What to Do if You're Accused of Manipulating Amazon Reviews

Did you wake up to a Seller Central performance notification or an email accusing you of manipulating Amazon product reviews? Worse yet, was your ASIN or your whole selling account suspended as a result?

These notifications can be a seller's worst nightmare, especially if you have no idea why you're receiving them. So, what can you do about a product review performance notification? How can you get rid of it and get back to selling?

Understand What Went Wrong

First things first: read the notification carefully. It's easy to panic and jump straight to appealing the notification, but your appeal won't be effective if it doesn't address the exact violation Amazon detected. Notifications may include phrases like the following:

• "We understand that you may have offered compensation for Customer Reviews."
• "We believe you may have included materials inside or on your product packaging requesting a favorable product review or rating from customers."
• "We have detected suspicious customer review activity on one or more of the products that you sell in our store."

Next, it's a good idea to review all of Amazon's Customer Reviews policies to understand what you or your team may have done to trigger the warning.

Amazon says that violations of Customer Reviews policies include, but are not limited to, these actions:

• A seller posts a review of their own product or their competitor's product.
• A seller offers a third party a financial reward, discount, free products, or other compensation in exchange for a review on their product or their competitor’s product.
• A seller offers to provide a refund or reimbursement after the buyer writes a review.
• A seller uses a third-party service that offers free or discounted products tied to a review.
• A family member or employee of the seller posts a review of the seller's product or a competitor's product.
• A seller asks a reviewer to change or remove their review. They might also offer a refund or other compensation to a reviewer in exchange for doing so.
• A seller diverts negative reviews to be sent to them or a different feedback mechanism while positive reviews are sent to Amazon.
• A seller creates a variation relationship between products to manipulate reviews and boost a product’s star rating via review aggregation.
• A seller inserts a request for a positive Amazon review or an incentive in exchange for a review into product packaging or shipping box.
• A seller uses a customer account to write or change a review on their competitor’s product.

After reading the notification carefully and reviewing the policies, consider whether you did what Amazon says you did. Many sellers who receive these notifications are not aware of having violated the policies, but something they did unintentionally triggered the notification.

Consider everything, from a family member leaving a review of a competitor's item, to a product insert being phrased in a way that could manipulate reviews. Address the violations or perceived violations with any employees, family members, or friends who were involved.

Address the Notification

Now it's time to respond to the review performance notification:

Log into Seller Central, click on the menu in the top left, and go to Performance > Account Health. Look at Next Steps on the far right. You should see the option to appeal the notification.

When appealing the notification, you'll be asked for a Plan of Action. A Plan of Action (PoA) is essentially a statement that you understand the problem and an explanation of how you will resolve it so that Amazon will give you another chance instead of shutting down your account.

Your PoA will need to be specific to your performance notification and situation. However, according to an employee at Amazon, the key components of a PoA include:

1. Show that you understand the root cause of the issue. Admit fault: no blaming Amazon or your customers, no excuses, no denying the allegation. If your messages to buyers could have nudged them to leave positive reviews only (even if that wasn't your intention), say that you requested reviews in a manipulative way. If your mom left a glowing review of your product to boost your sales, even if you didn't ask her to, admit that a family member posted a review of your product.
2. State how you will correct this particular situation right now, particularly if it impacts customers. For example, if your employee left a review of a competitor's product, you could state that you are instructing them to delete it immediately. If your package insert seemed to be manipulating reviews, initiate a removal order to recall the affected inventory from Amazon FBA and mention that in your PoA.
3. Explain exactly how the root cause of this violation will be avoided going forward. This could include training all employees on the customer review policies, updating the wording of your messages to keep review requests completely neutral, or asking friends and family not to leave reviews of any products in your category anymore.

These are just a few examples. What you should say, the actions you need to take, and any additional proof or documentation you need to provide, will be unique to your situation.

Take your time researching the issue and preparing your PoA. It's better to take a little bit of time to submit one good plan of action than to submit several poor ones that get rejected.

You may also want to contact a consultant who specializes in account and ASIN suspension for help creating your PoA.

Follow Through

If your PoA gets accepted, sigh with relief! Then, do the things you said you would do. Whatever led to your violation, whatever you say you're going to change going forward...change it!

Remember, there are safe, Amazon-compliant ways to improve your reviews. Ask for them neutrally, preferably with the Request a Review button or a tool that automates it, so that you know the message being sent is completely compliant with Amazon's policies. If you are enrolled in Brand Registry, contact buyers who left negative reviews and offer them a refund or replacement, using Amazon's pre-built, compliant templates. Most of all, optimize your listing so that buyers know exactly what to expect from your product, and then give them a product that meets or exceeds those expectations.