Dear 3FC:

A couple of months ago, in a particularly self-loathing-but-also-unmotivated stage, I ordered a bottle of hoodia pills from a seller on Amazon marketplace. I realized I was taken in within days. When I got the email to leave feedback, of course I said what we know to be true in 100 characters or less: that the plant hadn't been synthesized into the pills, that the whole thing was false advertising.

I just woke up to this email -- yes, on a holiday weekend -- and am posting it more in shock than anything else. I'm not afraid, and I've already replied to the effect of: "My lawyer and I welcome you to bring it on."

Wow.

Wow.

I would take that to a lawyer and at least consult someone and see if they can actually do that. I mean, that's ridiculous for them to threaten someone's opinion. Especially in the form of a review on a product!!! If you can't leave your opinion in a review, then what the **** is the point of the review?!

I second the "Wow."

I've heard stories of negative reviews "disappearing" for random products before, but never threats of legal action - crazy! Just out of curiosity, was the email from Amazon or the marketplace seller? If it was a specific seller, I'd make sure to add a negative review to their storefront as well~

I have a law degree and when I leave negative feedback for anything, I start the comment with, "The following review is 100% my personal opinion."

This is not legal advice to you, since I can't ethically give that on a Forum, but it's what I do.

It would cost a company at least 10K to launch a defamation case against someone, so it is not something that I personally get too worried about. It's easy to write a letter threatening to sue someone. Successfully bringing a civil lawsuit is much more difficult.

In my personal, non-legal opinion, your reply was sufficient.

Can you edit feedback? If so, maybe you could include that the seller threatened legal action for negative feedback.

Unfortunately most amazon buyers don't read the seller feedback before purchasing, and assume Amazon approves the seller so it must be fine to order from them. They don't know there's a problem unless we alert them.

You can call Amazon customer service at 1(800) 201-7575 and ask how to report a seller for threatening you via email.

Oh something else just dawned on me.

Seller feedback is to report how well the seller responded to your order. Was it shipped promptly, arrive in good condition, etc. How well did they respond to any concerns. It's not for commenting on the product itself.

Product feedback is for commenting on the product itself.

I personally get frustrated reading product reviews and finding negative reviews of sellers, because its not the manufacturers fault if a certain retailer doesn't do their job well. Customers can turn an excellent 5 star product into a lower star product and hurt their reputation. Also product feedback on the seller's page doesn't help me determine if I can trust the seller with my order.

So Amazon may take this into consideration if you contact them about the issue. I'm guessing that the seller is not the manufacturer in this case.

You could consider deleting the feedback, and asking the seller for a full refund. Leave the negative product feedback on the Amazon page where it was sold, as product feedback. There will be other sellers for the same product, so potential customers will know that the product itself is faulty no matter who they buy it from. But I personally would still give the seller negative feedback for threatening to sue for negative feedback.

I'm guessing you left feedback for the seller - not the product. I ALWAYS read feedback on an item before I purchese it - I even go to AMazon to read customer reviews before I purchase a product elsewhere. There are THOUSANDS of bad reveiws on Amazon - some for Hoodia products - so I can only assume you left feedback on the seller. I would definately contact AMazon directly to ask how to handle the situation.

Thanks for the answers, everyone!

The product was sold by the manufacturer, so I left feedback as prompted and included my complaint. I consider misrepresentation to be a fault of the seller as well as the object.

But in any case, I reposted my complaint about the product on the product page with that email quoted in it -- if you have an Amazon account and would like to vote my review up so it is read (over all the fake ones commissioned by the company), I would appreciate it.

I also got in touch with Amazon and they said they've forwarded it to an internal investigations team but won't tell me the answer. So who knows what will happen -- I'm not super optimistic.

I vacillated and ended up deleting the feedback as requested in order to spare myself any legal grief, but also to screw the knife in a little bit: it's a big "F you" that, yes, I'll do what they say, but only by making it SO much worse.

Consider it done! What such bull, seriously.

I voted for your review. Just plain sad on the company's part.

Voted it up, too. What freakin' bullies!

I voted for your review too. If the seller does not want honest feedback, they should not be selling on Amazon.

Wow, I have a 19/46 helpful rating already. I can't see how my review is unhelpful, even if people choose to buy the product. Clearly, all those stories about companies buying reviews are true... the wool is certainly gone from my eyes on that issue.

Wow...I mean I figured plenty of the Marketplace sellers would manufacture high reviews, but this is the first time it occurred to me that they would "vote down" helpful, negative reviews. I may have to sort through reviews to find the so-called "least helpful" first from now on. Seems like that might be where the real reviews end up ~