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.

As said occasionally we'll choose a seasonal category and look for a quote that explains in a generic way why that product is useful. I agree that 8 years old is a bit too old though, and I'm quite surprised we used your quote - so that's something else we'll look at.

A ‘category endorsement’ is not A Thing. Well, it wasn’t, until it was made up just now as some sort of explanation.

These explanations are really patronising to MN users. Honesty is always the best policy,

I do wish mumsnet would stop bullshitting and pretending they are some twee kitchen table held together with sticky back plastic set up.
you make millions, employ a load of staff and trying to act all coy and "it's all just held together with gaffer tape" ooh silly us what a palaver doesn't really wash
does it

@JustineMumsnetwas the gazebo recommendation an affiliate link?

So what about the Kindle fire example from earlier? You used a quote recommending an obsolete, discontinued tablet. The recommendation removed the model from the quote so that it wouldn't be clear that the recommendation old and was for something else. Do you agree that that can only be construed as deliberately misleading?

If I saw that quote I would assume you were talking about the product, and I would have been mislead into purchasing it. Hopefully this can be properly investigated and changes will be made. For now I would not trust any adverts or ‘recommendations’ from mumsnet.

Annoyingly I really want a gazebo now!

I've heard pop-up ones can be quite good.

23 pages of manufactured outrage that has drawn the saintly Justine from her lair. I have a touch of the vapours and a strange desire to buy a gazebo.

😂

The “explanations” are really downright embarrassing.
Have you no shame, @MNHQ?!

Sorry @JustineMumsnet but I think this question has been missed. It does seem quite unlikely that the other posters just happened to find things in the 1% rather than the 99%. By your logic, the would have only been finding a problem with 1 in 100 links/quotes they checked, and that wasn’t the case was it.

Just a thought if you had bought premium you would be spared this terrible outrage.

How so?

I'm not paying to use Mumsnet and get literally nothing useful in return

I think it might be an idea for a few of us to write emails to the Advertising Standards Agency.

What are you on about?

LOL it was emailed to her... nothing to do with advertising in the main site.

I've not trusted them for years.

Has anyone???

There was a stage when it first came out that it looked somewhat legit but now there's a blanket email every week that looks like it's just a junket of stuff that they need to pull together as a way to earn affiliate commission. I have a quick squizz through but I don't think I've bought anything, ever. Has anyone?

I've assumed that the 24 hour affiliate code is the best they can do.

And I don't mind a huge amount to be honest.

I like MN, it's free to use and I understand they want to grow the business. They have to make money somehow to run the servers and police this forum, it doesn't happen in a vacuum.

I'm happy for them to make some money and recommend things. It's up to us, as users, to decide if the things we see are for us or not.

Once you get to Amazon, don't you read the reviews there too? I do...

I do feel that this email has been redundant for me at least for a long while, but I still open it most weeks, I just don't buy.

And that's fine. I'm amazed people are getting hot under the collar about it all. It's seemed a bit unbelievable for a long time. I thought we all knew, sort of thing?

In the end, MN employ people, give us a safe space to discuss all sorts of things and I like the company. They seem trustworthy on the whole.

As a bit of feedback for tweaking this, I wonder if they could give these recommendations more transparency though. Amazon reviews are also notorious for being rigged these days.

Anywhere, where we can get honest truthful reviews and GENUINE recommendations would be lovely.

MN, you have a panel don't you? Perhaps you could ask them?

You also run polls at the end of some threads? There are ways to get genuine quotes and what's good to buy, I think?

But here you are, complaining. So if there's nothing useful, why are you here?

The OP wouldn't have seen the ad and we wouldn't be here discussing it. The sort of If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

Oh I see - more vapours !!

I think that's a very fair question and I would be curious to see a clear yes or no answer instead of word salad skirting the actual question I suspect we're going to be given.

Ah but it’s not an ad proper it’s a recommendation