Review website

[bruncher]

The business of website x is to offer opportunities for 1. participating businesses to invite, obtain and publish reviews of their goods or services and 2. for consumers to (a) write reviews of companies and their goods and services, and (b) to read reviews to help assess the company and whether to do business with them.

It has come to my attention that website x removes negative reviews, at the behest of the companies that are reviewed. The reason given is that they are checking the veracity of the particular review e.g. did the reviewer actually transact business with the company reviewed.

One of my reviews has been removed - for more than two weeks - even though I submitted invoices as requested by website x. The compliance department cannot be contacted by phone.

If I suspect that x is removing genuine reviews in order to please it's paying customers (the companies offering themselves for review), then this is potentially an abuse of their professed remit - offering a website of genuine reviews. Does anyone think that the Advertising Standards Authority or the Competition and Markets Authority could be persuaded to take an interest in this?

[dspp]

This goes on a lot on some sites, such as bucking.com, trickadvisor, gaggle, and others. As a result it is not possible to post a genuinely bad review on these sites. Instead one has to smuggle warnings into the review for the benefit of others.

I have disguised the examples to spare the blushes of TLF lawyers.

I say go for it and please keep us informed.

Regards, dspp

[stevensfo]

This goes on a lot on some sites, such as bucking.com, trickadvisor, gaggle, and others. As a result it is not possible to post a genuinely bad review on these sites. Instead one has to smuggle warnings into the review for the benefit of others.

I have disguised the examples to spare the blushes of TLF lawyers.

I say go for it and please keep us informed.

Regards, dspp

Yes, not only this, but I believe that websites often get family and friends, their dogs and cats etc to write glowing reviews. It's really quite difficult to find trustworthy review sites these days.

What I sometimes do is to write a poor review in a very polite and diplomatic tone and starting off quite positive, so that at first glance it looks fine, but on closer reading you realise what it's actually saying.

Steve

[Steveam]

My sister owns a tea shop and regularly gets reviews on Tripadvisor. The reviews are generally fine but you’ll inevitably get the odd customer for whom things didn’t work. My sister replies to the review - politely - and that’s an end of it. On a couple of occasions she’s had real issues:

- one review described the problem with the stairs going up to the pokey upstairs room ... she doesn’t have an upstairs. She wrote to the author and Tripadvisor to get the review removed and it took forever and Tripadvisor were very loath to remove the review.

- she has had numerous people take her to one side and say that they’ll give her a good review if she gives them a discount - she always declines. One person then said something like you’ll suffer for it and over the next three months she had half a dozen damning reviews all from people who had only done this one review.

The point I’m trying to make is that this review stuff can be a double edged sword. Tripadvisor don’t remove reviews easily.

Best wishes,

Steve

[bungeejumper]

Haha, there are two car body repair workshops in our town, and I needed one last year to fix my paintwork after I reversed into the church railings while avoiding an oncoming dustcart that wasn't going to give way for anyone. Soooooo.....

One of them had 150-odd Tosspillock (or similar) reviews, which is really quite a lot for a small-town panel basher. And all but about half a dozen of those reviews were five stars (the rest were four stars), and they all said what an amazing chap the proprietor was, and how reasonable his prices were. So I went down there, and he lost no time in telling me to get my [expletive deleted] car off his forecourt right away because somebody else might want to come through. Where should I move it to, I asked? He said he didn't care, frankly - just get it off his premises.

Yes, this smooth talker had a real grasp of customer relations. Then he quoted me almost twice what the other guy in town was asking, and said it would be at least two months, and I'd better book my place fast while I had the chance.

Now, the odd thing about this guy's five star reviews was that a large proportion of their grateful authors were making exactly the same spelling mistakes! I wonder how that could possibly have happened?

The other guy got my business. Prompt, courteous, excellent job. Three and a half stars, mainly because there were a couple of stinkers among them. Badly spelled stinkers.....

BJ

[Clitheroekid]

Providing fake reviews for a price is now a substantial industry, as this site quite blatantly demonstrates - https://reviewsthatstick.com/

My sister owns a tea shop and regularly gets reviews on Tripadvisor. The reviews are generally fine but you’ll inevitably get the odd customer for whom things didn’t work.

She can soon drown them out by availing herself of this lot's dodgy services - https://reviewsthatstick.com/tripadvisor/

It's particularly nauseating that they are offering a package for doctors - one review for each of 5 well known review sites for $95. One can't help wondering what sort of doctor would be using these packages and how many of their patients suffer as a result.

I find it really quite depressing that such businesses are allowed to advertise their corrupt services via Google and other search engines, and that none of the review companies mentioned on their website appear to take any action to stop them.

[AF62]

One of them had 150-odd Tosspillock (or similar) reviews...
And all but about half a dozen of those reviews were five stars (the rest were four stars)
...
Now, the odd thing about this guy's five star reviews was that a large proportion of their grateful authors were making exactly the same spelling mistakes! I wonder how that could possibly have happened?

The other issue with Tosspillock (or similar) is it is remarkably easy for any business to get reviews removed if they don't like them - hence no 1 or 2 star reviews.

[JohnB]

Lendy and its detractors had a battle royale on TotallyPerfect before it went bust. TP seemed to have some honour, but Lendy reported anything that could possibly be challenged.

[UncleEbenezer]

Couple of months ago I was pleasantly surprised by the effect of posting a less-than-glowing review on a mainstream review site. This for a vendor who solicits reviews there.

After I posted a two-star review I got a call from the merchant. They apologised for messing up on the delivery (despite it not having been a problem), and also followed up by posting instructions for fixing the stiffness I had mentioned in adjusting my shutters. I'm sure I owe them another star for that followup, but they don't need it, and the rate of reviews is such that noone will see mine unless explicitly looking for it.

I bought plantation shutters for my kitchen, whose window faces the public pavement outside.

The good: the shutters arrived, they look good, fit nicely and do the job. I can get privacy by adjusting the lower slats to opaque, while keeping the upper slats well-opened.

The niggling: Adjusting the slats is quite a lot stiffer than it should be, or than my dad's plantation shutters. It needs a slight level of force that'll surely lead to wear-and-tear on the whole installation.

The rather bad: they gave no notice of delivery. It was pure coincidence I was at home to receive my surprise consignment two days earlier than the date estimated when I placed my order.

The truly ugly: they signed me up to a spam list without consent. I've had to delete the email address I gave them.

[JohnB]

A TP bot has rejected a bad review of my of EDF, and I cannot get through to a person to reinstate it. Even if I do, I think I will delete my account and all my reviews, and never refer to them again.

[dspp]

My sister owns a tea shop and regularly gets reviews on Tripadvisor. The reviews are generally fine but you’ll inevitably get the odd customer for whom things didn’t work. My sister replies to the review - politely - and that’s an end of it. On a couple of occasions she’s had real issues:

- one review described the problem with the stairs going up to the pokey upstairs room ... she doesn’t have an upstairs. She wrote to the author and Tripadvisor to get the review removed and it took forever and Tripadvisor were very loath to remove the review.

- she has had numerous people take her to one side and say that they’ll give her a good review if she gives them a discount - she always declines. One person then said something like you’ll suffer for it and over the next three months she had half a dozen damning reviews all from people who had only done this one review.

The point I’m trying to make is that this review stuff can be a double edged sword. Tripadvisor don’t remove reviews easily.

Best wishes,

Steve

For some reason large businesses seem to be able to get critical reviews removed easily on Tripadvisor. Unfortunately that applies to Best Western - a particular hotel I am occasionally forced to use springs to mind. Personally I give small businesses much more slack.

regards, dspp

[bruncher]

Thought I would come back to report that TP did re-instate my negative but accurate review. BUT it took them a month!

I do not know what the delay was caused by, as the department I needed only communicates by email.

It seems to be easy for the business I reviewed to challenge negative reviews, but not for punters to challenge positive 'too good to be true' reviews.

BTW the Advertising Standards Authority were useless: "The webpage you complained about is not covered by the Advertising Rules because the advertiser is based and registered in Denmark. We can only investigate ads if the advertiser is based in the UK or are using a UK third-party platform for the placing of the ad in question so unfortunately, we’re unable to pursue this matter directly in this instance."

The fact that the business I reviewed is based in UK, that it operates solely in the UK, that the transactions between us were in the UK, that the TP UK site is solely addressed to people using businesses in the UK etc I was referred to the Danish version of ASA, who have yet to respond (presumably there are reasons why this matter will also be conveniently outside their remit)

[JohnB]

TP never got back to me about my bot-suspended review. I deleted my account.