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Comments: 454 +- Ask Slashdot: Do Retailers Often Screen User Reviews? on Sunday October 04, @10:14AM
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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?"
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Their site... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Their site... (Score:5, Informative)
Moral of the story: Don't trust reviews on shop sites unless they also post the negative ones.
Amazon post all reviews, with the exception of those that use profanity or have links to torrent sites etc. There was a story on /. about it years ago. Apparently it's a major pain the arse for them but it makes the site on of the best places to buy stuff too.
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Re:Their site... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not true here -- Amazon does remove negative reviews if the author requests it.
Once, I posted a negative review of a book to Amazon.com, pointing out specific places where the book made errors. Within 24 hours, the review had disappeared, and simultaneously a "blog" post appeared on the product page where the author denounced and "rebutted" my review (which was no longer even visible.)
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Re:Their site... (Score:4, Interesting)
Nope, my review didn't contain any of the above. It did point out the author's admission that he had no personal experience in the topic that he was writing about, which probably labeled the review as a personal attack and got it removed. However, this admission was part of the book being reviewed, and therefore was fair game for comment.
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Re:Their site... (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently it's a major pain the arse for them but it makes the site on of the best places to buy stuff too.
Even if I'm not buying there I check to see if the item I want has any reviews. I also do a quick google with "[product_name_model] problem" and see if there are a lot of negative forum posts. I don't think screening posts is illegal, but it's sure not right. I would also contact the BBB about it.
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Re:Their site... (Score:5, Funny)
Just don't write any perfume reviews please...
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Re:Their site... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would consider it illegal advertising. The site misleads customers to believe they are reading actual user reviews (ALL reviews), which is simply not true. It's misleading and deceptive.
If I found a site like that, I'd report them to consumeraffairs.org, FTC.gov, and any other site I can think of which screens companies. Hopefully the FTC would act to fine that company, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
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Re:Their site... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Their site... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this illegal?
Don't know if it's illegal or not but it should be. They are misrepresenting the site as presenting all reviews, not just ones that they approve. That's fraud with material financial consequences.
Given that Mechanist.tm wasn't aware of this they probably are misrepresenting the reviews.
If they made clear that the site is not representative of all customer reviews then there should be no legal problem though it's still shady and I for one would be shopping elsewhere.
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The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
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Re:Their site... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thinking that something "should be illegal" is not particularly close to it being illegal. It sounds to you that you are just saying that it is unethical. I agree with that, but the point was that a prior poster said he "considered this to be illegal", and the parent asked why it was illegal.
Saying it is unethical does not answer that question. You have to actually find a law that says it is illegal.
Likewise, asaul says that it is illegal because it is misleading. Again, he doesn't cite any law against being misleading.
Even blatantly lying is not, in general, illegal. There are cases where it is, but those are specific cases; there is no general law against lying. (Mom's law doesn't count here. :-))
There are laws against false advertising, which are probably the closest things to applicable ones here. But the standards applied to that in practice tend to be awfully lenient. (Heck, as far as I can tell, darn near all advertising attempts to give false impressions in at least some way. Apparently the lawyers don't use the same standards that I do, since I don't see darn near all advertising slapped down.)
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Re:Their site... (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, I don't have a copy of black's law on my shelf:
But let's summarize it as:
1) It's intentional deception--a reasonable person would expect that a site with reviews would incorporate positive, as well as negative reviews. The removal of negative reviews suggests the absence of them.
2) It was deception made for gain--they sold a product that they otherwise may not have sold
You've got the definitive elements of fraud there, even though the statutes/definition vary.
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Re:Their site... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this illegal?
Don't know if it's illegal or not but it should be. They are misrepresenting the site as presenting all reviews, not just ones that they approve. That's fraud with material financial consequences.
Given that Mechanist.tm wasn't aware of this they probably are misrepresenting the reviews.
If they made clear that the site is not representative of all customer reviews then there should be no legal problem though it's still shady and I for one would be shopping elsewhere.
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The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Do you tell potential employers about every major mistake you've made in previous jobs or about the times you've slacked off or skipped out for one reason or another? If not, then you're not making it clear that your resume, cover letter, and job interviews aren't fully representative of your prior work. And as you said, it's fraud with material consequences. How about stuff that you're trying to sell like a car or a home?
No one gives all the details about something they're trying to sell regardless of whether it's a piece of electronics, a car, or a home. The phrase caveat emptor has been around for at least 2000 years and probably a lot longer than that. As such, I don't think anyone should trust the reviews on a retailer's site entirely.
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Re:Their site... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you tell potential employers about every major mistake you've made in previous jobs or about the times you've slacked off or skipped out for one reason or another? If not, then you're not making it clear that your resume, cover letter, and job interviews aren't fully representative of your prior work.
Do you think that the interviewers think it is? Do you think that if you read a persons resume that it would be a fair assessment of their past work history and experience?
Or would you accept that everybody that submits a resume is obviously biased and reporting on themselves is not a full and complete history. Since they have to include references and contact info for their previous jobs it seems that they are by default not trusted to be a complete and balanced source by themselves. So your example stands as it's own opposition. People do not tell about themselves when trying to impress someone to get a job and everybody knows it and expects no less than embellishment. Hence they ask for outside verification as well.
How about stuff that you're trying to sell like a car or a home?
If you are trying to sell a car or a home there are third parties that are expected to inspect these objects to ensure your statements are true, it's not expected that you are an expert in all the areas that are important in these cases. You are also judged on your trustworthiness in these cases. It's not the same as if the person was to filter the results of a termite inspection and only report the good parts, or if they altered the carfax report on the car. That's why there are these third party services, because people are not expected to be unbiased in their account of their own worth or the products they are trying to sell.
Companies are a different matter.
There are quite a few laws in place that people trust are being obeyed. It is illegal to advertise falsely that your product cures a disease or treats an illness.
It is illegal to advertise a product of some value and then once the customer is ready to purchase it, switch to selling them an inferior product. (as a practice)
There are many other laws about advertising because the business world needs trust to operate. And while it doesn't create the level playing field it means to, it does put into the minds of the populous that they can trust to some extent the claims of retailers. There is a big difference that may not be in the front of their minds though. That there is a big difference between an acknowledged advertisement on TV and a retailers own Website.
To advertise on TV or even place banners through Google adds, the retailer must meet certain criteria. Small print, disclaimers, relevant details that go with their claims of a certain product. That's why we all see things like, "results not typical" "your results may vary" and "see retailer for details". These things don't help sales but they are required when advertising a claim. If they claim something without so much as an asterisk and it is not true, they could be in trouble. But here's the problem. If they have a Website that promotes their product and only has the most glowing reviews but does not claim that the reviews are representative or inclusive or even unpaid. It's not a claim that's false. They don't have to say that the reviews are anything, they could be just marketing people typing the company agenda. And we assume they are real reviews since they allow us to submit them as well. There are no laws in this area. they can delete your review and unless they use your name and change the words, it's within the law. It's a problem with what we expect in one area not applying to another. Like copyright and patents, most people don't know where one stops and the other begins. And I think that's the fault of the ones who are in change of the laws. We should learn them, but we should also not be expected to have law degrees to do so. Like anything that effects us all so much, there should be a brief attached that e
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Re:Their site... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because unless they state they are only publishing positive reviews, it is misleading to show that all feedback from "users" is positive. It is deceptive to filter out the negatives as it misleadingly portrays the product as good based of what is supposedly unbiased user feedback as opposed to vendor advertising.
For advertising, yes, of course you only show positive reviews, it stands to reason to choose what supports the product (movie etc).
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Re:Their site... (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Why is this illegal?
Because the law says that illegal advertising is a crime. So is advertising a price of, say $9.99, and then ringing it up as 19.99 at the register. (My former employer JCPenney got a huge fine for that.) So is making claims that are deceptive or misleading (see the lawsuits about 100MPG magnets for cars). I surmise that if this NAC company went before a judge, he would say the use of only positive reviews while leading the customer to think he/she is seeing ALL reviews, is deceptive and misleading.
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Re:Their site... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because you said it yourself, a commercial is a commercial and people know it's a commercial. When it comes to review people assume it's honest non-filtered opinion of consumers. If you pick what to publish or edit passages you're filtering.
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Re:Their site... (Score:5, Insightful)
On a small scale, the poster could sue the retailer. On a large scale, it may indeed be false advertising.
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Re:Their site... (Score:4, Interesting)
Other than that, the company can arbitrarily decide to post only reviews that have the word 'chipmunk' in them. For instance. They have to make an assertion (express or strongly implied) *in an advertisement* that is patently false for it to be false advertising. Lies by omission don't count.
Personally I think that such 'reviews' should be prominently titled 'testimonials' or some such. It *is* disgusting. But you should never trust a review on a site where the subject under review controls the content.
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Re:Their site... (Score:4, Interesting)
Glenn Beck has a negative review on his dust jacket? Why and from who?
Anyway when we see reviews from Toyota, et cetera, we know those are biased commercials that have been censored by the company. We also know the reviewers are probably biased as well (getting kickbacks from the company). But when you see "What other people thought" on amazon.com then you expect non-biased opinions from people like yourself. It is that expectation that the company is abusing - it's a misleading and deceptive presentation.
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Re:Their site... (Score:5, Interesting)
It is their site, they are free to publish what they feel on it.
Not so sure about that. If they are misrepresenting the nature of their review site, and further misrepresenting what they're selling by censoring reviews, then that would seem to be a form of fraud. What you are suggesting is that fraud is legally OK if done on the property of the party that perpetrates it. IANAL, but this strikes me as an odd notion.
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The real question is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The real question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The real question is... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:The real question is... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:The real question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get it; they resolved the issue, so that you had nothing negative to post in the end. Let's say that instead of posting the negative review, you had contacted them of the problem to see if they would resolve it. If they hadn't, you would have posted the review; if they had, you wouldn't have, since there was no problem. The latter is what happened.
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Re:The real question is... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't get it; they resolved the issue, so that you had nothing negative to post in the end. Let's say that instead of posting the negative review, you had contacted them of the problem to see if they would resolve it. If they hadn't, you would have posted the review; if they had, you wouldn't have, since there was no problem. The latter is what happened.
I like the idea of leaving the negative reviews up and attaching the manufacturer's response. My reasoning is simple: shit happens. At some point there will be problems of some kind. That's a given, and a corporation's attempt to cover up this fact of life to give an illusion of perfect products that don't have even a very small percentage of defects looks pretty damned suspicious to me.
What's important to me is when a company is willing to stand by their products and take care of its own mistakes. Do they give the customer a certain benefit of doubt, or do they treat complaining customers as though they don't believe a word they say? Do they make you otherwise jump through hoops? Do they admit fault and take responsibility and take reasonable measures to fix any problems they cause? Is it an uphill battle to get them to do the right thing? These are more important to me than how well they can censor their forums. A negative review that shows me a company bending over backwards to make things right isn't negative to me at all.
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a well-known online computer component shop (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Re:The real question is... (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently this guy's summary had that negative information removed.
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Re:The real question is... (Score:5, Informative)
Which shop?
overclockers
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Re:Which one? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:The real question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
+1
Newegg even lets you display only the bad reviews. I've also seen reviews suggesting you purchase products elsewhere when shipping might be an issue. It doesn't seem like Newegg does much screening at all. Probably has any prices listed with dollar signs stripped and any URL's or competitors stripped automatically and then goes with that.
One thing to keep in mind when reading reviews at any site though is that the ratio of positive to negative reviews differs wildly. Websites that make the review process difficult are likely only going to get reviews from people very strongly opinionated and probably have a higher negative ratio. Websites that make the review process very easy will have more reviews.
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Re:The real question is... (Score:5, Funny)
I personally like this one:
Pros: Blue LED fan
Cons: I bought 2 of these the top heatsink fell onto the bottom card and burned down my house and killed my Family. Why
Other Thoughts: This product is unsafe and should be recalled (but they wont because they dont care) Not neweggs fault they are the best
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Never (Score:4, Informative)
A comment on Amazon (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A comment on Amazon (Score:4, Informative)
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http://www.resellerratings.com (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.resellerratings.com/ [resellerratings.com] - post your honest review there.
Come on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Overstock.com does not publish negative reviews (Score:5, Informative)
buy.com (Score:5, Informative)
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 [buy.com]
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.
Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
Home Depot "approves" reviews and failed to post a negative review I gave for an air conditioner recently.
Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:4, Interesting)
According to an article that I read [economist.com], 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.
legal system (Score:5, Interesting)
So where DO you look for reviews? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
2 words (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [bsalert.com]
And a comprehensive feedback [ebay.com] 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.
Never buy 5 Star (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Re:It's fairly common (Score:4, Insightful)
I usually look for negative reviews first when considering a product. I will google for "$product sucks". I try and see why people think it sucks. If I don't see any negative reviews, I know that no one is actually buying the product.
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Re:It's fairly common (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that they manipulate what customer feedback they are willing to show in order to increase sales is enough for me to take my business elsewhere, and there are plenty of trustworthy businesses that don't censor user reviews.
/Mikael
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Re:Seriously (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm going through it with eCost right now. I guess I'll file a BBB claim, because they're not getting back to me as promised. They sold an amp with text that made it look like it did component to HDMI upconversion when it doesn't. Now they don't want to take it as a return. (I know lots of people have problems with eCost, but I've been buying from them for some time with no problems. Have even done a return before.)
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Re:Overstock.com heavily screens reviews (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a conflict of interest but making this type of thing illegal would be a slippery slope.
A slipper slope to what? A market where consumers are properly protected from corporate abuse?
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