A discussion on negative reviews and reviewer integrity

I did a wood stove fan accessory review not too long ago for a chinese seller. The product was a complete POS, gave it 1 star, and pointed out the reasons with photos why it was bad. Vendor refused to refund my money. I told them they had 24hrs to refund or I would return it, with an email to Amazon how this vendor was attempting to trade product for good reviews. Didn’t hear from the vendor, so I returned to Amazon. I noticed my review was the only review for some time, then eventually product became unavailable.

It’s not cheap for a seller to have a customer return an item to Amazon FBA…

https://www.topfreetest.com/

I don’t know ? Just got a Email from this lot , so ?

? Playing the refund game , risky .

“The flashlight is bad. It’s a generic light that you’ve seen hundreds of times all over AliExpress and Amazon. It has multiple problems that you describe in detail. The bad outweighs the good. This flashlight is not worth the money. ”

The original poster own words above. Why would he review KNOWING PRIOR about issues with light? Makes NO SENSE !!! Now he comes and asks for our opinion? What would you guys say after reading post?

Waste of time CORRECT?

Talk is talk …
Peoples got things to say …
OP was a catalyst !

I think there is an implied,“They ship it to me without saying which flashlight” in there after the review is accepted?

It doesn’t hurt to ask, right? :wink:

Actually, I’d bet real money right now that, because it’s you, if you were asking for something that would enhance your ability to do all the things you do around here, for which we are eternally grateful, and if it were price-wise within the grasp of a quick fund-raiser, you’d have what you wanted in short order. Somebody would start collecting funds, find the item at best price, get your delivery information, and make it happen.

But I’m sure you know that, hence the $6000 synthesizer request. :wink:

Don’t hold your breath TK, but should I ever win a lottery…. you will have one of THESE delivered to you. Wrapped & complete with a big bow on top. :wink:
Along with anything else you need to accompany it too…. :+1:

From my personal point of view (I’ve spent a few k$ on integrating sphere and spectrophotometer 8) mostly for personal use) - most of the cheap lights are crap and do not meet specifications. It’s only a matter of bang for a buck ratio, and you cannot do anything about that… If something is crap it will be crap, and somebody sooner or later will write about that, If you are thinking about yourself as a member of “enlightened” :innocent: community You will write the truth, click send, and be a happy man : 8) .

Recently I was contacted by a fairly new member (only a few weeks old) with a Chinese name, and asked me if I’d like to review their flashlights. They sent me links to two Amazon product listings. The light brand is new to me (NiteNumen), but the specs and design look interesting. A little pricey for what you get, relative to well established brands. You expect a no-name to be priced a good bit less as they try to establish brand recognition.

Anyway, the person said that they’d send me the first one and if they thought the review fair and well written, I would then buy the 2nd one and they’d reimburse me after I posted the review. I sent them a pretty good example of one review I did for Olight and she said it was very nice. But now… she’s asking me to purchase both flashlights and that she’d reimburse me after the reviews are posted. Her profile is completely absent of any identifying information and there’s no company signature either. At least with Olight, it was an official Olight username and she included a company style tag line in her signature. I never had to buy those Olight flashlights I reviewed either.

A friend of mine here mentioned about this, the “bait and buy” thing and that I should avoid that. He’d heard of cases where someone does a review and then they never get reimbursed. The username just goes defunct.

Has anyone here experienced this?

I’ve experienced it with known and unknow members from flashlight companies/stores.
With the known member (company), I agreed to do that, bought the light, got refunded, made a review saying the goods and bads of the light!

With the unknown member (from an amazon store), I replied, and never heard of him/her ever since, as the account was probably deleted by our administrator (sb56637). Those are shill and spam techniques that are not well regarded here and that can/shall(?) be denounced to the adminstrator .

BTW, NiteNumen in a known flashlight brand, had some interesting lights, disappeared and now it seems to be back!

I wouldn’t do a review under those circumstances. Either I’m already planning to buy the light, in which case reimbursement isn’t expected or needed, or I’m not, in which case they’d have to give it to me first before any review was made/posted. Reviews are work and take some amount of time to do right. And I’m not even as thorough as a lot of the members here that do reviews. Buying a product I wouldn’t have otherwise been interested in buying, in order to do a review, in hopes of getting reimbursed after I’m done, is a non-starter for me.

On Amazon? It’d be really stooooooooopit with a capital “stoo” if someone were to screw you over. All you’d have to do is “modify” your review…

“Holy Crap! The light started to get hot and sparking all over the place! I had to run and toss it outside before it blew up! I’ll never ever ever buy another XYZ brand light ever again!”

Thankfully, all the lights I’ve been asked to review have been genuinely good to excellent. Lotta times I’ll have to find something to pick on, just to make the review look “balanced”, when in reality the light’s almost perfect as-is.

Then again, they were all from reputable dealers, too.

Only once or twice did I have a review-chaser want to “buy” a review. I gave a rather thorough review (decent light, too, if I recall), and found out later all they wanted was “Wow, great light!” and that’s it. Oh, well…

Yeah, some people go really crazy with runtimes, beamshots (especially vs other lights), tek-spex (great if you’ve got a lumenometer, etc.), and so on.

Someone here used to do… what was it called?… “real-world reviews”? Think that was even his handle (more or less). That’s what I like to do, personally. Not only getting my first impressions out of the box, but I’ll use the light for a while in “real world” situations (eg, outside, backyard, etc.), then see how it does. A week or so of using it is about right, and should uncover glitches in the UI, etc. If it’s a diving light, I’ll give it a soak in a utility sink for a while to make sure it doesn’t drownd.

The average putz on Amazon likely doesn’t care about step-down, runtime, etc., so I’ll put myself in that frame of mind. How’s the finish? Is the switch crisp or mooshy? Is the beam pretty clean or ringy? Etc.

Beats the usual “Wow! Brightest flashlight I’ve ever seen!” (for a typical “tac-light” :confounded: ), I’d think.

Thanks for the tips / advice. I did a little more digging and seems you’re right MascaratumB , that Nitenumen appeared back in 2016, vanished for a few years, then returned.

I have no real interest in these lights. I’m quite “stacked” with inventory now and don’t want to pay for more light clutter. I figured I could review and then pass it (them) on as a gift. I agree with you DavidEF, as I’m convinced that the effort going into a quality review usually exceeds the value of the flashlight, and ROI for a brand can be significantly higher. So they should always be free for review and those who pay are doing it simply because they have genuine interest in the product. That’s a good point, Lightbringer — about being able to change a review after the fact. Which one could do if the brand failed to reimburse.

All in all, I think I’m going to pass if they’re not going to ship free. I’m now actually thinking I may not want to do it at all, because the lights would be totally redundant in my collection.

I did some reviews for Thorfire a year or two back. At that time Amazon was full of freebie reviews. The first light was very good indeed, and I said so. I had an email asking me to review another light, and it was strongly hinted at that I’d get more if the review was good. Well the second light was decent enough, albeit not perfect. I wrote as much. I then got more emails along the lines of “lights in exchange for good reviews”. I reviewed a third light, not because I wanted a light, but out of curiosity. The third light, a bike light, was potentially dangerous, with a battery pack consisting of cells and protection circuit loosely wrapped in shrink wrap. They were vulnerable to water ingress, and impact damage. And the plugs did not comply with EU law. I gave an honest review. Have I had a review request since? No.

I gave all three lights away. In the case of the bike light I gave it to someone who understood the dangers. I have no interest in reviewing lights in order to get free lights, my interest is curiosity, nothing more. When I see a light that appeals, I buy it.

Basically Amazon reviews are corrupt. If like me someone is honest, they get removed from the reviewer list. So that leaves people who are corrupt, or who are so dumb that they would consider a ripe banana to be an effective lighting tool.

I don’t trust Amazon reviews, that’s why I came to this Forum. Between the Forum and YouTube I find suitable information for successful purchases.

Yup, can’t risk having anyone actually take me seriously. :slight_smile:

i did a couple of ‘bait and buys’
they did pay
the lights were OK and i said so
wuben
thorfire
a bike light i don;t remember the name of that has 2 LEDs and i am still using

your deal could still be shady

though you would think they would have the most to lose
you could always change their review to something bad and even post it elsewhere, savage them any way you wanted to and anywhere
so it isn;t really that likely to be crooked

wle

Also ask the rep for conditions, including possible bad review. Some companies accept a direct email for bad reviews (you don't post it on Amazon). If they cannot accept anything less than 5 stars, don't accept the offer to review the light.