I've had people refund entire purchases and let me keep the item after I complain about a real defect, all just to avoid a low review. The most surreal instance was when I just asked a completely innocuous question and was offered a refund--clearly misunderstand my curiosity as a complaint.

I love imagining the surreal consequences of a world where reputation is far more valuable than the products themselves... but that must be unsustainable.

If you sell a $1 product for $10 you can refund 8 of them and still double your money. Yes, for cheap Chinese made stuff the reputation is far more valuable than the products themselves

Don’t give up. Leave a 5-star review, get an out-of-band refund (if they do that). Then change your review to 1 and demand an in-band refund. Tell your friends.

Would it have upset you if they were asking for any review at all, instead of requiring a 5 star one?

> Would it have upset you if they were asking for any review at all, instead of requiring a 5 star one?

That has largely the same result. Most satisfied customers don't bother to leave a review, so real reviews tend to skew towards people who have had issues.

If you bribe satisfied customers into leaving a review then your reviews are no longer from the same sampling population as your competitors' reviews and you end up looking better than you really are by comparison. Plus, if the incentive isn't offered to everyone then people who get it (and then are disproportionately likely to leave a review) will tend to like the seller more because they liked receiving the incentive.

It would only be fair if the same incentive was provided to all buyers for leaving reviews of all sellers.

"Asking for a friend," right?

This exact same thing happened to me.