With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing lockdown in every other state, people have no option but to rely on e-commerce platforms to buy non-essential as well as essential items. For online shopping, customers must provide some personal information such as name, address and phone number, which is used by the sellers to deliver the product to the doorsteps. But little did Amazon India shoppers know about that their personal phone number could be misused by Amazon sellers.
A Twitter user shared screenshots of WhatsApp messages from an Amazon seller, who appears to be hounding the customer after the product is bought, paid for and delivered. Giving reviews on Amazon is voluntary, but the chats show the seller is constantly messaging the buyer to review the product.
Constant follow-ups on review
In this case, the customer had bought a sizzler plate and an executive of the Amazon seller reached out to the customer on WhatsApp asking for a review.
"Please submit your review and send me screenshot sir," read one message.
"Final Reminder, please review ka screen shot send kre," read another message.
This was followed by a voice note with the same request.
Amazon India responded to the tweet thread asking the user to report the incident to the support team. However, there's no word on if the seller would be reprimanded for such behaviour. The customer expressed concern regarding the user privacy and the fact that the phone number was used by the seller outside of permitted use.
A similar incident was shared by Anshu Mor, a standup comedian, who claimed it happened with every order. Replying to his thread, other users alleged that their data was being sold to scammers as they would get marketing messages too after shopping on the e-commerce platform.
