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[kitz]

Do ebuyer delete less than favourable reviews for some of their products?
It would certainly appear that they do, as Ive just witnessed.

Some of you may recall that I had problems when purchasing one of their products and have had to return 2 of their Foehn & Hirsch TVs.

When I first purchased the item there was one other review dated the 24th April.  It wasn't particularly bad, but did point out a negative aspect to that particular TV. 
I also submitted my own comments on the 8th of May simply stating something along the lines that the product had arrived Dead on Arrival and had to be RMA'd.

Checking the reviews today, I notice that the product now has no reviews at all and not only have ebuyer not included my comments but have also removed any previous reviews for that product.

I havent as yet submitted a review for the replacement, which also had to be returned, but Im wondering if its even worth doing so.

For the sake of posterity I include a google cache of the previous review that they also pulled. - See  screen caps 1+2 attached below (users have to be logged in to view)

Foehn & Hirsch 19" HD Ready Widescreen LCD TV/DVD Combo Freeview 300cd/m2
Review: OK but tinny sound             27/04/2009        review by: Anonymous   [3 stars]



This TV isn't bad for the money and is easy to set up. But the sound quality really lets it down.

I thought I could overcome this by connecting to an external amp and speakers, but there's a lack of sound output connectors - the only choice is the headphone socket (level too low) or the SCART - which works fine when watching DTV, but when you play a DVD you get analogue TV sound out of the SCART. (So, if anyone finds a way of connecting DVD sound to an external amp, please let me know!).

The connectors are down one edge and the DVD slot (slow action but seems to work) are down the other, so think carefully about where you're going to put it. The wires coming out of the LHS can be quite visible.

If a company is going to remove the less than favourable comments it kinda makes their review system pretty useless, and I shall certainly not be relying on it in future.


hmmmm and literally as I type this, another review for this particular product has just gone up giving it 4 stars.
Funny that the review was dated 9th May, yet it certainly wasnt there this morning. 
In fact I still had another browser window open showing that this am it didnt have any reviews and that the others had been removed...  screen cap 3 included below.
Something very fishy going on about the ebuyer review system.


[attachment deleted by admin]

[sevenlayermuddle]

I take on-line reviews with a pinch of salt.  Quite apart from any editing/selection by the retailer, these reviews are too easy to manipulate.  I'm avoiding naming names here to avoid going too far off-topic, but I recently got involved in....

Earlier in the year, a highly respected certain brand of current DVD recorder stopped working properly for quite a few weeks owing to one of the broadcasters sending out-of-spec (for the UK) freeview MPEG encodings.  While the broadcaster worked to correct the fault, pressure grew on the manufacturer to offer a firmware update to make their euipment tolerant of the out-of-spec broadcasts, as most other manufacturers' devices worked fine with the errant broadcasts.

As part of that pressure, a series of bad reviews began to appear on one of the well-known online retailers, pointing out the DVD players didn't actually work properly at that point in time.  Each bad review seemed to be followed (and hence buried) by a series of glowing reviews.  It is possible that these glowing reviews came from over-excited and gullible people who hadn't noticed their new DVD revorders didn't work properly, yet still felt the need to tell everybody how delighted they were.  It may also be the case that the glowing reviews were contrived either by the manufacturer, or the retailer himself.  Decide for yourself seems more likely...

[roseway]

That's a bit concerning, as I've always considered EBuyer to be a pretty reputable supplier. But as you say, only good reviews are now shown for that product, and that looks like deceit to me.

[UncleUB]

They can't have much faith in their products when they do that.

This is one of the better  unbiased review sites,it covers a wide range of products and I always visit it to check things out.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/index.aspx

[tuftedduck]

That is very naughty..........I thought ebuyer could be trusted..

[stevie]

I`m surprised really.

I`ve looked at reviews of various products, don`t ask which (  loads), I`m sure if you check some of the mobo reviews... some have negative comments about DOA`s & other faults, of course they may adapt reviews of "Their Own" stuff???

I use the reviews as a guide, but also check elsewhere on the net.

I doubt any site review will be absolutely perfect, but at least generally they are a bit more correct than some reviews on ISP`s...

You could always email them...you have proof....See what they say....If they say anything.

[jmanners]

The so-called review sites are populated by two main groups.

A. The disgruntled, shafted users.

B. The companies that shafted them.

Let's be honest : who else has the time or inclination to bother about writing a "review" ? And when you look at the posts in that light, you begin to realise that most of the favourable posts are pure propaganda.

And that neatly closes the circle, because when they are busy stemming the tide of bad reviews, they can hardly be manning the customer service helplines ... which is what most of the complaints are about

As for "unbiased" review sites. Well let's just remember where review site revenue actually comes from.

Peace

[Floydoid]

That is very naughty..........I thought ebuyer could be trusted..

I'm quite chuffed with them at the moment, even though I've always had excellent service from them.  Ordered a new keyboard and mouse yesterday on supersaver delivery, and they arrived this morning!

[andy12345]

Well well well...

I was just looking for ebuyer info.

Kitz, you have made an incredibly interesting point with your cache shots etc.

Lucky you are cynical eh?

Anyway, because I was cynical I ended up here.


I don't think anyone can trust any company that removes a review that points out a product's sound quality.   Sound and picture are inexorably linked after all..

I would have posted a ebuyer comment saying "we have tested 5 of these and confirm the tinny sound which is not very acceptable.  We are now dealing with the manufacturer"


Instead it's the old  "we have thousands of products and customers why worry?

OF course, it's possible that the directors are not even aware of these failings???


I care about my reputation as a person.  It seems that in business, it does not seem to matter as long as money is made.

[Floydoid]

Instead it's the old  "we have thousands of products and customers why worry?

Yes, and with such a large product range it is inevitable that a few are going to be a bit below par, or don't live up to customers' expectations.  Only once did I have to return a faulty product - a Logitech sound system - and eBuyer couldn't have been more helpful.  Their Customer Support chap did admit that there was an inherent problem with that particular model.  I got a full refund and plumped for some Creative speakers instead (which are superb).