Why do people do this? Aaaaaaaah

[Battleaxebus]

Why do people review products when they haven't fucking used them? It is the fucking height of unreasonableness.

I'm looking for shelving brackets - I know my life is too exciting to handle.

Amazon is awash with people who say things like:
"Haven't used them yet but they look good"
"Not opened them but they look sturdy"
"Arrived quickly, look good"

WHY?! WHY?! When Amazon emails and asks you to review your purchase a couple of days after it arrives, that's not a fucking order from God to do it there and then.

Just wait, use the produce and THEN review. FUCKERS

or people who leave 1/2 star reviews on recipes that say "turned out rubbish. I didn't have any self raising flour so used plain, didn't have any caster sugar so used granulated. Didn't rise and tasted awful, terrible recipe, don't waste ur time"

Every. Single. Vegetarian recipe on BBC Good Food has a load of people who have made it non-vegetarian by adding a load of meat (usually bacon) and then they review that. It's a different sodding dish now!

@toomuchtoold

"don't worry about reliability, they're all pretty reliable. Just have a browse in John Lewis and pick something you like the look of."

Browse in John Lewis.... HAD to be a MNer

Laista Howled with laughter

I read tons of reviews for products I never intend to buy, just to see the broad spectrum of humanity they showcase. I'd have had no idea how many absolute idiots there were in the world without these reviews.

I feel the same about TripAdvisor comments - I love reading the one star reviews because they are often full of such amazing cluelessness/unreasonableness from either the business or the reviewer (or both). I greatly mourn the apparent demise of tripadvisaargh.tumblr.com

Ah, that one's been linked to on MN before! I was just about to start looking for it

There's also a good one about pink Bik biros, which is worth reading.

Vis a vis book reviews on Amazon. I'm not awfully interested in what other people think about the books as I have no idea what those people look for in a book. They may be satisfied with Charlie and Lola, or find Sartre too simplistic - I could waste hours checking out their other reviews which will probably include lots of toys, games, household stuff that I'm not interested in.

I read the adult fiction threads here on MN instead. Much better.

"I loved my last toaster - it was the best toaster I'd EVER used, it was absolutely perfect in every way, and I was so sad when it finally gave up the ghost after 20 years of sterling service. I thought that this one looked quite good as a replacement and I couldn't believe how low the price was, so I took a punt and bought it. Well, what can I say: the last one was amazing, but this one is, without a shadow of a doubt, ten times better even than that. I can't stress how perfect it is in every single way. Carling don't make toasters, but if they did.... etc. etc."

"Four Stars."

So how could it possibly have earned the fifth star, then? Are you bitterly disappointed because it didn't sprout little legs, take a jaunty walk to your local bank branch, open its little toastie-pocket wallet and pay your mortgage off in full for you?!

Anyway, five stars is meant to be the norm and the starting expectation and a product should only lose stars for shortcomings. Anything less than five stars means that there's room for improvement - which doesn't seem to be the case here at all, going on your glowing review.

And as for the people who don't realise how the stars work and somehow seem to think that, defying all innate simple logic, one star means the best....

"Sooo, sooo glad I bought this - it does everything I wanted and more and I could not be more thrilled by it. One star."

Did they watch THAT infamous episode of Going Live, listen to the caller's somewhat negative 'review' of the band Five Star, put two and two together and assume that the band had chosen their name owing to their unanimous belief (not to mention unscrupulous honesty) that they were really rubbish?!

It's amusing in a way, but I feel very sorry for some of the smaller Marketplace sellers and suppliers who work hard to develop and select excellent products so that they can earn an honest living delighting their customers with top quality at very reasonable prices - and then, because of clowns like this, they get shunted right down the listings and, even if people do actually see their item in the listings, most will see the rating and scroll swiftly on by without bothering to click to look any further.

Why do people do this? Aaaaaaaah

^^THIS, by the bucketload. YY - top-quality, extremely-well thought-out OP. You put into words so perfectly what EVERYBODY is thinking.

One star

This thread is actually so funny

A lot of the time I find the one star reviews just say "No idea, item never arrived" FFS

Have seen a few reviews for toys/video games where parents say they hate it because of sound/sending kids crazy etc, then add at the end 'my kid says it's the best!!' (5 star)

www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/woman-slams-lusty-glaze-beach-2017539

Review complaining about a rock in the sea and ‘something should be done about it ‘

Was it trip adviser where someone booked a holiday to Majorca but the plane took them to Mallorca which was nice but not where they wanted to be?

@Laiste you had me at ‘elderly Rastafarian’ !

Now going to find all his reviews on amazon! Thank you!

AintNobodyHereButUsChickens what's wrong with that as a book review? Or is the picture?
We stayed in a log cabin in the forest, one of the reviews was th at the wildlife was too noisy

I should image its because amazon emails you demanding a review after purchase and keeps emailing you. Delivery is still a review. Just ignore those ones.

sashh You just nearly made me choke!!!!! Excellent!

Ooo my favourite:

Reviewed in September
Item purchased in September

Bought for my neighbour's grandsons's girlfriend's goldfish for Christmas. Sure they will love it.

So you've probably not even opened it never mind used it. Helpful.

Not so much reviews, but Amazons "Ask a question" feature - where you can post a question about the product to (hopefully) be answered by someone using it.

It's getting less than funny now to see a question asked (which is probably one I might be interested in) and then drop down 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, posts of people saying Haven't used that feature, so can't say.

It's almost as if they fell they've been asked the question personally and it's up to them to save the internet.

The amount of useless noise online is growing faster than the amount of useful content. Eventually we are going to hit shit overload, and you won't find anything useful anymore.

My other pet hate is people whose review is unrelated to the product.

I can only give this one star because it wasn't delivered on time

I fucking hate this shit. What possesses someone to review something they haven’t even used yet?! Amazon should delete them.

But surely both the product, and the service of the shop/supplier are relevant.

So "product was good, but unfortunately arrived after the event for which I needed it, because the supplier sent it to the wrong bloody address" is useful info - it tells other buyers "yes, this is worth buying, but for fuck's sake, buy it from someone else, not this bunch of clowns."

But surely both the product, and the service of the shop/supplier are relevant.

Not in the same space though. One bad delivery shouldn't eclipse 2,000+ good reviews ? Given that the review form does allow for separate scores for delivery, product information and packaging anyway.