Shop4Tech.com reviews are bogus (I think)

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Hello,

Let me start by saying I have done business with shop4tech and had no problems!

I ordered the Ritek 4x genera-media and it was shipped super fast and I've had only one or two bad discs out of 50 and the rest burned at 4x no problem. I was going to shop there again as everything went very smoothly!

Now the cranky stuff:

First I noticed the reviews on the site were not in chronological order, hmmm... Then I figured out the reviews are not in *any* order. Not name, rating, or date - not anything that I could find. Odd.
If the site is driven by a database (and it has to be) then it should spit out the reviews in some kind of order - there is no database that will give you results in a random order.

So I started poking around…

Next I realized there are NO bad reviews, none. This didn't make sense, especially when looking at the cheap stuff that everyone complains about.

I tried to submit a review for some random media, it was nice and informative (my opinion) – but it was a negative review. It has not been posted. (If the review had been posted I would have emailed them and told them it was a crap review, no worries!) When I submitted the review, I was told it would be sent for “consideration” before posting.

Then I found a review that was the same – word for word – for two different items.

OK. So…

Worst case: The reviews are total lies.

Best case: Reviews are carefully selected and are not representative of consumer’s feelings.

Either way the consumer is being mislead.

I understand using good reviews – movies don’t quote reviewers who call the movie junk. Sure. But this is different; The expectation has been set by companies like Amazon – and that expectation is one of actual representation.

Maybe I’m being unreasonable – maybe it’s fair to have reviews such as this. I don’t care, there are sites that don’t do this *and that’s where I’m taking my business*.

I will allow that perhaps my issue with the reviews not being in order is a bit picky? And perhaps they are really busy and will post my negative review some time in the future (it’s been a bit already)? And perhaps some dumb-ass posted the same review twice because they are just plain a dumb-ass? Maybe.

I can’t say I’m completely sure what the deal is over at shop4tech – I have no idea. My gut feeling is that the proprietor is a bit less ethical that I would like - and that’s not the type of person I want to do business with.

-=BB=-

P.S.
I’ve tried to be as fair as I can but I obviously was bothered by this – heck I even made this account just to post this :) Please draw your own conclusions before acting.

[quantum]

Newegg has a lengthy disclaimer that attempts to give a logical reason for why they only post positive reviews. Reading it is an exercise in obfuscation and jaw dropping irrationality. I would have been less disturbed had they simply said "we don't post negative reviews because we don't want to". At least this makes sense.

However they do have negative reviews. Perhaps reviewers have learned to sugar coat their comments in order to get them posted. Or maybe they relaxed their restrictions somewhat over time.

I agree that I find a complete lack of negative reviews reduces my confidence in the reviews (and the company) immensely. It's a cheesey tactic that I believe backfires in the long run.

It sort of reminds me of Meritline's tactic where they list a bunch of low prices on their main page in the format "as low as xxxxx". You see the good price and follow the link to find out you need to buy 500 disks to get that price and 50 or 100 disks costs a lot more. It's a weasel tactic that drives me away to Rima. Does anybody actually fall for those stunts?

[markrb]

I always check out a company on www.reselleratings.com and read up as much as I can on forums such as this and other more specific to the sites forums before I make a purchase.

Most of the time reselleratings and my views seem to be about the same, except where major vendors such as Staples, Office Max, etc... come into play. They seem to get overly negative reviews on this site, but for the tech savvy sites it's close to what I feel about a company.

I have seen many negative reviews about products on Newegg and the star system they use works well. I have seen products with as few as 2 stars out of a possible 5 listed. I cannot comment on shop4tech.

Mark

[Toona]

I also have use shop4tech and left reviews on products I bought the positive review I wrote was posted within a day or two but the negative review I posted the same day still has yet to make the review board for that product

[Eldorado]

Things do seem very shady at shop4tech and most other of the more popular online media shops..

They've even hired people to go on public message boards such as this one to advertise their shops and products. Need an example? Do a search for all posts done by a user name Jomo

I'm wondering why he's allowed to continue doing that sort of thing here as it's blatantly obvious once you take notice..