Beware of Amazon Buyer Extortion via Social Media

An Amazon seller shared a cautionary tale about a buyer who used social media to extort them, and it demonstrates a potential downside of using outside channels to promote marketplace accounts.

The seller explained that someone who purchased one of their items on Amazon sent them a threat via Instagram stating that if the seller didn't refund them twice the cost of the product they had purchased, they would leave a bad review on Amazon.

The buyer didn't communicate with the seller through Amazon's buyer/seller messaging because they knew Amazon would be able to see their threats, the seller explained.

When the seller told the buyer to initiate a return through Amazon for a refund, the buyer responded with the message, "enjoy your bad review then," and followed through on the threat by leaving a bad product review - made more devastating for the seller since it showed as coming from a verified Amazon purchaser.  

Amazon is well aware of returns fraud, as this article from December shows, but cases where buyers extort sellers through social media are likely not showing up on its radar screen.

Social media is a double edged sword - it can help boost visibility and potentially boost sales, but it can also make sellers and brands vulnerable to extortion by bad buyers. Let us know how you think Amazon and other marketplaces should handle cases where extortion happens off of their platforms - and if there's anything sellers can do about it.