This isn't the only deceptive thing Ebuyer do, they also put up a lot of fake discounted products that they have no intention of selling. They had an easter sale earlier in the year and put up a few discounted monitors, a lot of people ordered them, with loads in stock, ebuyer processed the payment and took everyones money, and then few days later cancels everyone orders saying they don't have stock and some other garbage, few days later some of the monitors turn up on there ebay store!
Yeap I've tried to post negative reviews on OCUK and they never appear. Although negative stuff on Amazon appears.Originally Posted by mike306dt
![[GSV]Trig is online now](https://forums.hexus.net/images/hex_statusicon/user-online.png)
At least you can see the good and bad reviews about scan on here, granted lots of people who have good experience's don't post them but still..
Any commercial organisation that doesn't apply some level of vetting to user comments and "reviews" is, in my view, utterly stupid, and begging for trouble, even if that only goes as far as filtering out comments that are either obscene, illegal of defamatory. If they don't at least do that, well, sooner or later they'll hit a problem.
And that, dear Reader, is part of what moderators here do - HEXUS does not want to end up paying tens of thousands of pounds in legal costs, or potentially a LOT more than that, defending itself because of something one of you lot said about someone else. And if you don't understand why, look up the story of Dr Godfrey and Demon Internet, and the estimated £750,000 that cost Demon. Even Tesco's and the like would baulk at that kind of bill if not absolutely necessary, and it'd put a lot of small companies out of business.
So, frankly, if you're a business, or any kind of publisher including internet publisher, and you haven't got some level of "filtering" going on then, frankly, you're an idiot, IMHO.
Of course, that's a far cry from selectively publishing "reviews" that put products in a good light. But the shocking thing there, in my mind, is that people are stupid enough to put any reliance in what the retailer says about a product, beyond factual statements. You might be lucky and find a retailer prepared to put up good and bad, or you might not and the odds are, you'll never know.
Next, we come to how to judge "reviews".
User reviews have a function, but a limited one, IMHO. You can often take a user's account as a fairly accurate representation of their experience but what you usually won't know is what experience or ability they have. How many here have fixed a computer for a friend or relative, only to get a complaint a short time later that it isn't working properly and it turns out the problem is something they, in their ignorance (or sometimes stupidity) have done? For example, installing two AV scanners, both memory resident and active, and being surprised when they conflict with each other and/or hog resources and slow things down. Or better yet, install loads of "free" stuff from the web without considering the source or its virus payload? Yet, since you fixed their machine 6 months ago, it's obviously your fault. How would you like them "reviewing" you?
If you're going to trust any review, it's pretty much implicit you trust the competence and honesty of the reviewer. But how do you decide if you can? It's not easy, and it's less easy these days than it used to be, because there's so much "free" review stuff on the web, some of it excellent (like, ahem .... HEXUS) and some of, frankly, rubbish.
Cards on table time. I've written thousands of reviews, over 20 years, for a variety of publications, including magazines and national dailies. And it's hard work to do a competent review. With any decent review, what you actually see is the tip of the iceberg, because it takes about 10% (*) of the time to write the review that it does to test the properly product.
I've been challenged on occasion over a review. For instance, one reader challenged ink usage figures for inkjet printers. But I was careful in what I said was tested, and had tested those printers by using a specified print sample (an Adobe test file), using a brand new set of cartridges in each printer, and printing until a X-Rite photo densitometer picked up a change in ink density on the printed page. It was not an estimate of what how many pages the reader would get, and could not be since his output would be varied and unpredictable. It was, however, a test under controlled conditions of a relative capacity of each printer's cartridges, not determined by ml of ink as that is affected by usage and the printer's outout algorithms, but by direct comparison of doing the same thing on all printers.
Not all the explanation, and certainly not all the research, goes into any competent review, but I could if need be, back it up in a court. And on a time or two, an unhappy manufacturer threatened that after a negative review, and I ended up in a discussion with the editor and/or legal team as to whether I could back up my comments. I could, and no legal action was ever taken.
But, in some mainstream publications, I also came across claims that a product would or would not do something when I knew that to be wrong, because I'd just tested the same product and had it sitting on my desk at the time. Not all reviews are competent or, in my view, comprehensive. And in part, that's because they're paid by the word, not by the hour. I could, for instance, sit down and write an 800-word review in a morning, easily. But it'd be based on a very superficial examination of the product. Or I could spend a week, or a month, testing it and learning every nook and cranny. In practice, I do neither. The first is irresponsible, and the later impractical, as I'd starve if I tried.
So when you read any review, from anybody, in print or on the web, you have to form a judgement of how far you trust the reviewer to be competent and conscientious, and that it is based in most cases on a single experience of a single example of the product, and that is where you hit a problem with user reviews, because you have no basis on which to judge either.
So to "user reviews" on retailer's websites .... you don't know what criteria the retailer is using to determine want to display, but odds are they're using some criteria even if it's just defamation avoidance, and you don't have any basis to judge the reliability of the user to write the review.
The result, IMHO, is that it's idiocy to place anything beyond superficial reliance on anything said. If you want user reviews, look for a source independent of commercial pressures, and even then, bear in mind the above cautions about user reviews.
(*) A 'gut feel' statistic, balanced over a variety of reviews, from 400-word quick looks to 30-page group tests and detailed, front-cover in-depth tests.
miniyazz (10-12-2011),watercooled (09-12-2011)
Oh, and one more thing. Some people have commented on here about how many of my posts are couched in guarded ways, with caveats and exceptions.
In no small part, it comes from the experience of writing reviews. No review can give chapter and verse. It'd be a book by itself if it did. Instead, you have to give the major positives, the major (if any) negatives, and present a balanced, fair and reasonable overview, with a resulting conclusion. Sometimes, that means recommendation that it suits 'this' type of user, but that 'that' type is better advised to look elsewhere.
And you've got to do that, at least for print publications, in a specified wordcount, like 800 or 1000. So when people comment on the length of my posts on here (like the above one), it's partially a reaction to not having to spend a lot of time saying with some accuracy and precision what I want to say, because keeping accuracy and precision, and an overall balance and fair picture, inside a small wordcount, is hard work. Here, I can explain what I want with spending large amounts of time crafting the sense of every sentence to keep wordcount down. I can do that if I want to, or I wouldn't stay employed by editors for very long, believe me, but here I don't want to and don't have to. So I relax a bit more.
Yes I should have however I'd been recommended it by a friend who'd used it for a small area and i thought I had better than average DIY skills. I guess thats the problem with users reviews you need to be able to weight them up carefully using your existing skills/knowledge and as others have mentioned, use them to find out odd features/failings.
Good write up Saracen.
I read as many reviews as i can before buying product including the favorable and negative.I never been truly dissapointed buying a certain product after reading couple reviews becouse I do know what i need, want and/or what toexpect from it.I find many reviewers (endcustomers) apparently have no clue what they're actually after and this results in wrong/bad purchase for them, caused by their lack knowladge and indeed ignorance, resulting in nonfavorable review published on retailers web.
However, not all products are clearly ''labeled'' as what it can and what it can't and is why I pay attention to reviews, which in the end is actually less time consuming than getting the wrong product.
Cheers
http://xkcd.com/937/
I agree user ratings are to be taken with a pinch of salt - as in the link you can get a ton of good ratings because it looks nice or whatever, but the few negative reviews lost in the mass of positives show a true, major negative.
The opposite is also true, I see quite a lot on Amazon for instance, people leaving bad reviews for a game because it didn't arrive a day early after they pre-ordered it. Or giving the product a bad rating because the company was slow to dispatch or whatever.
But that's not to say popular reviewers are any good either. There's one who sticks out in my mind as being particularly incompetent and/or just greedy (wants free review samples) - a guy on Youtube. Something which particularly gets up my nose is his method of testing PSUs (plug into PC which nowhere near fully loads it, then use a cheap MM to measure rail voltages), giving even complete junk a good review, misleading people into buying rubbish. He doesn't do 'bad' reviews, at least none that I've seen, it's either 'kickass' or 'great'. He's was also doing 'advice' videos last time I checked, and he commonly either doesn't actually answer the question and/or quotes something from Wikipedia despite clearly knowing nothing about the subject so frequently gives very poor advice.
I am shocked that eBuyer does this. Filtering out all negative reviews so that everything they have can be sold?! Well, if you have dodgy stuff, return them eBuyer and get a refund.
Ebuyer have gone astray since the initial days it was born. I was actually the first forum member when their forums started ( excl. test accounts and accounts by ebuyer employees created before mine ). They used to be customer-focused. Nowdays they just dont care.
There's another side to it, as well.
If I review a product professionally, I'm not personally invested in it at all. I don't care whether it's good or bad, atrocious or wonderful. I get paid either way. But I've often come across user reviews where they seem to be psychologically incapable of admitting the product is anything but wonderful, because clearly, as they themselves are perfect, they couldn't possibly have bought a bad product. Therefore, because they bought it, their ego won't let them admit it's not the best product available. I've had that happen even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary.
But as a professional, I have not, of course, bought the product so there can be no personal investment in being right about that decision.
I've often suspected that that is the biggest single reason for being cautious about user reviews. Clearly, it does not apply to all users, but knowing when it does is next to impossible, until someone gets to the clearly irrational level of defence.
You'll see hints of that in nVidia v ATI arguments, Intel v AMD arguments, Apple v PC arguments, Epson v Canon arguments, Canon v Nikon arguments, and so on.
watercooled (10-12-2011)
Sure, there might be people that will never admit buying a bad product due to their ego but than again, if they're simply satisfied with the purchase, doesn't neccesarily make them fanboys when or if the price, durability, performance etc.. was nothing short of their demands.Than its likely that such product may recieve 5 stars, without any bias towards the brand as it could have been 1st time purchase based on opinions of couple reviewers and even if the product was not the best available ever, yet I'm happy enough with it, makes it most likely the best product for me.
Another big factor, IMO, is how people treat their products, as they seem to forget that nothing works for ever without any maintance whatsoever.If I was to buy a mountain bike and never bothered to oil its chain for example, I could't possibly expect it last more than a year.Yet it seems like one would go and blame the manufaturer for poor quality.
Btw- I do not work for ebuyer or any similar etailer
Last edited by Skywalker; 10-12-2011 at 06:57 PM.
watercooled (10-12-2011)
It's also worth noting that the vast majority of people who buy something won't leave a rating, so the ratings actually there are very likely negative-biased. Also, since the default rating people leave, due to politeness, is 5/5 i.e. better than average, even when the product is very average, just nothing badly wrong with it. So, you get a £20 no-name drill which does the job OK for the price, it gets 5 stars. But then you get a far better quality tool for £25 which has more torque, better battery life, metal gearbox, full set of high-quality bits and that ends up with the same 5/5 ratings despite being miles better. Someone looking only at the star rating would probably go for the cheaper one. Hence, the star rating system is inherently flawed when it comes to human reviewers. Which is probably why Youtube now use a simple like/dislike.
When reviewing products, very few people are in this position, especially in certain industries (comp hardware and gaming being two examples). Lots of companies will cherry pick who gets to review their products first, based on the ratings those reviewers have given previously - if you constantly state that one companies products are bad (because they are), then they'll put you at the bottom of the list. As a result, you don't get the web traffic your site needs to sustain itself, and hence a lot of websites will give an award to everything.
E.g. Gamespot giving Kane&Lynch a 6/10, even though the site was plastered in K&L advertising, and the reviewer getting a swift boot.
I'm lucky enough to not be in this position, reviewing for a site which companies can't ignore for long. I've only given one award given in 20+ products this year, because an award has to be something special, not given away.
٩(̾●̮̮̃̾•̃̾)۶
I remember a while back a PSU company, Huntkey IIRC, was trying to boycott HardwareSecrets and encourage other MFRs to do so. They would obviously be happier giving their products to someone who awards everything.
Edit: Fount it: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/937
Yep, overclockers are definately the same in this regard. Every review you submit that's glowing gets through, submit a few medeocre reviews (with no profanity etc), and they'll be rejected because of profanity.
It seems Ebuyers marketting has been poor recently lol :/
When I see bad reviews (typically on amazon and android market ) they seem to be written people who's inteligence lies somewhere between that of Peter Griffin and Slowpoke which is annoying. Good points where highlighted, and user reviews are useful, but yeah, it seems I've been relying on reviews an awful lot and should do it less. But yeah, good points highlighted in this post so I kinda removed what I wrote/.
Last edited by Nelsaidi; 12-12-2011 at 10:05 PM.
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