I applaud anyone who leaves a non 5 star review, gets contacted by the company with bribes to make it 5 stars, and updates their review to report the company doing that.
I've left negative reviews and they tend to get removed.
I was once even warned by Amazon that my account could be deactivated for violation of the ToS after posting a review that pointed out all of the other fake reviews on a particular product. Apparently the ToS allow fake reviews and disallow shining a light on it.
I left a non 5 star review of an inexpensive Pixel 4 case. The case was too close around the flash resulting in the flash reflecting off the case resulting in absolutely awful pictures.
I was offered a refund and replacement of a newer version of the case in return for a better review.
The phone case was simply not fit for purpose as it was and the review fairly (I hope) highlighted this.
I accepted the replacement newer version and agreed to a more flattering review once the improved case was seen to indeed be improved. If the flaw had been fixed then it would be fair to reflect this in my review.
The improved case was no different and my review remained unchanged, except for an update reflecting the bribe.
They don't need to bribe anymore. Negative reviews get removed pretty easily. It's happened to me.
It's the new normal. Airbnb is even worse, they used to (and still might) actually have customer service edit reviews. Your review will get removed with no notice, Amazon will let you know.
If you remove some or most negative reviews but leave positive ones, what do you get.
I have noticed this for negative review on products from big and well known companies. About technical flaws. Like a gaming computer mouse where pressing left and right click together wouldn't work. Until you update the firmware of the mouse (yep... yep you wouldn't think a mouse should be buggy nor firmware updateable).
Apparently Airbnb will delete any review that criticizes a property for something the property owner can't fix. Loud traintracks with trains blasting by at 3am every morning? That's not the property owner's fault, so that's a bad review.
As if reviews exist only to give constructive feedback to property owners, rather than to warn other renters away from a bad experience!
I'm sure people do it, the bribes are probably not very good. Sadly the company can probably get Amazon to take down the review in that case.
Reviews for sellers themselves are a joke too, I was looking at some earlier today, via black friday deals. The number of reviews with a line through them and "Amazon takes responsibility for this fulfillment-related experience" was hilarious, when those reviews were things like "the motor doesn't work". I guess those then aren't included in the "90% positive" statistic.
The seller could argue that it was damaged in transit. The whole thing would probably be luck of the draw in how their first level support in India chooses to apply guidelines.
