Amazon reviews from grandparents

[notdaddycool]

AIBU to discount and hate Amazon reviews saying "I bought this for my grandson and he loves it" 90% of them will have based that on a polite child's thank you letter. Takes so bloody long to read through them, of course you say a gift is nice, even if it's really rubbish.

Quite often, you get asked to review a product that you’ve only just received, or that was a gift, so can’t really comment on it, but they keep sending nagging emails, which is really annoying.

@Ithinkim

I know several people who get laid to live good reviews on Amazon. Don't take any notice of them.

So that's why all those grandparents are writing reviews - where do I sign up?

Lol I thought exactly the same OP but thought I was just being grumpy

The bit in the Veet review about the gay snowman

Authors must need a really thick skin these days. Some readers seem to think that all novels are rubbish, or at least, too hard.

I enjoy the reviews on Trip Advisor. My favourite so far was by some wally who was on holiday in Iceland. He booked an excursion to some natural hot springs, didn’t think to bring a towel, then moaned like mad that towels were not provided. By whom, the elves?

@andawaywego - thank you for the link, those reviews made me laugh out loud

I got offered a incentive to post a review so did the whole annoying it's a gift thing in a review because I wanted the voucher.

@HereBeFuckery

Thing is, Amazon (and many other places) BADGER you for reviews about 17 seconds after delivery. If they waited a little while, the reviews would be so much more valuable. Asking me if a hot water bottle is good the day it arrives is stupid. Ask me in a months' time.

I have been known to leave sarcastic 'my time machine is broken so I have no idea how good this is' reviews out of irritation.

if only reviews were optional and people could choose to not do a review until they felt they could objectively comment on the item they had bought.

I don't think I've ever reviewed anything, and I certainly wouldn't review something I haven't even used yet. Plus reading most reviews only leads me to the conclusion that most of them are meaningless anyway.

Annoying yes but I can see where they are coming from. I bought a lot of Christmas presents from a small gift shop that are doing online shopping for the first year. They send you and individual email for each item asking you to leave a review and saying how important it is for their business. This is despite I have made two orders.

I know Amazon is not the same but some people could feel pressurised.

Paid!! Not laid.

@Ithinkim

I know several people who get laid to live good reviews on Amazon. Don't take any notice of them.

And how does one get into that line of work? Asking for a friend obviously

Judgemental much! Do you also say “OK Boomer”?
Guess what- it is possible to make your own mind up, but as a Grandparent, what would I know? 🤷‍♀️

I voted YABU, not just for the blatant ageism but that you are buying from Amazon.

‘Not opened yet because it’s a gift but it looks great’ - those ones always make me roll my eyes.

When you see the number of people answering the questions with 'I don't, I bought it as a gift' etc, is it any wonder that so many (old?) people get scammed online? Do they really think that potential customer #500000 for a random paw patrol umbrella has sought them out somehow to directly email to ask if its the right size for a 3yr old?
I despair at times.

As for reviews, they are almost useless now that so many are fake. It used to be al you had to do was read some of the 5 star and some of the 1 star reviews, filtering the out the dafties who gave 1 star because the postman hid the parcel in their wheelie bin and the ones who give 5 stars but admit to not having opened it yet, then you'd have a pretty good idea whether it was any good or not

I think the answers to questions are hilarious as mentioned above. I always wondered why they replied until one day I had an email from Amazon along the lines of, userABC asked X, can you help?

I realised then people must get these emails and think they’ve been personally emailed which makes it even funnier!

@WizardofAus... As I was reading this, Veet came to my mind too. This still causes hysterical laughter in my house, despite being around for a while now. Thanks for posting the link, it's time to revisit!

Reviewers who post real life photos are the real hero’s.

oh yes op it winds me right up

im sure they'll love it or havent read it yet heard its good imean wtf

I was reading a review for an iPad case where the grandparent said their grandson had broken 3 iPads that they had bought him but they’re sure this case would prevent breakage of the fourth one they bought

And YY to the Veet reviews, DH and I love those!

I hate the:

"Not used it yet but delivery was quick".

My experience is that people who've bought something for a present give it three stars, as if that's some kind of neutral way of saying "No idea one way or the other" as opposed to what it really means: the quality of this item is only 60% of what I expected it to be, thus confirmed as far from decent.

I also hate it when people give three or four stars for something boring that nevertheless is of excellent quality and functions perfectly. Just because it doesn't jump up and perform a jazz-hands-heavy song-and-dance routine and single-handedly bestow upon you the vim and vigour of a life worth living, the fact is that you ordered an extension lead, pack of kitchen roll and a dozen jiffy bags - which all performed their (admittedly mundane) job as well as they could have done. Don't go deducting stars because you've bought other, much more exciting things.

Also, people who leave star-reviews without adding even a single word or two to say why they awarded the item that many stars. Worse than useless.

And don't even get me started on those who order the wrong item and then downgrade their review on the basis of that. If it states that it's for a PC in the description, you can't just assume that it will also work with a Mac; if you bought a shaver, you surely can't be surprised that it comes with the standard 2-pin plug that will need an adaptor to be used in a normal UK wall socket.

I hate the:

"Not used it yet but delivery was quick".

That always reminds me of Lee Mack's old gag, where he talks a bit about touring as a comedian and then 'boasts' of having personally received a lot of great reviews such as "And I quote: 'Nicely packaged' - eBay!"

Amazon really need to put a second button in their question emails that says "sorry, I don't know". It would do nothing but let the recipient feel they had responded. People think the emails are to them personally from someone else and feel they must reply.

@SparklingLime

Oh bless them. I expect they get an email asking for a review and feel like they really should respond.

Totally this. I've seen a fair few reviews that open with something like "I don't know why you want me to leave a review for this, it's just (paper or whatever), but here goes..."!