I had a seller try to pull this shit on Amazon a few years ago. I had bought a wrist rest for my keyboard, the one I’m tolerating at this very second in fact. Amazon’s pages have a stark white background, the wrist rest was black. Even if details came through in the picture, the background of the page would wash it out. I wanted a simple straight wrist rest. This one has what I can only describe as a waist; the part your right hand would rest on is narrower and thus less supportive than the ends. I gave it a 3-star review stating such. The solution I’ve found is to turn it around so it’s facing “backwards” and that puts the narrowest part in between my hands.
The seller emails me asking if there’s anything they can do to make it right. So far, we’re okay. I just say no, it’s not worth bothering with on my end. They kept getting pushier about changing my review to 5 stars until I contacted Amazon about it.
Somewhere, be it Amazon themselves via the almighty algorithm, or the dropshippers themselves, there is a disconnect from reality. 5-star reviews carry no information, even if they are specific and detailed, the practice of paying or compensating for them is so common that you can just flush them down the toilet with the rest of the piss. It’s the low end that carries the information. I have chosen to buy products based on their 1-star reviews.
For example, I’m invested in the Craftsman V20 power tool system. I went to buy the power inverter they sell for it, that lets you run normal electrical things off of drill batteries, has a NEMA15 socket and a couple USB ports on it. The negative reviews were mostly “Doesn’t run my space heater. Would rate 0 stars if I could. Returned.” I couldn’t find a negative review of the product that didn’t boil down to “I don’t know what 150 watts max means.” Not a problem with the product, it’s a problem with people being ignorant. I bought, and am happy with, the tool.
On the other hand, I went to buy a pocket flashlight, I looked at the negative reviews and many of them said some variation on “tail switch broke after 4 or 5 months.” Ah, this model has a common mode of early failure, I’ll move on.
Honestly when I’m dubious of the quality of a product, I look for the negative reviews. If the only negative reviews are people clearly being dumb or really minor gripes, I take that as a good sign. If there are very few or no negative reviews, that’s a red flag that something fishy is going on.
I genuinely don’t know if there’s some Amazon policy or if they have an algorithm or whatever, or if people are just dumb enough to think anything other than 5 star reviews chase customers away.
A product with no negative reviews at all…you’re telling me your QC is perfect, no one got a defective one, all of them survived shipping okay, it was never the wrong size or color, it perfectly met everyone’s expectations, and none of your customers are pavement chewing morons?
Here’s a mystery for you: Jorgensen’s website. They sell carpentry clamps, plus an increasing line of hand tools. They’ve got a #4 smoothing plane that manages to be in the mid-range. You either get $20 pieces of useless shit from Harbor Freight, or $400 pieces of jewelry from Lie Nielson, and here comes Jorgensen with a $70 pretty okay plane. On their website, there’s not even a section for reviews on the #4’s page. They have announced a #5 jack plane, it’s not out yet, there’s a section for reviews there. With 5-star reviews “looking forward” to the product.
I had a seller try to pull this shit on Amazon a few years ago. I had bought a wrist rest for my keyboard, the one I’m tolerating at this very second in fact. Amazon’s pages have a stark white background, the wrist rest was black. Even if details came through in the picture, the background of the page would wash it out. I wanted a simple straight wrist rest. This one has what I can only describe as a waist; the part your right hand would rest on is narrower and thus less supportive than the ends. I gave it a 3-star review stating such. The solution I’ve found is to turn it around so it’s facing “backwards” and that puts the narrowest part in between my hands.
The seller emails me asking if there’s anything they can do to make it right. So far, we’re okay. I just say no, it’s not worth bothering with on my end. They kept getting pushier about changing my review to 5 stars until I contacted Amazon about it.
Somewhere, be it Amazon themselves via the almighty algorithm, or the dropshippers themselves, there is a disconnect from reality. 5-star reviews carry no information, even if they are specific and detailed, the practice of paying or compensating for them is so common that you can just flush them down the toilet with the rest of the piss. It’s the low end that carries the information. I have chosen to buy products based on their 1-star reviews.
For example, I’m invested in the Craftsman V20 power tool system. I went to buy the power inverter they sell for it, that lets you run normal electrical things off of drill batteries, has a NEMA15 socket and a couple USB ports on it. The negative reviews were mostly “Doesn’t run my space heater. Would rate 0 stars if I could. Returned.” I couldn’t find a negative review of the product that didn’t boil down to “I don’t know what 150 watts max means.” Not a problem with the product, it’s a problem with people being ignorant. I bought, and am happy with, the tool.
On the other hand, I went to buy a pocket flashlight, I looked at the negative reviews and many of them said some variation on “tail switch broke after 4 or 5 months.” Ah, this model has a common mode of early failure, I’ll move on.
Honestly when I’m dubious of the quality of a product, I look for the negative reviews. If the only negative reviews are people clearly being dumb or really minor gripes, I take that as a good sign. If there are very few or no negative reviews, that’s a red flag that something fishy is going on.
I genuinely don’t know if there’s some Amazon policy or if they have an algorithm or whatever, or if people are just dumb enough to think anything other than 5 star reviews chase customers away.
A product with no negative reviews at all…you’re telling me your QC is perfect, no one got a defective one, all of them survived shipping okay, it was never the wrong size or color, it perfectly met everyone’s expectations, and none of your customers are pavement chewing morons?
Here’s a mystery for you: Jorgensen’s website. They sell carpentry clamps, plus an increasing line of hand tools. They’ve got a #4 smoothing plane that manages to be in the mid-range. You either get $20 pieces of useless shit from Harbor Freight, or $400 pieces of jewelry from Lie Nielson, and here comes Jorgensen with a $70 pretty okay plane. On their website, there’s not even a section for reviews on the #4’s page. They have announced a #5 jack plane, it’s not out yet, there’s a section for reviews there. With 5-star reviews “looking forward” to the product.
Idea cancer much?
Username checks out in the best possible way.
Oh this is possibly my least aggravated.
Fair 'nuff