Have you ever been offered an incentive to give a product a good review?

Murphybear

I’ve not been offered money to give a 5* review on Amazon but had a slightly different request.  I bought a bedside lamp that turned out to be awful.  I contacted the seller and said I wasn’t  happy with it and I wanted to return it and get my money refunded.  They said I could only have my money back if I gave them a 5* review.     I wasn’t going to do that as it amounted to blackmail and contravened a few rules and I wasn’t going to suffer days/weeks of wrangling so I contacted Amazon and explained what had happened.  I got an immediate response with an apology followed by a refund and I didn’t have to send the lamp back.  I did notice a while later that the seller had disappeared from Amazon.  Justice I thought, Amazon had punished them much more than I could have.  

I bought another lamp which I was happy with and gave a 5* review.

If I’d been offered money to give a 5* review I might consider it if I would have given them a 5* review anyway.  

Murphybear

JadedAngel88 said:

I have received 5 star review requests on Amazon and eBay. The ones that have offered cash I've done and then changed the review if it was necessary after. But if they offer credit to their own store I don't bother.

I remember one on Amazon, I'd bought some ear buds from them and they were terrible so I returned them to Amazon and left them the appropriate review. The seller then contacted me and said if I change my review to 5 stars they'd pay me £10 in cash. So I did, they paid the money and I changed my review back to the original one.

Out of interest, after you changed the review did you hear back from the company?  

subjecttocontract

Well I don't know if this can be considered to be in the same ballpark. I have been asked to provide feedback on a Range Rover service......then asked by the service person personally to give a 5 star review because their job depended on it. This is almost worse than being offered a monetary bribe because it tugs at the emotions and makes one feel very uncomfortable !

JadedAngel88

Murphybear said:

JadedAngel88 said:

I have received 5 star review requests on Amazon and eBay. The ones that have offered cash I've done and then changed the review if it was necessary after. But if they offer credit to their own store I don't bother.

I remember one on Amazon, I'd bought some ear buds from them and they were terrible so I returned them to Amazon and left them the appropriate review. The seller then contacted me and said if I change my review to 5 stars they'd pay me £10 in cash. So I did, they paid the money and I changed my review back to the original one.

Out of interest, after you changed the review did you hear back from the company?  

No, not a peep. I had told them that their product was rubbish.

jim1999

I have had this a few times on Amazon.

I've also had a company offer to send me free items in exchange for Amazon reviews on those items, which they stipulated had to be "honest".  However, they also said that I would only receive the next item once they'd confirmed that my review was genuine and described the goods accurately.  As for how many people would, in that scenario, leave a 1 or 2 star review... I'm not convinced.

RobM99

Yes, a local company. I didn't.

Ms_Dee

I applied for what looked like a suitable job on Indeed last year.
It was actually someone who set up a fake job but was actually offering a very small amount to leave a 5 star review for their company which wasn't even local to myself. I did report this to Indeed and I absolutely did not leave a review. I think it was for a building type business or maybe driveways which could potentially cause a lot more damage even if it was a genuine business, to someone's property and even their mental health if done incorrectly, not to mention the financial implements.

ga34dery

I guess they are leaving reviews or writing article contents also with AI. For a unique content. I wouldn't personally do that. We need honesty over the net. If we do that, we are shooting ourselves if we cheat. If we want to find a good treatment or product - we will be cheated.

PocketWatchMan

Is any of this stuff surprising news to people? ever heard of Trustpilot? their entire business model basically revolves around reviews for money. 

I have been in the midst of a dispute with a company for months, trying to get money back after they messed me around and refused a refund, in complete violation of the law. The company's provided contact details also appear to be misleading, not working, or otherwise invalid, again I believe in complete violation of the law.
Wrote a totally factual 1-star review on Trustpilot to warn others, yet Trustpilot simply refused to allow my honest feedback to stand.

To cut the story short a bit, it has got to the point where I have engaged legal advice, and Trustpilot has put in writing that for companies that pay [whatever extortionate amount] for their service, they have certain guarantees in place that said company will be provided with a high star rating on Trustpilot. ergo, they simply remove a certain percentage of lower star and negative reviews, to reflect this high percentage consistency.  In addition to this, placing comments on other forums and/or social media regarding Trustpilot's business practices will not fly either, tech companies will collude to remove them and/or have your account suspended from certain social media platforms.

A friend of mine actually went through very close to this exact same process over a year ago, and to be honest at the time I was pretty sceptical about it and told him so. have since obviously apologized but he had the basically the same experience, and they told him the same thing, in writing too!

born_again

Re above. Nothing to stop you posting a 3 star review or above with the same text 😜