Amazon definitely don't do anything like this.
Seller-side here. Amazon combine my author page, with that of A.A. Milne. Some of my products show up under the deceased author, some of his under mine. Reviews for one particular product are combined.
My seller ID is separate, my last name is also Milne, but my first is James.
He wrote a book called "The Red House Mystery", I wrote an homage to it because I am related to the man, called "Red House". Different products, with different ISBNs.
Combined reviews. [0]
That's not exactly a fair process for customers - and no, I can't get them uncombined. I've been trying for years. But if the seller can't get rid of something completely misleading, that seems to have been caused by a very badly automated process, then there are processes at Amazon that cause problems.
[0] https://www.amazon.com.au/Red-House-James-Milne-ebook/dp/B0C...
I've only ever left one bad review on Amazon. Chopsticks, they came bound together with some sticky tape. Sticky tape left a very sticky area just where your hands go that I was unable to get off despite a lot of effort scrubbing, washing, and so on. I left a polite constructive review saying they were good chopsticks but watch out for this stickiness issue. My review was declined by Amazon on the grounds it didn't meet their "community guidelines" (without elaborating further on which rule I'd supposedly broken).
Ok, well I've left nine 1-star and many other 2 or more star reviews and none of them have been removed for any reason, so I would say you got unlucky and that I stand by my comment that Amazon don't do anything like automatically redirecting all 1-star reviews to customer service.
You don't have a glue removal spray? :)
I bought one to get sticker residue off my windshield, but it's proven useful many times since.
Mind, considering how well it removes glue, I wouldn't stick anything that was touched by it in my mouth... but may be okay for the hand end of your chopsticks.
Can you recommend your glue removal spray which is food safe? Because the entirety of cutlery needs to remain food safe, not just the pointy end.
Just wash the cutlery afterwards? Dish soap isn't food safe either for that matter.
Orange oil works wonders. It's explicitly not food safe, but you get that stuff on your hand every time you peel an orange and it's also present in juice. Just rinse them afterwards and wear gloves.
My mother swears by "Goo Gone": https://googone.com/
Of course, after you use it, I would recommend to wash the cutlery.
Here are the ingredients:
Product Name: Goo and Adhesive Remover Spray Gel
Product Code: 2096, 2137C
Ingredients CAS No. Function
Petroleum distillates 64742-47-8 Solvent
Aliphatic ether alcohol Withheld Solvent
d-Limonene 5989-27-5 Solvent
Polymer Withheld Thickener
Orange sweet extract 8028-48-6 Solvent
Solvent orange 60 6925-69-5 Colorant
Solvent red 18 6483-64-3 Colorant
Paste made from sodium bicarbonate and vegetable oil is good at getting sticky label residue off glass jars.
I recommend isopropyl alcohol. It’s cheap, versatile and works like a charm for most of your cleaning jobs. Way safer and cheaper than sprays and "super-do-that-thing-4000". No offense to the sprayers.
Not for Austrian road tax stickers. That's specifically what made me get the spray.
The community guidelines rejection is such BS. I've done thousands of Amazon reviews and get about 1% rejection rate, and it's always baffling as to the cause. You develop superstition over time over what is the cause. I avoid certain words (sexual, violence, mention of other brands), blur our barcodes, etc. "Sticky" would trigger my "uh oh, sounds sexual" alarm and I'd word it something like "tape around chopsticks left adhesive residue". Like I said, superstition.
They must have thought it was a bad dad joke.
Amazon is known for suppressing negative reviews, there are many reports about it. Not sure why the grandparent comment is claiming the contrary - not doing the automatic redirect maybe, but they do remove or just not accept negative reviews.
They absolutely do, it's personally happened to me. My review was rejected because I simply listed what items were included in the box, one of them being a card that offered a bribe for a positive review.
Every review I left for Amazon products (Amazon EU) got rejected until it was diluted into nothing. The explanation was always vague, listing a dozen possible reasons, none of which fit what I wrote.
On non-Amazon products it's a coin toss for negative reviews. Many are published, some are not. Can't explain why.
Google is not better, negative reviews I leave on Maps are published very selectively. Maybe big-tech found a way to monetize this too. I know sites like Yelp are more or less an extortion business where you pay to get negative reviews wiped.
Neither does Temu. They're misrepresenting what Temu does, at least in my experience.
If you choose a star rating below five, Temu asks if you'd like to request a refund or seek other assistance. The one time I said yes -- it was a keyboard where a shift key wouldn't trigger consistently at the peculiar angle that my typing style hit it at -- it immediately gave me a 100% refund and said just keep it.
But I've left other low-star rating without trouble. The refund/assistance suggestion is an entirely optional sidetrack.
I've never (to my knowledge) had a review on Amazon rejected, and I've left very some negative reviews, including when I received counterfeit items.
I always thought the review scams on Amazon were more driven by the third-party sellers doing stuff like listing takeover, astroturfing reviews, bribing customers for good reviews, etc., but maybe I'm wrong. I have personally received multiple offers from third-party sellers of incentives to leave good reviews.
I bought a pcie wifi card on amazon.
It came with a "get $20 if you leave a 5 star review" card in it.
I took a picture and included it in my review.
Amazon declined to publish it.
So, they do shady shit like this for sure.