MN have used my quote to promote a product I’ve never bought 🤔

[Wondermoomin]

AIBU to expect MN recommendations, where they quote a poster/member, to be genuine?

I like being able to rely on recommendations in MN swears by and other emails. I excitedly opened an email with the subject “Big bargains for our most loyal Mumsnetters” wondering what MN could make me buy this time (I should probably get other hobbies).

Imagine my surprise to see my own username quoted there with a recommendation! Imagine my further surprise when I realised it was a post I wrote almost 8 years ago, and it was being used directly under a specific product to give the impression I was recommending it - and I’ve never even owned that particular thing mine was more expensive.

I don’t like posts being misrepresented as a recommendation for a specific product. It makes me question the credibility of other MN recommendations.

Hoping I’ll manage to attach screenshots.

PS my gazebo broke but I’ve replaced it. Still not with the brand I supposedly recommended according to the MN email.

They’re doing case-by-case apology emails?! How many have you had?

Jesus i cant believe this thread, its a fucking gazebo for gods sake. Maybe everyone should buy one to prevent getting too much sun and losing the plot to this extent. The quote describes every pop up gazebo ever made and if it was a big conspiracy to fool you all would it be linked directly to the the post the quote came from showing exactly what was said and when. OK complain, don't buy the gazebo but surely you have something better to do on a sunny Friday into a bank holiday weekend than keep repeating the same thing and manufacture outrage over something so pathetic.

@Boiledbeetle😂😂

I think you’ve missed the point, but you know you don’t have to be here right? And everyone is free to decide for themselves whether they want to be on the thread or not?

Ah right, yes. Ladeezzz are overexcited about a gazebo. Thats what you’ve understood from this?

Probably not the thread for you.

Oh dear. Is my spoof name too believable?

It's ok, I'm here now.

I imagine they they are panicking now and have a whole team going through that area and taking down untrue recommendations.

Couldn’t they get a significant fine for this?!

yes i get the point, ok post it, add links to legal information, and add anything new that is relevant but hundreds of people saying pretty much word for word as each other like they're trying to win the outrage Olympics, please. Think the point is made but ok carry on winding each other up about this atrocity. Don't like MN don't go on it. Don't trust their recommendations don't buy them. Want to report an offence, do that. The repetition makes any new information labour intensive to find as is swept up in hundreds of comments saying nothing different to the hundreds before them. Maybe MN should recommend the best pearls for clutching next week.

Nice try but I won’t be buying a fucking gazebo .

Jeez MN advertising just gets worse.

That’s 80% of the long threads on MN tbf. What makes this one different, or do you visit them all to post the same on them?

I’m not winding anyone up. I’ve barely been here.

But have you considered your “Calm down - it’s just a gazebo” professional point-missing BS, is just as derailing and inflammatory as the worst hype post on the thread?

And it’s it just a gazebo. Posters have found many more examples. It’s not acceptable whatever it is. It’s not even legal.

Hmm.

Looks to see if MNWhiplash is available...

New ad just in

Absolutely shameless 😂 😂 😂

"It's the most reliable car I've ever driven"

While this was posted about a Jaguar XJ8 and not in fact about the new electric Ford Capri that were advertising, we felt it prompted the generic benefits of all cars including the one we are advertising and as such it is not in fact misleading.

Oh come on this is massively disingenuous.

Are we really supposed to think you and the team are busily thinking of products which help mumsnetters, rather than flogging advertising to anyone who will pay and then trawling for vaguely relevant quotes to use as false recommendations?

We know its paid advertising, its the false recommendations which are the problem. The notion that this is some oopsie one off mistake is rendered rubbish by all the other posters who have seen similar false claims. You have just been unlucky that this time a poster both spotted the fake recommendation and posted about it.

As for the faux apology “if” you were confused - really? This is mumsnet were most of use have experienced enough conditional apologies to women to last a lifetime.

At least fess up to “we were in the wrong” and ideally commit to stopping using fake recommendations which misrepresent real users.

@Wondermoomin I agree with you. It's clearly misleading and seems to be deliberately so. Maybe MN thinks whatever's good for Amazon is good for them (fake reviews, that is)? We have legislation for a reason to protect us from this sort of behaviour, so you could report MN to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA): https://www.asa.org.uk/make-a-complaint.html to see what they make of MNEditor's "explanation".

My heroine.

Signed,
MNAlphaandOmega

Well then have you considered my comment wasn't about you then?

I have considered your point and I'm sorry if you feel that way!

Maybe my last comment was the most inflammatory but now possibly its this one.

"Don't trust their recommendations don't buy them" but that is the point. People DID trust the recommendations and are understandably upset to find out it's BS.

Yes and you are within your rights to be upset and i am within mine to find it amusing

It's not the point that "it's just a gazebo".

It's false advertising.

Could be for a Freddo or a Ferrari.

MN make money through the purchases and they rely on the credibility of their site.

If they're now are actually lying, their reputation suffers.

Well I was standing here minding my own business like everyone else when you turned up with your “Calm down overheated girl-ladies. It’s not that deep, focus on the mcguffin” bollox.