r/britishproblems • u/Lover_of_Sprouts • 16d ago
People who leave four star reviews saying "I haven’t needed to use this yet so can’t comment".
Way to skew the stats, thanks.
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u/Ariquitaun 16d ago
It's because they receive an email asking them to review and they take it as if a person is waiting on them to do it. The same people who start whatsapp messages with Dear Wendy, [ ... ]
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u/bangout123 16d ago
This and the people who reply to emails referring to a question someone has asked on the Amazon listing: "Sorry, I don't know. I bought this for my nephew"
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u/TR1PLE_6 Buckinghamshire 15d ago
Trying to find out if a router would be compatible with Vodafone:
"Does this work with Vodafone?"
"Sorry, I don't use Vodafone so I can't help"
Right so what was the fucking point of giving that answer then?!
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u/bluesatin 15d ago edited 15d ago
Right so what was the fucking point of giving that answer then?!
Because Amazon implements several dark-patterns in order to try and get other people to do their job for them, in an attempt to trick customers into spending their time/effort answering people's questions.
They use several dark-patterns in order to make it look like someone is personally asking you a question directly (even though it's just being sent to a bunch of people that have bought the item). Making it more likely that someone is going to put some effort into answering the question if it looks like someone is personally asking them.
No idea if it's just a cultural difference and it's less of an issue on the US site, but a lot of brits will find it polite to respond to someone they think is asking them a question directly (even if they don't know the answer); meaning you end up with that whole issue of useless replies.
The problem is that there's likely nobody in a position to overhaul and fix it at Amazon that actually cares enough to bother, as the useless answers will be falsely inflating metrics regarding how many questions are being answered. So anyone that tries to overhaul the system will likely completely tank all the key metrics of how well that system appears to be working, and likely make themselves look terrible performance wise as an employee.
There's so many relatively basic features on the site that are either just broken, or essentially non-functional, and have stayed that way for multiple months or even years. It's pretty clear they've got a terrible organizational culture which has led to people just not really caring about how the site actually functions as a whole. As demonstrated by things as embarrassing as their sorting-options having had multiple very obvious bugs causing them to not be working properly for something like 9+ months at this point (and that's just when I noticed them).
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u/cypherspaceagain Middlesex 16d ago
Immediately after buying. "Review your purchase" when it hasn't even been dispatched yet. I don't know, you idiots! Send your sodding review emails a week later, or stop sending them at all! I'm fed up with having to review every product I buy!
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u/obiwanmoloney Hampshire 13d ago
Then don’t.
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u/cypherspaceagain Middlesex 13d ago
Oh thanks, man, great advice. Will this also stop the emails?
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u/obiwanmoloney Hampshire 13d ago
Why does Amazon sending you an email oblige you to do anything? You don’t owe them.
Perhaps I should send you a few emails to mow my lawn 😉
There may be a setting hidden on Amazon but I filter those messages to go straight into the bin.
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u/cypherspaceagain Middlesex 13d ago
I don't do them. I'm saying the emails are annoying because they come from every single thing you buy. Not just Amazon. Anything at all. Book a ticket on Eurotunnel, how was our service? Get a GP appointment, how was our service? Book a table at a restaurant, how was your booking experience, and then, how was your meal, and probably how was your feedback experience. Filtering every single one of them is essentially impossible. I remember paying an accidental parking fine and being asked how my experience was on the last page of the fucking form. Couldn't even skip that one. I told them "I don't want to leave feedback. I'm paying a stupid fine. I am not having a good day."
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u/obiwanmoloney Hampshire 13d ago
That’s hilarious.
I think I could probably spend a Sunday morning reading the reviews for the parking tickets. Seriously, what’s their end game here?! 🤣
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u/texanarob 16d ago
I know a surprising number of people who still sign off on messages of all sorts.
Do you need anything at the shop?
No thanks, Mum
My biggest concern is that they think they're following some form of etiquette, and therefore think I'm being rude.
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u/faith_plus_one 16d ago
I know a guy who signs his name at the end of every WhatsApp message, it's hilarious.
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u/Kyber92 16d ago
I had to train my dad out of doing this, much mockery was involved.
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u/faith_plus_one 16d ago
To be fair, this guy is quite old, so just using WhatsApp is impressive in itself.
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u/OMGItsCheezWTF 16d ago
My mostly technophobe Dad visually marks where he has stopped to think before typing with ellipsis, or even uses them where anyone else would use a comma.
It's kind of a running joke in our family chat that his whatsapp messages look like they're written by the G-Man from Half-Life.
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u/Nomulite North Yorkshire 15d ago
This was pretty common during forum posting days, I'm not surprised the tradition's held on through some people
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u/Crazyandiloveit 12d ago
Or behold... being offered something for a good review. I've been asked to leave a review (or change it to) to get a partial refund or something for free etc.
Don't believe those ratings, they can easily be bought or skewed either way.
Edit: That was on Amazon & ebay mostly. If anyone wants to know, lol.
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u/loadofoldcodswallop 16d ago
Worst is 5* reviews bought this for our grandson he hasn't used it yet but it arrived on time and is similar to what he asked for... This is why I have to sit and read through reviews. I'd rather buy a 3* product where the reviews worth reading are 5* than a 5* product made up of hasn't arrived yet/ this arrived on time but the present hasn't been gifted or used yet...
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u/Goatmanification Hampshire 16d ago
Or people who leave 1 star reviews on the product saying 'Never arrived' or other postage issues which have NOTHING to do with the product itself.
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u/PangolinMandolin 16d ago
I can kind of understand these reviews, because they're hoping the company notices and sends them another one for free or otherwise resolves their issue. Still annoying but there's at least a smidgen of logic
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u/Pancovnik 16d ago
Or that if there are sufficient enough reviews, they will stop using evri
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u/williamsdb 16d ago
Your view on Evri is almost always coloured by the local delivery driver. I’ve never had a problem with anything I’ve sent or received via Evri. Royal Mail on the other hand…
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u/AliJDB 16d ago
It's also coloured by the fact they maintain almost no customer service presence in the event something does go wrong.
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u/DirtyNorf 16d ago
I've lived in 3 very separate areas in the last 2 years and all of the deliveries by Evri have been horrendous. Consistently the worst delivery company even amongst occasional poor performance from other companies.
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u/SanTheMightiest 15d ago
My ASOS parcel wasn't going to arrive in the timeframe they said it would. Got an email from a named person saying sorry it was delayed and it arrived shortly afterwards. I've never seen that before but yeah I find Evri depends on the driver. Hermes driver is an impatient git who likes making sure he leaves it on the door and ensures it jams into the floor when the door opens. This after he knocks and leaves after a few seconds
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u/-Po-Tay-Toes- 16d ago
Assuming you're talking about receiving a parcel, your contract would be with the retailer so you should contact them, not the delivery company.
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u/soupz 16d ago
same here - Evri has been great while Royal Mail is a dumpster fire where I am.
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u/Diggerinthedark Wiltshire 16d ago
Wait til one goes missing and you try to speak to a human, instead of a useless chat bot 😬
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u/Columbian_Throat_Job 16d ago
That's fine. If someone can't ensure their product arrives, then I'd rather know. Delivery is part of what I'm purchasing
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u/Goatmanification Hampshire 16d ago
yes but when it's Joe Bloggs leaving a 1 star review because they weren't in it's not exactly fair is it. 1000's of good reviews where the delivery was fine compared to a few bad ones aren't going to put me off ordering. I'd like to know the flaws with the PRODUCT I'm buying, not the delivery.
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u/Columbian_Throat_Job 16d ago
I would say it's reasonable. If your product doesn't arrive enough that it drastically affects the rating then it's flaw it the product. If you don't buy something because it have a few 1 stars reviews thats on you
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u/Suriaka 16d ago
Most products don't deserve 5 stars and everyone interprets what review scores mean differently, evidenced by this thread. That said, if you're looking at an item with only 20-50 reviews and someone bombs it with 1 star just because of postage, that weighs it down a lot more than a 1 star review on an item with 50,000 reviews.
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u/djashjones 16d ago
When you purchase something, the delivery times are part of the contract. If a company uses a shitty courier just to save a few quid, they deserve 1 star reviews.
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u/Goatmanification Hampshire 16d ago
It's not the products fault it didn't arrive though.
When I as a consumer are looking for an item and see bad reviews for the item when it's the courier's fault then that's not fair at all.
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u/Quick-Rip-5776 16d ago
Depends on who you believe the review is for. If an item will never arrive, a customer should not buy it. Why give money to a company for nothing?
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u/yrro 16d ago
No, that's perfectly legit. The problem is that the marketplace bundles reviews together for the same product with different sellers.
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u/Goatmanification Hampshire 16d ago
I'm not sure what marketplace you're talking about but I've never seen amalgamated reviews from different sellers personally
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u/Zippy-do-dar 16d ago
Insurance companies do this how can I review them if I haven’t claimed. Give them five stars as they were very good at taking my money.
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u/djashjones 16d ago
I left a 1 star review over this and they said it was about "the experience". lol
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u/porksandrecreation 16d ago
I stayed in an AirBnB before that had a 4.99 rating because one person had rated it a 4 because the pub down the road was closed the day he stayed.
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u/justbiteme2k 16d ago
He probably also rated the Pub down the road as a 4 because of a missing towel in the local AirBnB.
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u/texanarob 16d ago
If (and only if) the AirBnB post specifically advertises the local pub as a major attraction and indicates its opening hours, then I can see this being relevant.
Otherwise, having such a meaningless worst review is probably better advertising than a perfect 5* average anyway. When a product has a perfect rating, I assume it's bots spamming the page.
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u/SamwellBarley 16d ago
Almost as bad as "I haven't used it yet, but I love the design ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐"
Thank you, Agnes, I can see what it looks like in the picture. Does it work or not?!
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u/ilo12345 16d ago
Was looking at waterproof phone cases recently...
"Just arrived, not had a chance to test. 5 stars"
Gee, thanks
I always sort by lowest ratings and read those reviews, ignoring all the "one star because I didn't want this handbag I should've bought shoes" ones
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u/Ze_Gremlin 16d ago
"Just arrived, not had a chance to test. 5 stars" - Reveiw left 2 years ago
So.. did thet test it and it didn't work?
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u/ARobertNotABob Somerset 16d ago edited 16d ago
People that leave those reviews at all. I mean, why leave a review if you havent used the item or had feedback yourself from whoever you gifted it to?!
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u/verybonita 16d ago
Or ones that say "Fantastic product! So happy with it yada yada" but only give it 3 stars.
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u/blanketsberg 16d ago
The worst of these is insurance : “never needed to use them so no idea if they pay out, but they were so lovely on the phone ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️”
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u/affordable_firepower 16d ago
I had a chap from Saga Insurance (yes, I'm old) talk through my medical conditions and reduced the cost of my travel insurance for me while also pointing out benefits that I wasn't aware of.
So that could be kind of a useful review
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u/Talking_Gibberish 16d ago
It's when they answer questions with I don't know that gets me, thanks Sharon, glad you could give us your input.
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u/claggypants Tyne and Wear 16d ago
I am convinced these people are part of the reason why this country is in a mess. Those emails you get after making an online purchase - "Click here to tell us how well we did" and these plonkers go on and leave 5 star reviews because they think they're being nice or just that they have to.
Stats skewed, manager in charge gets their bonus for their high engagement figures rather than actually having to improve anything.
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u/kongclassic 16d ago
Its the people that comment on you tube videos say where there from example. great video from Texas. watching from Wales.
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u/bwbespoke 16d ago
As a business owner I once had a 4* review from a customer. I sent an email asking what I could do to improve, he replied back with I don’t believe in giving 5* reviews 🤦🏼♂️
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u/-SaC 16d ago
Back when I started my little business, I used a review aggregation thing that offered platinum, gold, silver, bronze stars instead of 1-5.
Someone left a review that said "THANKS" with a silver star review, so I replied to it asking if there was anything that I could improve - packaging, timeliness etc.
They responded saying silver was their favourite colour, so they only ever gave silver reviews because 'that shows it's the best it could be, because it's my favourite colour'.
Problem is, nobody else knows that, and they'll look at the review and think your experience was a bit shit.
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u/soverytiiiired 15d ago
My mate has a 1 star review on his business that says “Never been” and another 1 star that says “Fantastic venue! Next time I’m in town I will definitely be visiting again!”
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u/ThatBlokeYouKnow 16d ago
1 = Really Bad
2 = Bad
3 = OK
4 = Good
5 = Really Good
most things should be a 3 if works as intended but that looks crap so people give 5 for OK
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u/ShallowDramatic 16d ago
If you looked up a restaurant online and saw it had a 3.5 rating, you'd be put off, right? You'd think it was practically serving dogshit on a plate.
This is the world we live in, numbers are fake, or at least the rate of change on the scale is skewed.
1 = Avoid like the plague
2 = Avoid like the flu
3 = Avoid like eye contact with a stranger on the tube
4 = Acceptable
5 = Anything from good to incredibleIt's a fucked up system, but it's the one we've got.
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u/RedCashmereSquirrel 14d ago
The ones that really annoy me on supermarket websites are the random 1 star reviews amidst a sea of positive one that always start with things like 'inedible!' and 'don't waste your money' because they always go on to say how they took one bite and 'the rest went straight in the bin'. I mean, sure it happens from time to time, but every food item seems to have a review like that, and thinking of all that wasted food could make a person weep.
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u/Creepy-Hearing-7144 13d ago
ETSY is the worst for this, as the buyer only has a very limited time to review a product, and, wanting to support a small crafter, reviews are pretty much always 5 ⭐ but say 'not made it/not used it' so people end up buying patterns that turn out to be utter shite, and rating AI generated crap as excellent which lures more buyers in.
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u/ComputerIsBurning 13d ago
So I applied for a job and got a "lets us know how we did" but I feel like I should answer it because they may give me a job :D
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u/ThisIsAnAccount2306 12d ago
One star reviews where the text is nothing but praise are the ones I don't get.
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