt-out".

    I've been doing this for a while, sometimes Amazon will come and delete your review and say it's not allowed because it's not about the transaction. That's totally fine. The goal is to make this so burdensome for Amazon that eventually they will allow us to opt-out

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