to thin ALL online reviews are utterly worthless?

[PyongyangKipperbang]

On Amazon we know that a hell of a lot are fake.

On Trip Advisor etc you generally only get bad reviews as only pissed off customers bother to review, if its good then you think "Oh I must review this place" and 90% of the time dont get around to it.

Same with Argos etc....generally only bad reviews because if the product you bought does what you bought it for, you dont give it another thought!

I am looking for a particular type of cookbook and the reviews seem to be either no stars/one star or five stars!! Not much help really! In the last couple of years I have started to choose items that have a decent amount of mid range reviews as they seem to be the only ones that are genuine.

I’m another one who has written a fair but bad review that didn’t get published, so I take all glowing reviews with a pinch of salt.
I tend to take notice of the ones that give information. So for example I saw one about some shoes which said they were very tight. That’s good for me as I have very narrow feet so I bought them.

95% of them are worthless, especially on Amazon.

Amazon literally do not give a shit that most of their reviews are fake, and it's not like companies even need to hide it. I've lost count of the number of products I've had where a discount code/"free gift" have been offered in exchange for a 5* review.

My least favourite reviews are 'haven't worn it yet but will look lovely on my holiday'. How is that useful?

I've left several reviews that have never been published.... ie sizing wasn't very accurate etc.

So now I ignore them in the main.

I relied on Amazon reviews to chose a new cordless vacuum. I picked one where the reviews were glowing, life changing, best appliance ever etc.

It was mediocre to say the least.

I posted a review to this effect.

Seller immediately messaged me to offer a 70% refund in exchange for removal of the review!! So no wonder it had nothing but 5*’s as the others had been deleted.

I’m probably a mug but I refused the refund, updated the review to call out what they’d done and contacted Amazon. Nothing has happened and Amazon didn’t respond to me

Good question. I have an online business and we’ve got a trustpilot page, we never ask people for reviews, and occasionally they leave them, we’ve only got 5 star reviews, which is lovely. I think people look at reviews, so we do need them, but I do totally hear what you’re saying. Most people that bother to leave a review for anything are either delighted or furious, personally I have only left one amazon review, it was for a dualit toaster which nearly burnt the house down, the reason I reviewed it wasn’t even the near house fire, it was the horrific customer service when I called them to tell them about the fault, it became very clear that they knew there was a fault with the design, and they tried to sell me a new timer and kept telling me I had to unplug the toaster at the wall whilst it wasn’t in use, and that it was my fault that I hadn’t read the instructions, and unplugged the toaster. I was so incensed by their knowingly putting people at risk that I took to amazon. I think the best reviews we’ve got are when it hasn’t gone smoothly but we’ve given great customer service, or someone’s returned something and we’ve given an easy refund. They are probably more useful to potential customers than someone who loves the product.

Brilliant post A+ Quick Delivery
This thread has everything a MN thread should have, lots of people agreeing, some disagreeing. The only things lacking are a post starting with "as a man..." and anything to do with trans.
I've used it to waste some time when I should be doing DIY. For that it's been excellent. Can't say whether it'd be good for choosing a restaurant unlike some posters.
Will definitely click again.

People feeling "meh, ok" don't bother so I keep that in mind. Truth is somewhere in the middle. When I take notice of 1* is when many mention same issue.

Some people shouldn't have access to internet let alone be allowed to review stuff🙈
"1* We went on Monday and it was closed. Apparently it's closed every Monday. Kids were disappointing. Ruined our day" type of reviews is really common

YANBU. I bought a small DIY item that had loads of 5* reviews and there was a note inside the inner package offering me a £10 Amazon voucher for a good review. It gave an email address to send the review to, presumably so they could see if it was worth £10.
I complained to Amazon and wrote a review explaining how I'd been offered a bribe.

My review wasn't published and the company are still selling.

With TripAdvisor, I look at the overall rating and the one star reviews.

If the one star reviews all come from semi-literate picky arseholes then I think it's probably a good place. If they're well-written and complaining about actual problems (not just the fact that the staff didn't bow and scrape, or they didn't serve enough English food etc), then it's probably one to avoid.

I was driven half insane trying to buy a gazebo and a mattress topper this year. Almost 50/50 between 'this product helped me ascend to a higher plane' and 'this product ruined my life and the lives of all around me'. Luckily, both the items I eventually picked turned out to be- fine.

[Grin] silverdragonfly that's about it.

I tend to ignore ratings and read the actual reviews. It’s usually easy to spot fake ones. They’ve only ever left one review, or it’s written exactly like the website copy etc.

I have a business and every single review is genuine but I know people won’t take a blind bit of notice of them.

When I do my supermarket online shop, I'm often surprised to see my favourite items with a 1 star review.
There's a lot of "tasteless mush. Wouldn't feed this to my dogs...." lazy descriptions that make me wonder if a competitor writes them.
Trade reviews, I tried to review a trader who did a bad job and upped his price and the website wouldn't let me score them less than an 8. I now try and go off local FB recommendations.
For shopping, Generally I filter out the picture reviews so you know they've bought the product.
For holiday rentals, I'm careful with giving bad reviews to people who have my address.
But yes, you do tend to review either a dire or brilliant experience, a mediocre experience is not worth mentioning.

Tesco has removed negative review about their product. You’re allowed to express your displeasure at branded items but not their own ones.

Just like @Lipz said.

“Haven’t used that but looks good”.

I think there always will be somebody unhappy about something.

Some people have different taste so might not be the same for everybody.

I'm that same about tradesmen! I used a bloke to do my bathroom .. loads of great reviews on his page. He did a SHOCKING job, I didn't dare leave a bad review as the only negative review on his page attracted all his friends to lay into the reviewer!!

Turns out all the great reviews were his mates!

I think reviews are sometimes really useful if they are specific and particularly if lots if people cite the same fault or advantage. If there are only a few reviews of something, it's much less likely to give an accurate view.

I look at what they say, not how many stars they have. The bad reviews will often indicate a specific product fault. I can then choose if I want the product despite that one thing that others disliked it for or if it was something that made it useless to me.
Good reviews will be from the makers themselves and people who love the product so much that they want to tell others about it. I never review a "meh" product. I find them very helpful.

I do read reviews on Amazon, John Lewis, Trip Advisor etc. I read to get a general view not taking notice of the odd criticism unless it is repeated several times. I also leave reviews as I feel I should try to be helpful. These tend to be on Amazon as they are easy to do and on sites such as places we have stayed when we are asked. On the whole I find them helpfuland on Amazon you can ask a question which is often worth while.

If you are looking at tradesmen, especially to do large expensive jobs then you are best off looking at companies house.

If the company is new, and you can find multiple other companies opened and closed by the same individual over the preceding decade then that is the reddit of red flags - I ruled out two companies who quoted for us on this basis. Both had good reviews online, though in one case there were multiple 5 star reviews in a suspiciously short time span and a remarkably consistent writing style. Plus one or two 1 star reviews from clearly furious people who had been ripped off.

Always check companies House for tradesmen!

reddest of red flags

Argh, typing on phone!