That pretty much means that most Amazon ratings are bullshit.
There's no way to generalize from one user/seller experience to all of them, but the fact that we don't really have evidence to the contrary definitely does sour the whole experience.
I generally avoid the third party sellers just because I like to use super-saver shipping to save money, but I'll go for the third party if the item is hard to find or the deal is amazing.
I'm sure this isn't wide-spread, but it still very strange behaviour from such an established company. They take down the negative reviews at the drop of a hat, but it takes a mountain of effort to get them re-instated (in fact, they haven't even been yet).
And the worrying bit seems to be that they don't even know their own published policies on the matter: if you don't follow/know your own policies, what's the point in having them? Is it all hot air?
E.g. if you buy an item from a 3rd party seller on Amazon you can leave a product and a seller review.
If you only buy from Amazon on Amazon then this issue shouldn't affect you (although others might).
That is an insane overreaction. Amazon has a long-standing reputation of excellent customer service over millions of transactions. A singular error on their part should be examined in that context. You'll find that their response invalidates your claim: http://www.makingstrange.net/2010/03/update-are-amazon-selle...