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.

@NamechangeforLCJ Is it true that employees responsible for this kind of activity can be personally liable? I have seen that suggested and wonder if MNEditor has a good lawyer if so, after their post explaining what they did.

I cannot answer your question, but MNEditor wasn't on a frolic of their own, judging by Justine's comments on this thread.

I still cannot believe how disingenuous those comments are. Stunningly disrespectful to the intelligent, smart women here and v hard to come back from.

It may be that's there's a setting to allow it in active threads ever so many posts rather than moving like a regular thread

Given the amount I've seen it in active threads since yesterday I suspect if true that rate is approximately 1 in every 150 posts. However according to MN they haven't removed the thread in active...

Edited to change the wording of my post because I wanted to accurately quote what MNHQ had said, because accuracy is important. 😉

Thanks @NamechangeforLCJ

I still cannot believe how disingenuous those comments are. Stunningly disrespectful to the intelligent, smart women here and v hard to come back from.

I completely agree - so patronising and contemptuous. I can’t bear these “sorry you are too thick to understand how business works” type non-apologies. The editor tried to pass it off as all a fuss about nothing - the issue being the OP’s ‘confusion’ - and then Justine seemed to think that the only problem with using an unrelated 8-year-old quote was its age 🤦‍♀️

I really hope they find themselves in the shit for this, deliberately deceiving users for profit is unconscionable and clearly a long-standing and systematic practice.

The answer is that for the purposes of a claim in tort it usually doesn’t matter if the individual employee is or might be liable as the employer will be vicariously liable for what they have done (so you wouldn’t usually sue the postie as well as the Post Office if he had run you over in his post office van while doing his round).

The exception is where the employee is on a “frolic of his own” ie not doing something in the course of his employment. Then it becomes important because it might turn out that you can only sue the person with no money and no insurance policy (This is a very broad summary I should add of a subject on which you could write pages and pages). As someone else said, this looks unlikely to have been the case here as it looks like a MN wide policy. I’d be inclined to leave poor old MNEditor out of it rather than speculating about how they’ll need a good lawyer. Our dispute is really with Mumsnet corporate policy.

The situation is different in employment cases - it wouldn’t be unusual at all to commence proceedings against the individual and the employer. I am not an employment lawyer though! I also don’t know whether an individual could be liable for ASA breaches or whether as a matter of principle or in practice the ASA would only pursue the employer (though I suspect the latter).

Another thing perhaps to mention is that MNEditor only admitted to sending out the gazebo email, which started the thread but probably hasn’t caused significant harm because as a result of the thread a clarifying email went out relatively quickly. We don’t know who has compiled previous versions of the email (or at least I don’t, because I don’t get them!).

The Swears By articles seem to be written by a range of people, probably freelancers, whose names appear above them. I agree with @NamechangeforLCJ that the real beef from a Mumsnetter’s POV is with the policy and apparently long-standing practices of MN, not the individuals. (MN of course might have cause for complaint against an individual writer who didn’t deliver what they were contracted to deliver, but if they hadn’t checked it themselves before publication then it might not amount to much).

@Wondermoomin

Not sure if you listen to Radio 4, but they have a consumer affairs programme called You and Yours.

This is the sort of thing things they report on and so expect they would be interested in your story ( and indeed the other MNetters).

You can email them at [email protected].

That said, I do appreciate you may wish to stay anonymous in Moominland.

Just to clarify I have no beef with MNEditor and I’m not suggesting they should be sanctioned, but saw something upthread suggesting that there might be some personal liability and wanted to know if that was likely - it’s something they might want to think about if so. It doesn’t seem likely to me that MN is the type of employer to protect employees if it means added risk to itself.

It’s good that this deception / issue is being highlighted because fake reviews are the scourge of online shopping IMO. It seems spectacularly shortsighted, and unprofessional, of mumsnet to encourage this, not to mention commercially stupid.

I'm quite surprised this hasn't been picked up by the media yet. Usually they're quick to pinch things from MN. 🤔

I've trusted MN for 17 years. I frequently used MN Swears By as I gave up on trusting other reviews, Amazon, Insta etc. I thought MN reviews were genuine. I thought there was a bit of integrity.

As a result of this debacle, I now view MN Swears By... in the same way I do virtually everywhere else internetty: bought and paid for BS, not to be trusted.

The lack of honesty, the dismissive, somewhat contemptuous allusion to posters being 'confused' and not understanding the magical, rarefied world of Websites Making a Profit... MN have managed to lose a LOT of goodwill and trust here.

Little wonder they're trying their hardest to suppress the whole thing on the site. The damage limitation has caused almost as much damage as the issue itself at this point.

New email: ‘Mumsnet Swears At’

I’m buying a robot vacuum. Previously, my first stop would have been Mumsnet Swears By, to avoid having to Google reviews and go through recommendations. Obviously I don’t trust Mumsnet’s recommendations anymore, after buying lots of stuff over the years (and the penny is now dropping about some of the duds) - how many other posters like me are there?

Big mistake, MN. Huge.

Just stick to doing business honestly, it can’t be that hard!

Wow. I’m also a consumer protection lawyer working in misleading advertising and am appalled by what MN appear to have done. And if MN staff had given a genuine apology and held their hands up, and sent a proper email retraction, it would probably have died down.

But by their rather condescending responses and politician’s apology email, they have probably shot themselves in the foot and fanned the flames.

I think they probably need to lawyer up. The ASA are likely to take this kind of issue very seriously, in my view. Poor behaviour by MN.

ASA investigations do take time and are often resolved by informal rulings, but given the profile of MN, I do think this has a chance of becoming public.

Well done, OP, for not being fobbed off. I won’t trust MN emails again, for sure.

Same. We're redoing the garden. I need fence, trampoline and solar light recommendations. MN Swears By... would have been my first and only stop for buying tips. It's unlikely that I'll do so again.

The good thing to emerge here is that I've started by shopping small again. I'm looking at smaller companies and doing some proper research myself instead of reading made up/compromised/misleading reviews on MN or anywhere else.

I’d never used either feature as I thought (wrongly) mostly it would be parenting stuff like car seats. Never will unless I’m asking in an actual thread (I’m careful there as well as could just as easily be a bot reply). If a suggestion includes good and bad points I trust it more

Could I tempt you with the Lawnmaster OcuMow?

This robot mower was recommended in a Mumsnet Swears By email on 27th April. I've completed a site search ("site:mumsnet.com lawnmaster ocumow") and it turns out that no one has EVER even mentioned that brand (except for me when I first found the fake recommendation) but you know, splitting hairs and all that.

It must be good as Mumsnet said so.

I think perhaps Mumsnet also recommends poetry by Sir Walter Scott:

”Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!"

🤣🤣

Apologies, it's a robot vacuum you are after but I guess the same applies!

Mumsnet normal search is so useless that searching Lawnmaster brings up references to Lancaster and only keyword search brings relevant stuff.

@Shynapple As you say, the post they’ve mined the quote from (from 2022) makes no reference to that brand:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/gardening/4559898-robotic-mower