I seem to be seeing this a lot recently on Amazon.

What’s the deal? Do sellers just send stuff out FOC, or do people buy the product and then sellers offer a refund for good feedback?

Whatever way they do it, it makes me buy something else!

How do you go about getting free stuff for good reviews then. I can do with some free stuff, especially if it has good reviews.

I do this occasionally – basically you sign up to a service and every few days they email you a new offer. If it’s something you fancy you email back, get a discount code and “buy” the item as normal. Most of the time the item is free or literally pennies and if you’ve got Prime you very rarely pay for postage.

Sometimes there’s items offered you’ve no interest in so even for free you don’t bother, other times there’s been some good stuff.

How truthful these reviews are I wouldn’t like to say, I’ve left some which have been fairly scathing and still get offers of new products but it’s easy to see how people would try and keep things sweet and keep the free kit incoming.

Edit: Just checked the last email I had from the site I’m registered with, they’ve got a new boardgame, some car wash concentrate and a car paint chip repair kit for the vehicle of my choice. RRP of these is £15, £13 and £40 respectively.

Now I’ve seen it again I might get the chip repair kit!

What email service is that Ivan?

I bought an IP Wi-Fi webcam thing the other day on Amazon & they sent me a mail saying ‘thanks for your purchase. Leave a favourable review & we’ll send you an iPhone lightning cable’ which I thought was pretty cheeky.

Being i-less I ignored it, although I am now tempted to leave an accurate review of the device, which is alright but has it’s drawbacks.

I’m on Reviews Directory.

I used to work for a small publishers and we’d occasionally put out an offer with the first, say, 5 people to respond getting a free book if they would leave a review (good or otherwise) on Amazon. No idea if it helped sales or not.

I’m on the Morphy Richards product testing panel, think I signed up registering a toaster warrantee or something. Anyway, every now and again I get an email saying they are looking for testers for a particular product and to complete the survey at the following link. Its a survey monkey type thing asking for instance if you have a coffee machine, how often you use it etc. and whether you would like to test a new one. If they like you answers they send you a product. So far I have a received a nespresso machine and recently a cordless dyson-style vacume cleaner. You get the occasional request for feedback during the trial period and they say they might ask you to leave a review on amazon, Argos etc but I’ve not been asked yet. You get to keep the stuff after if you like it, if not they collect it FOC. Seems alright to me

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/product-testing-sites

Amazon also has a grapevine system where top reviewers are sent kit to review.

The guy I know who does it though would be far too principled to lie in any of his reviews though, he’s like Sheldon from Big Bang, only a bit more OCD!

I had an offer of free stuff from Gearbest after they’d seen a post from me on here about their lights. I didn’t take them up on the offer.

I got a set of Bluetooth sports headphones from Amazon based on the overall rating but they were utterly shocking. When I delved into it, it turned out all the reviews (bar one which was negative) were from people who received the product in return for a review.

I am now much more careful and read reviews rather than just rely on the overall rating of a product.

Amazon acts…

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/04/amazon-bans-incentivised-reviews-impartiality

Glad they’ve done that, cos it’s a really dodgy practice! For obvious reasons.

I have just checked some products I looked at recently and one item (that I know to be utterly tosh as I bought it and sent it back) still has the same reviews on it, just with the line about ‘I received this in exchange…’ removed.

If anything, this will make it even harder to choose an item.

I have just checked some products I looked at recently and one item (that I know to be utterly tosh as I bought it and sent it back) still has the same reviews on it, just with the line about ‘I received this in exchange…’ removed.

If anything, this will make it even harder to choose an item.

Report it to the ASA/Trading Standards – an incentivised review is really an advert and and an advert has to declare itself as an advert. In the case of a review the onus is on the reviewer to declare the incentive which is why the reviewers are writing in that declaration. However if the review site is then removing that declaration they’re putting that reviewer in shit.

It would be worth seeing if the un-edited version of the review is still cached somewhere.

I’ve been offered credit with DX for reviews a few times, I always turn it down. Doesn’t seem right to me.

I got a set of Bluetooth sports headphones from Amazon based on the overall rating but they were utterly shocking. When I delved into it, it turned out all the reviews (bar one which was negative) were from people who received the product in return for a review.

I am now much more careful and read reviews rather than just rely on the overall rating of a product.

Its a good ploy isn’t it. Get a couple of ‘friendly’ reviews, get a four or five start review, albeit only one or two reviewers. Then when people sort by best customer feedback, bingo, up there at the top. Wonder how many people even bother reading the actual reviews and just say “wow, five stars, must be good, I’ll buy that”.

I stand corrected – (I had to delve into my wife’s Amazon account as they were a present) my initial Google search didn’t find the exact headphones I actually got.

Those ones still have the lines about receiving the goods in return for a review lines included.

Internet businesses are incentivising favourable reviews albeit in a transparent way with the option to not play ball.

Without being OTT we live in an age of tolerated sweeteners and front handers. It’s got a nice shiny corporate face with smiling people in brochures and air of free will about it, it’s alright coz we told you we did it!