Frustrated Amazon sellers create vigilante database of bad customers

I was surprised to stumble upon the site screenshotted above, linked from the Amazon Seller Central seller’s forum. It’s a database of “problematic buyers,” intended to warn other sellers on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Craigslist.

This vigilante database is problematic on so many levels. Customers are being doxxed … names, emails, and sometimes even home mailing addresses are included in the public database, which is a major violation of Amazon Seller ToS and perhaps even local privacy laws in some jurisdictions. There is no investigation, just a justification from random third-party sellers who claim they have been wronged by Amazon customers in some way, such as returns or other problems with the order.

While what these sellers are doing is wrong, it also points to problems with Amazon’s own system for adjudicating disputes between sellers and customers. Considering Amazon’s mission statement declares “customer obsession” as a company-wide belief, you can guess who usually wins regardless of who is at fault. Some frustrated sellers apparently decided to take matters into their own hands, which led to the creation of this public database.

The site has been active for at least 5 years. It’s hard to believe no one from Amazon’s legal team hasn’t shut it down or tried to identify the sellers doxxing their customers.