I bought a suitcase from Amazon, partly because of its good reviews.

The suitcase

The suitcase is alright. It’s not the best I’ve ever seen, but the price was decent and it seems like it should last a while. A couple of weeks later, I got a postcard from the seller offering a bribe. If I sent them proof that I posted a 5-star review, they’d pay me $15.

Front of the suitcase postcard Back of the suitcase postcard

I followed Amazon’s instructions to report the bribe. No response. I left a review of the suitcase stating that the seller had offered to pay me for a good review. That action did earn a response from Amazon: they deleted it.

Amazon's response to my review

If I can’t talk about it on Amazon, I’ll talk about it here. Amazon doesn’t seem to care if sellers are paying for good reviews. They don’t want you talking about it, though. The takeaway is that Amazon’s reviews aren’t trustworthy. If that seller tried to bribe me, they surely paid other customers for their good ratings.

You can do better, Amazon. Your product ratings are a big part of why people buy things from you. If we know they’re literally paid ads, we’d be better off taking our business elsewhere.

Updated 2023-12-26

Same with a travel steamer:

Front of the steamer postcard Back of the steamer postcard

An acquaintance suggested writing the review, cashing in the reward, then updating the review with my genuine thoughts. That’s tempting. I don’t blame anyone who does that. I don’t want a sketchy vendor to be able to say that they’ve paid me for reviews, though.