That's so dishonest!

[Akasa]

As some of you may recall I'm a writer. I got an assignment to write reviews for a company for a review website. That's right, the company wants me to write good reviews of their product for the site. In fact they hired 10 writers to write 10 reviews each for the site.

I don't use the product, or anything close so had to talk to people who use similar products to come up with things to say.

(I have to be vague.)

[Slayer]

That's pretty awful on their part. Hopefully the product is actually worthwhile or else a lot of people are going to get fooled.

[wolfie]

Review sites are SUPPOSED to be ordinary consumers letting people give feedback based on their OWN experiences. To pay someone to write a good review defeats the purpose. I hope the review sites find a way to catch "press releases disguised as reviews", then delete them - and post a PERMANENT warning that the manufacturer tried to boost its ratings by buying good reviews.

[KatherineB]

Review sites are SUPPOSED to be ordinary consumers letting people give feedback based on their OWN experiences. To pay someone to write a good review defeats the purpose. I hope the review sites find a way to catch "press releases disguised as reviews", then delete them - and post a PERMANENT warning that the manufacturer tried to boost its ratings by buying good reviews.

Sadly a lot of reviews on blogs and websites are pay-to-review. I was reading this article only the other week about it. A quick Google gave me the following about Amazon.

[mharbourgirl]

I generally assume that reviews on a product website should be taken with half a ton of salt or so. Just because it's so prevalent for sellers to put up 'glowing reviews' of their product in an effort to sell. If I want more trustworthy reviews, I go to other websites, like Amazon or consumer review sites.

[EricKei]

Ack, that sucks. I would say to document what they're making you do -- once you end up at another job (or even another firm that has you doing something similar in the future), you could slip a note to to the right person at the right place ...

[Flyndaran]

Ack, that sucks. I would say to document what they're making you do -- once you end up at another job (or even another firm that has you doing something similar in the future), you could slip a note to to the right person at the right place ...

I'm sure they must have had her sign a non-disclosure agreement. We don't want her breaking the law and opening herself up to a lawsuit.

[Akasa]

Yup pat of my contract with my company was a non-disclosure. I can't say who ANY of my clients are. From the blogs I write, to the reviews, to the reports.

[EricKei]

I was actually referring to an attorney, or an appropriate regulatory agency, if applicable. The former primarily to find out if doing the latter is allowed (a contract, or portion thereof, that violates the law is *generally* invalid...but check with a professional to see if it's legal or no)

[Hanzoku]

It's fairly common indeed. I've seen job offers for this sort of thing a lot on eLance and other writing sites.

Generally I read the reviews and try to pick out those ones that sound like the person actually knows what they're talking about, but I also read every last negative review to figure out what went wrong with the product and if the company did/could do anything to solve it.

[PepperElf]

I was actually referring to an attorney, or an appropriate regulatory agency, if applicable. The former primarily to find out if doing the latter is allowed (a contract, or portion thereof, that violates the law is *generally* invalid...but check with a professional to see if it's legal or no)

i would think that such reviews - even if they were lies - would be covered under the 1A. I mean if the company said "This product will give you x-ray vision" and it's not true then sure, that's illegal, but if a customer/reviewer says it... that could be allowable, cos it could be taken as sarcasm. (I'm thinking of some of the funny reviews we've seen Raps post *grin*)


The trick might be... not whether or not it's illegal, but whether or not it violates the TOS for the website the review goes up on.

For example - I *KNOW* PFB & M3C have both gotten hit by these. Often the "reviews" sound like advertisements, or it's a review for Company-We've-Never-Heard-Of before... and suddenly 5 or 6 people reply within a couple of hours, all with identical glowing compliments for the same company.

Only to end up deleted.


which brings up an interesting question... do they still get paid if the reviews get pulled for violating website TOS?

[Akasa]

I just know I'm getting paid about $20 for the 500 words worth of reviews I did.

[mhkohne]

It's fairly common indeed. I've seen job offers for this sort of thing a lot on eLance and other writing sites.

Generally I read the reviews and try to pick out those ones that sound like the person actually knows what they're talking about, but I also read every last negative review to figure out what went wrong with the product and if the company did/could do anything to solve it.

Yea, you have to read the negs quite carefully sometimes - I not infrequently find reviews where the person was trying to use a product well beyond it's intended limits, then getting annoyed when that doesn't work.

[Seshat]

I thoroughly read the negative reviews for my book. The second edition of it has some improvements based on those reviews (eg, more examples, and some additional subsections).

However, several of the negative reviews basically said 'this book isn't what I wanted it to be'. No, but it's what it says it is. Read the back cover, read the introductory chapter, read the 'about this book' section on websites (basically, the back cover info).

Or worse, 'I had to think for myself and actually learn stuff, the book didn't magically solve my problems for me'. Uh... my name isn't Hermione Granger.


Anyway: my experience as a product manufacturer (author!) is that some negative reviews are worthwhile, some are based on the customer expecting something other than what you offer; and some are just plain unreasonable.