As you probably heard by now, Amazon's big-time product review sweep just hit.
By Chris McCabe · September 2, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
As you probably heard by now, Amazon's big-time product review sweep just hit.
Loads of legitimate brands contacted us about huge percentages of reviews going away, without messaging around it.
No notifications, no explanation, calls to Account Health resulting in collective shrugs, right? Some blame overactive AI, others....unsure.
Many are caught in the blast radius without a sense of how to appeal it.
For brands losing 20% or more of their review counts on top ASINs, holes are punched in revenue the size of cars.
Calls with Account Health Services reps or SAS core all go the same way:
I'm paraphrasing here, but let's go with "We don't have any visibility into those teams or processes, I'll open a ticket and see what they say."
This is what we say: Don't open a ticket, nor count on that to save your reviews.
When you press them for details, they reply with a boilerplate response.
They'll tell you, We observed abnormal review patterns on your account that look suspicious, and reviews were removed pending further investigation and so forth.
They don't point you in any meaningful direction.
Here is what is actually going on:
Amazon is stripping POSITIVE reviews.
Algorithms are targeting 4.5- and 5-star blocks because they suspect incentivized reviews, whether from product inserts, QR codes, rebate groups, or external traffic spikes.
Did you use any of those? Have you ended all such practices?
Successfully appealing a review manipulation warning doesn't always clear you of reviews Amazon never deleted, that should have been.
Unresolved downstream tags can trigger automated wipes months later. Many are telling us their accounts were flagged in '24'-'25 for this.
So, if these are backdated reviews deletions, those may be gone.
If you're trying to remove negatives, and aggressively, it may trigger an audit of your entire listing history by the way.
Some positive reviews may be deleted in the crossfire.
Keep in mind, plenty of bad actor brands plant loads of cheap 5-star reviews to draw the attention of Amazon's PRA teams and to trip Amazon’s abuse filters and nuke a competitor's catalog.
What to do right now:
1. Stop spamming Seller Support. General support reps cannot see enough to judge what is going on, and opening multiple tickets just clutters your case history and it's a huge waste of your time.
2. Pull historical data. Document the exact date, unit loss, and star-rating shift to prove legitimate reviews were purged AFTER the date you had a performance notification or warning.
3. Audit your own funnels. Check packaging links or codes, "warranty-related" inserts that push for buyers to give you more contact info, and all buyer-seller messaging flows.
Do all this, before assuming it’s purely a bot error. Please!
I’m collecting data and examples on this latest sweep and developing proper escalation channels to get reviews restored.