To accept a bribe?

[smellyhouseelf]

Last week I bought a gift for my niece online. Then I received an email promising me another free one if I gave them a good review. Anyone had this before? Would you give a good review? It has to be before midnight tonight and I won’t be giving the gift until next week so I have no idea if it’s any good. I generally don’t review anything or pay much attention to reviews when I buy. How much do you believe reviews?

But reviewing the service is still being misleading isn't it - it will come up in the number of stars which people use as a guide. Its still not being honest - and I suspect you know that. Would you do that if you weren't being paid £35? No.

You're clearly wrestling with the morals of it - £35 is quite a cheap price to give up on those ethics?

aaarrrggghhhh It's not lying. There's no reason the OP can't leave an honest review and still get the free gift. It's not at all uncommon and she's not being asked to lie. I imagine a lot of people don't bother to review their purchases and this is an incentive to bother. I would never leave a dishonest review, free gift or no free gift, but I would have no problem with this, it's just marketing.

Ok, so you have it, it's good, it's what you bought, it's worth its money and if you say so on the review you get another one.

Meh, that's not a bribe. You would be giving that review anyway. It's an incentive to give a review.

Personally I wouldn't. It sounds dodgy to me. Number one I bet you don't receive another one for free even if you do review, and number two, who are they so desperate for positive reviews? What is wrong with the product that they need to email customers and beg?

I had an Ebay seller get quite aggressive with me, wanting me to leave a positive review for them. Kept emailing me. Would never do business with them again.

I would only give it a good review if it is actually good.. if you are going to get a freebie then definitely do it. If it's rubbish though I wouldn't give it a good review as that is unfair on future customers.

I wouldn't consider this a bribe. What you have here is just a very basic version of brand-management. All those bloggers and vloggers that apparently 'swear by' certain items have been paid a tidy sum to endorse them.

Personally I couldn't get my knickers in a twist over something like this. It's not an ethical dilemma nor does it need excursive reasoning. Either leave a review or don't. Either way you won't have committed a crime against humanity.

InsomniacAnonymous - it hasn't been used yet? And leaving a review about the delivery is clearly disingenuous.

And it is human nature to be influenced by a payment such as this - that is why its being offered. To influence a good review.

It's dodge.

It's not lying in the particular but it skews the system and makes reviewing less useful and less honest as a whole.

If it's the item they want reviewing - write the review. Then once they've sent the free item edit your review to say what you really think and add in that the seller (ideally, name them) offered you a free item for a good review so that people can take all that information into account when reading.

If the seller wants you to review them then do so and once they've sent the free item forward the email they sent you offering the bribe to Amazon so that Amazon can better ensure the integrity of the system.

I had this once from a US company on Amazon who tried to get around Amazon's anti-bribing rules by just asking me to "change" my (3 star) product review without specifying that it needed to be improved in return for a $20 refund. So I changed the review to say they had offered to pay me for reviewing and that I thought people should be circumspect when reading the other rave reviews. They protested that that wasn't what they'd meant, but they provided the $20.

I'd do it if the product is good.

No, I wouldn’t. Sounds like a good ploy to get good reviews to me, they’d be out of business quickly if they gave every good reviewer another item for free!

Would you do that if you weren't being paid £35? No.
Currently shopping around for a new car seat for DD, the amount of reviews that say things like ‘bought for my son and daughter in law who are expecting their first child, grandson not born yet but they were thrilled with the gift, 5 stars’... maybe I’m very naive but they seem like genuine reviews, and obviously are completely useless! So I very much disagree that people don’t write reviews about products they haven’t used.

But personally I don’t see anything wrong with leaving a review if it’s 100% truthful, I do see how that skews the whole system. However so many companies do this, and in the era of all the Instagram vloggers who make careers out of getting free stuff and raving about it, I think we’re fighting a losing battle so why shouldn’t the OP get her free toy if she’s morally ok with it?!

Jesus, it’s an Amazon review not a court of law. Lie away.

I wouldn't be surprised if the plan is - get you to write a positive review, find out item is rubbish and not receive the freebie. As you've posted a positive review you won't be able to get a refund.

Trying this hard for a review that most won't bother reading on Amazon, there has to be more to it.

I decided to just go for it but without lying. So I said ‘excellent service, arrived quickly, product looks as good as advertised, hopefully my niece will love it.’
Now I’ll wait and see what happens next.

"Trying this hard for a review that most won't bother reading on Amazon, there has to be more to it."

Many people sort by product rating on Amazon. This basically sorts by the number of stars and then the number of reviews. So lots of 5-star reviews are going to push the product up the sort order and bring it to the attention of more shoppers, even if they don't read the actual review.

And by the way I must be naive, I had no idea that this buying reviews was a thing. It will definitely make me pay less attention to how many stars an item has in future!

Because you are lying to other people who might not have much money and buy it based on the strength of the reviews. It's not right. Especially when you've not tried it.

I didn’t mention the quality of the product at all in the review. I was entirely honest.

Yeah but even if you didn't mention the quality it still affects the star rating - which affects listing and can influence people's purchasing.

Why else would they be prepared to pay £35 if it DIDNT influence people's purchasing? Of course it does have an influence.

So while your literal statements may be true the overall impression that you have created is misleading.

This is why there is bucket loads of consumer protection legislation (which is still inadequate).

How would you feel if say Virgin did this about their mobile phone coverage?

Yeah sure its very small scale but misleading advertising all adds up and overall is incredibly damaging to individuals and to the economy as a whole.

So - its still dodge.

Well my freebie arrived today! I can’t quite believe it but it did!

Well - not really a freebie though. Your payment for leaving a review arrived.

Honestly its this kind of low level lack of integrity that all ads up.

It used to be fine to offer free products in exchange for reviews on Amazon, BUT you had to state it was free for the review purpose and still give an honest review. I’m sure amazon stopped allowing this though, around a year ago as part of updated community guidelines.

My job heavily involves amazon customer service.

Millions of social media users do this every day

heartyrebel indeed they do - doesn't make it right.

There is a reason why there is lots of law and regulation around the representations that companies can make around marketing. Just because the law hasn't evolved/can't cover this doesn't make it right.

People do lots of crappy things every day which drags society down just a smidge and creates the murky system that there is today.

There are so many bloggers out there trying, some succeeding, in making a living out of doing exactly this. Companies spend millions on paying these so called influencers to praise their stuff on instagram and other platforms. #liketkit #linkinbio This is just one of the ways ‘advertising’ works these days, some people may not like it but demonstrates a changing landscape, not a low level lack of integrity.

OP, glad they accepted your completely truthful praise of delivery etc. review and you got your freebie. Pretty sure you haven’t damaged the economy (major lols at that suggestion, if the FTSE crashes on Monday we know who to blame) and hope your kids enjoy the toy!