Leaving reviews for an item you purchased is an integral part of the Amazon experience. Reviews let other potential buyers know exactly what they’re paying for, and allow sellers to see what customers are saying about their product. The ratings on a review also help Amazon customize search results to make sure the best products are shown the most often.
However, if you abuse your reviewing privileges, Amazon can take them away. Sometimes this happens even without breaking Amazon’s terms of service. So how do you get reviewing privileges back on Amazon?
How To Get Review Privileges Back On Amazon
In order to get you review privileged back on Amazon you will have to file an appeal. An Amazon associate will review your account and decide whether or not to revoke the ban. You can start this appeal process by calling Amazon, or using their email or chat service.
The reviewing process is important, so Amazon has a vested interest in making sure product reviews are legit. There are tons of sellers out there who try to underhandedly manipulate reviews for their products to get them to sell better.
They try things like paying for good reviews, and they even sometimes hack the accounts of legitimate buyers in order to leave fake reviews from a real account.
If your account gets on Amazon’s bad side by breaking their terms of service, you can get flagged and your reviews taken down.
Although this is meant to protect buyers from illegitimate reviews, sometimes a legitimate account can get flagged by mistake, and your ability to leave reviews will be disabled.
This can be stressful for legitimate users who follow the rules, since they have little recourse other than dealing with Amazon’s customer service.
If you want to learn more about Amazon and their review process, why and how some people get banned and how to revoke it, read on….
Why Am I Blocked From Reviewing On Amazon?
To understand how to get your review privileges back on Amazon, we first have to understand What kind of activity will violate Amazon’s review policy:
- A Seller posting a review of their own (or a competitor’s) product
- A Seller offering a reward, discount, or other compensation in exchange for a review, even if these offerings are made through a third party
- A Seller’s Family members or employees posting reviews of the seller’s product
- A seller asking a buyer to remove or change their review
Doing anything listed above is a surefire way of getting your reviewing privileges revoked, and in extreme cases can even cause account suspension. A more detailed list of rules and expectations can be found in Amazon’s list of community guidelines.
However, there are a number of reports online of people’s customer accounts getting flagged and having their reviewing privileges taken away even when they haven’t broken any of these guidelines. If this happens, it’s usually necessary to file an appeal through Amazon’s customer service.
Will Amazon Let Me Review Again?
Legitimate accounts being banned for illicit activity happens because of Amazon’s automated review system.
Certain types of activity can trigger a ban even when no rules have actually been broken.
These kinds of things can vary, but there are a few reasons this could happen:
- A customer account leaves a large number of reviews in a short span of time.
- A customer review contains specific keywords that make the review look suspicious.
- A customer’s legitimate account was hacked in order to leave a fake review.
If your account gets banned from leaving reviews, or suspended altogether, it’s important to read the notification for your ban, and understand exactly why it happened.
Once you know exactly why your account was banned, you can take a few steps to help make sure you get your reviewing privileges back on Amazon.
What To Do Before Filing Your Appeal
Once you’ve read the notification of the action against your account, take some steps to ensure that whatever happened wasn’t your fault.
Contact any buyers or sellers that may have reported the activity on your account, and take steps to alleviate their grievances against you, if any. Keep screenshots of this activity and provide it when filing your appeal.
If your account activity shows that you aren’t up to anything unscrupulous, then you should have no problems getting your review privileges re-instated. Typically, Amazon’s automated review process is to blame for these little slip-ups.
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How Does Amazon Identify Fake Reviews?
The short answer is: they don’t. Amazon’s automated review process is programmed to react to certain suspicious activity, but it isn’t a sure fire way to identify whether or not a review actually broke the community guidelines.
That being said, there are usually a number of things that stand out about professionally written reviews compared to real reviews from customers:
- Detailed technical product descriptions
- 100% perfect grammar, spelling, and punctuation
- Descriptions that suggest the reviewer does not actually own the product
- An overly literary writing style compared to an organic speaking tone
If a review shows any of this type of writing, it can get flagged as being a paid review, even if the post was written organically from a legitimate customer.
Are Amazon Removed Reviews Ever Reinstated?
Regardless of why it happens, it can be frustrating to have your review privileges revoked when you didn’t do anything. Luckily, there is an appeals process for reviews that have been removed or blocked. You can contact Amazon’s customer service to get them to look into the issue:
- Go to Amazon’s Customer Service page
- When prompted to select what you need help with, click on “something else”
- Scroll down to the “tell us more” section
- Select “Memberships, subscriptions, or communications” from the drop-down box.
- Select “Other memberships and subscriptions” from the second drop-down box
- Select “phone” to connect with a representative over the phone, or “chat” to connect with a representative through the online chat client.
Once you’re connected with a representative, let them know what the problem is and they will typically be happy to look into it for you. There’s no guarantee that your reviewing privileges will be reinstated, but usually if your account is legit and has no suspicious activity, you will have no problems.
If your appeal fails to get your reviewing privileges re-instated, then you will have to open a new account in order to leave reviews again.
If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to let us know in the comment section!
Want to learn more about Amazon? Read these related posts to learn what does renewed mean on Amazon and does Amazon check returns
Conclusion
In order to get your review privileges back on Amazon, you have to file an appeal and a team member will check to see if you your account has been flagged by mistake.
If they have flagged your account by mistake, Amazon will likely give you your review privileges back within a couple of days.