Advice please – requested to remove links to a large retailer site – backlinks?

Hi,

I’ve received a rather odd email and wanted to ask people’s opinion.

Here’s the email – I’ve removed personal details, obvs.

****************

Message: Good morning

I hope you are well.

My name is [REDACTED] and I am contacting you today to ask for your help with a ‘spring clean’ we are performing here at [REDACTED] on our backlink profile for our website.

I was hoping that you could kindly remove the link pointing to our site from the following page(s):

If you could please confirm once the link(s) has been removed I would be most grateful.

If you have any questions please let me know, I am happy to help.

Kind regards,

*********************

I replied with:

Hi [REDACTED]

I am curious, why do you want me to remove links your website, surely they drive traffic to you? That’s usually the opposite of what people want.
Kind regards

*********************

She then replied with:

Thanks for getting back to me.

We regularly review the links pointing to our website to ensure that we remain within Google’s guidelines.

I can see that our link appears on several pages on your site which can appear spammy. This is through no fault of your own, it is just how the pagination of your CMS works.

We’d really appreciate if it could be removed. Do let me know when you’ve found the time.

Kind regards,

*********************

Now, is this something I should be concerned about, or should I ignore the request? I’ve checked, and while there are one or two links per page she mentions, each is to a different page on their site.

My whole site is about helping people, and removing the links makes the site less helpful for visitors and also deprives me of the little revenue I do earn via skimlinks…

What are your thoughts?

Many thanks