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Do Retailers Often Screen User Reviews?
Mechanist.tm writes "I recently purchased a NAS from a well-known online computer component shop. I have purchased several items from the website and have never had much trouble before. That was until I realized what I had bought was a terrible NAS. All the reviews on the site from users seemed very good. After a little research, it became clear that the product in question was indeed terrible. After finding the product pretty much useless for its intended purpose, I proceeded to write a review for it on the website to inform other would-be buyers. After about a week, I noticed that the review never made it up there, so I wrote another one just in case. After several attempts to leave a negative review for the product, I realized that the website was screening reviews and only posting the ones that made the products look good. All the reviews on the website are positive; I've only found one at less than 3 out of 5 stars. Is this legal? Ethically speaking, it's wrong, and it's intentionally misleading to the customer. Is there a good place to report behavior like this? How common is this among online retailers who provide user reviews?"
It is their site, they are free to publish what they feel on it. Now what -is- illegal and misleading is if you were to write a negative review and they make it be a positive review. Similar to Engadget and Monster Cable.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Which shop?
Unfortunately a lot of retailers do this, this is one of many very good reasons not to use a retailer. If there are no "1/10 - This --- fucking sucks, it broke after a week and was barely usable before that" reviews then you know they're screening (or just sell great products but that isn't very likely).
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
rely on reviews or testimonials that are posted on the sellers website. Reviews on third-party websites are generally more reliable as there's usually less of a conflict of interest but even those aren't always real so buyer beware.
Than a newspaper editor not running political stories about things he or she doesn't like. Not ethical, but also not illegal. That's the reason why I normally look for unpaid third party review sites for hardware or software, or at least someone in the industry that can recommend something they have used personally.
After a little research, it became clear that the product in question was indeed terrible.
That's your first and most important mistake here. Never ever trust a single source, especially if they're the ones getting your moneys. I always check several sites and try to have feedback from actual users before making any tech purchase. That shit's usually expensive enough, if it also blows up in my face two days after I buy I'll be pretty pissed...
At least with Amazon.com, one of the best-known websites with user reviews, I can attest that they welcome negative reviews. I've been reviewing there for the last nine years, more to focus my own thoughts on what I read, listen to or use than to guide others in purchases. Still, sometimes I've been scathing about a product and encouraged all and sundry not to buy it, and my review continues to be visible as the years go by. Rare situations where a review was not posted usually occurred because I tripped some keyword meant to discourage profanity, and a simple rewrite of the sentence in question was all it took to get the review up.
http://www.resellerratings.com/ - post your honest review there.
I've posted more than a few negative reviews on newegg over the years and I've never had one filtered or modified. A couple of times the manufacturer replied to my review directly and offered to remedy my problem.
Gone!
...when you're trying to expose unethical behavior or deceptive practices, the phrase "a well-known online computer component shop" is hollow and flaccid.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
I have had my reviews not published on Overstock when they were negative. I tried multiple times to get the review online, and I quit buying anything from overstock without first finding external reviews. I have never had a review not accepted from Amazon, even when they were negative.
"Asleep at the switch? I wasn't asleep, I was drunk!" -- Homer
I have written many reviews of varying content and rating for a couple products on Overstock.com and whenever the review has a possibility of impacting sales negatively it is never posted. Not ethical but it's their prerogative as they are the ones publishing it. There is a conflict of interest but making this type of thing illegal would be a slippery slope. Just take it as a matter of course and get on with it.
Post the site and product, or shut the hell up. Seriously, Isn't what you are doing, deliberately obscuring the site, and hiding useful information, the same as what they are doing. By presenting it the way you have, you've essentially attacked the reputation of all well-known online computer component shops. Could be newegg, NCIX, ZZF, amazon, tigerdirect, buy.com, bestbuy You've provided no specifics, and as such no valid evidence, even in your anecdote. I'm all for tarring and feathering companies *if they deserve it*. Your post makes no particular case for your review being rejected because it was bad, and not for using profanity, or something similar. Post the site, product and your review. Otherwise, if you aren't willing to name the site or product for the benefit of all, I hope that one of the others sues you for slandering their reputation.
I've come across sites that seem to post only good reviews (which always makes me suspicious), and sites that choose to sort owner comments by number of "stars" given so that the good comments bubble to the top. It's always best to check product reviews from multiple sources before buying.
I've had this happen at buy.com - i bought this:
http://www.buy.com/prod/ifrogz-iphone-3g-3gs-luxe-soft-touch-case-red-black/q/loc/101/208441113.html
and it was a piece of junk, finish ruined after a couple days in my pocket. It broke in pieces after 2 months.
I posted reviews to buy.com (where i bought it) and they magically never appeared.
I won't shop there anymore. Amazon rules.
a well-known online computer component shop
Yea, it is absolutely absurd to have made this post and not identify the seller in question. The poster questions if a seller can get away with this, and them demonstrates that they can by failing to even say who they are or what the bad product is. The whole post is extremely pointless. If the original review was this void of information then maybe there is an alternate reason it was never accepted for listing.
At least we can see that the Slashdot editors can not be accused of editing, or making informed choices about which stories to post.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Home Depot "approves" reviews and failed to post a negative review I gave for an air conditioner recently.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
The company I work for uses a third party (bazaarvoice) for our reviews so we cannot do such shenanigans. Since we don't just sell one brand we actually want the customer to know which product is the best so that they continue to buy from us. I'm sure this is how all resellers operate so what I suspect actually happened is that the review did make it to the site but the manufacturer probably had someone log in as a bunch of separate users and mark the review as objectionable so that it was taken down.
As others have already mentioned; you can't trust reviews. My personal policy with this is ignore the 1 star - "was broken when I got it" and the 10 star - "changed my life" reviews since they don't actually have any useful information. Also, a lot of sites track user submissions so you can guess that if a person writes an unusually long review about how great their new $30 vacuum is but they've never written another review that it's probably bogus.
The easy answer to this is http://www.google.com/support/toolbar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=157109 Google Sidewiki. *IF* users start using sidewiki for reviewing products on vendor sites, the vendor has no ability to moderate the reviews. Doesn't mean they won't start astroturfing the sidewiki but it would make it more expensive :)
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Is that a good or a bad review?
Some sites have a default where the most favourable ratings (5/5 etc) are the ones shown by default - a link at the bottom allows viewing all reviews. I can think of one that has no apparent incentive to dupe the viewer, and personally if I was manager of the others I would certainly be more concerned about repeat business, and how costly returns are.
My assumption is that less favourable reviews tend to be the least accurate, a guess held up by viewing the negative comments which repeatedly complained about issues that were obviously completely unrelated, were laughably unrealistic expectations for the price, the product was not designed for or were addressed in the description. People use the reviews system as a forum to ask questions, giving a zero rating.
Good reviews meanwhile filled in any blanks in the description (often these would be major issues for some people), noted the build quality etc and gave a personal opinion on the product in the context of price. Personally I found these much more informative.
No doubt some sites use it just to make sales, but I think there's an element of filtering for quality too.
According to an article that I read, a mix of negative and positive reviews makes the product more attractive than only positive reviews. It seems that this retailer is probably preventing sales by not letting negative reviews through.
Cory Doctorow talking about cloud computing makes as much sense as George W Bush talking about electrical engineering.
I think there are a lot of salespeople that would prefer that this sort of behavior was penalized because it undermines their profession as a whole. Will they give you a hard sell, try to give you the positives? Yes. But to out and out lie is something the best salespeople that I know would never do. They might be aggressive, but they are honest. Besides, the easiest customer to get is the one you already got. If you, as a salesman, lie to your customer, you will not get repeat business from them.
This is my sig.
Part of the problem may be the legal system in the US. I once ran a review site where users were allowed to post comments. In one case, I was getting a ton of negative comments posted about one particular other website. I assumed (and still do) that these comments were legitimate due to the sheer volume of different users posting them and I never edited for content. Then, I got a lawsuit for defamation. Yea, I was protected legally and won, but it costs a ton of money to defend yourself against frivolous lawsuits. The best thing for most of these retailers is probably to just not allow user submitted reviews at all which is what I do now.
It's a shame Amazon doesn't run Consumer Reports-esque mini-sites for popular product lines. Now you've inspired me to contribute more reviews to the UK site!
I've posted more than a few negative reviews on newegg over the years and I've never had one filtered or modified.
I have. In fact, I posted in detail about it back in Aug 2005: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=158055&cid=13241557
I'd submitted a fair, honest, but harsh review comparing 2 different modems I'd purchased -- 1 great, 1 lousy. NewEgg rejected my review of the lousy modem and took my review of the great one. I couldn't see any point where my rejected submission violated any of NewEgg's guidelines (included in that post).
I even went so far as to "soften" the language of the harsh review and re-submit it, but it was also rejected.
I like NewEgg but make no mistake about it -- they are (or at least were) filtering bad reviews to some extent.
So, on a slightly related note, where DO people go for hardware reviews? In my experience sites that are not obviously corporate/bought are pretty rare on the ground. And the independent sites tend to focus on only bleeding edge gaming hardware.
So where should I be looking for honest reviews of consumer grade routers or printers or LCDs? Everyday hardware stuff. These days I mostly go by the comments and reviews on NCIX and newegg, but a more focused approach would be nice.
Why didn't the submitter say what site it was, I would like to know. The best way to stop this practice would be to let everyone know the site was doing it.
eBay feedback
They'll nix feedback just like other sites nix reviews, if they determine that in their judgement, they think the item was bought for the sole purpose of entering negative feedback, for example.
And an expansive, ever increasing list of reasons.
sellers will no longer be able to leave negative/neutral feedback for buyers
And a comprehensive feedback removal policy.
Examples:
But at least they are honest enough and tell you (somewhat) what they will remove.
Most people casually browsing the site however (just as most people browsing retailers sites) have no idea that sites provide policies that allow negative ratings to be stricken from the record, and their effects on "stars" and rating score to be removed, at the whim of someone whose interests are in more sales.
I never buy a product that doesn't have at least one review panning it. Any decent product that sells a lot of units is going to have a minimum of two or three buyer who, for whatever reason, thought it was crap. Even if their complaint is that it shipped slow, that's something. That generally shows that the retailer isn't round-filing bad reviews. No product is a panacea for everyone, so if you read the 1, 2, and 3 star reviews and find that their complaints wouldn't apply to you, you can probably safely buy it.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
They appear to allow the manufacturer to rebut negative reviews after the fact, but there are plenty of negative (even highly negative) reviews there
I've found the consumerist does a great job of making things like this heard.
.com? .co.uk? .com.au?
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Recently, while shopping for a digital camera to give as a gift, I hunted through a number of online vendors, including Best Buy (mostly because I have credit with them) and NewEgg, both of whom publish negative reviews. What I discovered was that the majority of the reviews were negative on practically everything I looked at. The end result was that I bought another of the same model that I already had and knew was good. This was considerably more expensive than I had planned, but since it was a gift for someone important to me, I sucked it up and did it.
On other occasions, looking for computer equipment, I've noticed the same phenomenon. But in this area, I'm knowledgeable enough to notice that many of the negative reviews are written by people who just don't understand the technology well enough to even operate the devices. And of course, people who have bad experiences with a product are generally more motivated to complain about it than people who have good experiences with a product are motivated to praise it.
While it's certainly unethical for a vendor to censor reviews -- without at least prominently announcing that they are censoring them -- I have to question the value of reviews by the general public in the first place.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
It took several weeks for Crutchfield to publish the review of the item that I bought from them a few months back. I was holding off on reviewing my experience, but they went as far as sending me an e-mail inviting me to post a review, so I did. I bought a new speaker from them which cost several hundred dollars. When it arrived, It was very dusty and it was obvious that it had been taken apart. They sent me a replacement in two days and sent a few apologies, both in e-mail and in snail mail. Regardless, I described my experience and in my review I said "Come on, Crutchfield! You can do better than that! You charge MSRP!!!" Somehow, that phrase was left out of my review. Now, I know that they own the website. This, PERHAPS gives them editorial control. Perhaps. However...if you invite my to review my experience, why not have the guts to post it in its entirety? Maybe you will learn something and maybe your customers will as well. I have not purchased anything from them since.
All cheap NAS solutions suck. Sorry.
If you are not buying a netapp, you need to think about the suck-factor of your NAS solution versus hosting it on a Linux or even Windows server.
I have never seen a NAS solution - even high end ones - that I consider acceptable, besides the Netapp.
It is a tough call whether a given high-end NAS solution (betsides netapp) is better that a software RAID on a cheap server.
I have never seen a super-low-end NAS solution that was acceptable even for MP3s or backups. The hassle of failure and data loss will quickly exceed the cost savings, even if it's just for non-critical storage where data loss is no problem.
Basically, either go Netapp or set up a Linux server with software RAID. All other solutions are distant third/fourth/fifth.
In between those two choices, a Solaris server doing software RAID with ZFS is better than Linux's software RAID. NFS server quality is about equal (it is absolutely no longer true that Solaris's NFS server is far better than Linux's).
If you need redundancy, a pair of Linux machines with heartbeat and DRBD (therefore two copies of the data) will be far cheaper than any sever-based solution that involves redundant servers sharing storage with no single point of failure.
Sorry, this is just a fact of life. Expensive storage is expensive because you're paying for the manageability, reliability, availability. Cheap storage throws these all away to meet a price point, and ends up making you wish you had just done it on a server.
What are the problems with cheap storage, especially a NAS? Rather than listing every problem I've ever seen, how about I give you an example of the design apathy. A cheap NAS may have never been tested by the vendor in the case of a failing drive. Pulling a drive out while it's running is too clean of a failure to be considered anything more than a preliminary test (however some cheap storage can't even handle this!). I've even seen higher end storage where this was basically the case.
This retailer is seriously screwing its customers by hiding problems in product it sells. I would absolutely avoid shopping with the retailer if I knew who it was.
Consumerist.com, owned by Consumer Reports, is doing a pretty good job exposing anti-consumer behavior by companies. I would tip them off about this.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
the product was raidsonic IB-NAS4220-B. It is a terrible NAS. Has loads of issues with Makes of Hard Disks. I contacted the manufacturer and they were less than helpful. Pretty much ignoring the communities problems with their product. If you look into it you will find alot of issues with it. Dont reccommend it to anyone. In the process of hopefully returning it. Thanks to everyone for their interest.
I bought the same and also posted a negative review on Overclockers that never appeared. I eventually wrote the Icybox off as a hard-learned lesson and just leave a PC on all the time instead.