To never trust NETMUMS REVIEWS AGAIN!

[totallyrandom]

I wanted to share with others, my experience with netmums, partly to see if anyone else has a similar story to tell but also to avoid others having to go through the same thing.

My family moved to Bromley recently so I searched for a local gardener on Netmums. There was one gardener, who only had positive reviews. In fact he had dozens of RAVE reviews. As there were no negative comments as such, I RELIED on the integrity of netmums as a website. I chose this gardener over another gardener that DH had found through a friend (you can imagine what that conversation was like...)

Sadly I was disappointed with the work done, despite giving the gardener the benefit of doubt all the way through the job. I left a negative review on Netmums, simply listing in chronological order what had happened.

Said gardener rebutted my negative review on Netmums and made some untrue comments (e.g. that he had worked for me for free and that I hadn't paid him - of course I have bank transfers to prove the contrary). Netmums have now completely removed my negative feedback and the rebuttal and stated "Netmums have removed a review which the listing owner feels is defamatory" (being a lawyer myself I know that "truth" is a defence to any accusation of libel!). In the mean time, another Netmums and Mumsnet user has contacted me to say the same thing happened to her regarding her negative review. Once again there are just lots of RAVE reviews on Mumsnet.

So it seems that Netmums let the companies who advertise with them request the removal of negative reviews at the cost of new people moving to the area/innocent Netmum users who think the reviews on there are given by genuine local mums/women. Nobody is checking that any positive reviews are genuine! I have reason to suspect that (i) some of the positive reviews are not genuine and/or (ii) the gardener knows someone on the local Netmums board.

I do not want a similar thing to happen to another innocent consumer (who gained false comfort from the reviews on the Netmums website and was INDUCED into a service contract as a result of that)! The Netmums website is misleading. They are incentivised to keep the people who advertise with them "happy", at the cost of consumers. I had falsely thought that Netmums is about mothers and others communicating their honest thoughts about e.g. local services (rather than it being primarily driven by advertising revenue for Netmums).

(1) Has anyone got the email address of the CEO of Netmums?

(2) Was I just being naive to not realise that this is the reality of Netmums' reviews?

I would say not allowing negative reviews goes along with what appears to be NM editorial policy. Just like you can't disagree with a mod or fucking swear.

They think they are creating Internet Utopia.

They don't seem to realise Justine at al already did.

True, how can you expect any honesty on a site that is so heavily moderated and censored?

I always take reviews with a HUGE pinch of salt, wherever they are.

Even so, if a site insists on removing negative reviews purely on the basis that they're not glowing, then they should remove all reviews for that trader/book/whatever. Otherwise aren't they misrepresenting themselves, as well as their advertisers?

I don't think it's unreasonable to raise the issue here tbh; assuming this is true then any thread stating the same will last seconds on NM. Obv. it puts MN in an awkward position though.

Oh and wrt mums being more trustworthy; I don't think it's that mothers are more trustworthy, but if a site represents a community then it's reasonable for people to have a little more faith in them.

Same goes for owners club sites, sites for iguana owners, fan club sites... obv. MM and NM are huge in comparison to most of those however.

We need TrowelAdvisor like we have TripAdvisor for holidays and restaurants.

I never trusted those NetMums, their eyes were too close together.

OP someone upthread mentioned Qype, it is a very good review site and if a service hasn't got a page already then you can make them one. You can also upload photos and be honest. It's very good, I use it religiously!

and Reading this has reminded me of a review of a hair salon I wrote back in May, about a dreadful cut I'd had previously. At the time there were no other reviews.

Having just checked, there are now seven 5* reviews, nearly all extolling the skills of the head stylist who was the one who massacred my barnet. All very similar in style, all either fake or written by a carefully selected sample of customers some more!

I agree that this is very useful information that you are right to share, OP. I trust tripadvisor all the time and I would be very disappointed if I thought that they ever removed negative reviews and the same goes for any site that posts reviews.
No point in doing it if they are moderated.

I have started only using traders I have found using the Buy With Confidence National Scheme website . All of the traders on there are vetted by Trading Standards who administer the scheme and it's not run for profit if you read the blurb. www.buywithconfidence.gov.uk Having used it myself several times now I can honestly say tradespeople on there are not necessarily the cheapest but are completely reliable.