I completely disagree. There’s no reason not to do it. The buyer is protected by Amazon. If they refuse to pay you, just send the light back.
I do these all the time (mostly from facebook ads) and if i don’t like the product i simply return it. If i do like it, i provide the review and have always been refunded promptly.
If Amazon finds out what you and the seller did they will ban you both from their site. Not to mention you are scamming me if you get away with it and I trust your review.
Of course you’d meet the disclosure requirements when posting a review. But not everybody does, and the temptation is obvious.
and from that Buzzfeed article linked above:
If you buy it and they refund your purchase, you got a free product, which violated Amazon’s terms — because people give higher reviews to free stuff than to stuff they’d honestly be willing to buy, pay for, and evaluate after using.
Of course you wouldn’t do that. It’s one of those “moral hazard” kinds of situation.
I have received more than 2 review invitations from brand S, not sure if they require me to order from amazon in order to receive the review unit, probably yes.
I already did a review for S (and will again, if they ask me - please contact me again! ). But I’m honest in my reviews, so they cannot expect a 5 star review if the product is not that good.
Had three similar offers more than a year ago. I did one. Got refunded via PayPal for the light bought on Amazon.
It didn’t feel right. It seemed to me the harder I tried to be impartial the harder it was to actually achieve it.
I mean if your main motivation is free lights, I wouldn’t want to read or watch that review anyway. I no longer read many reviews at all. They all start with that line, “other than getting to keep the light, I was not compensated in anyway for this review”. Or “Acme sent me a light for review” which is usually followed by the first quote.
If a light peaks my interest, I buy it, try it and then decide to sell it on or give it away. Hundreds of 5 star reviews on a truly crappy product doesn’t lend itself to my trusting reviews on legitimately good products.
The give me free lights for review mentality does nothing positive for the flashlight forums and communities.
it is probably legit - or rather, they will probably reimburse you.
one thing to ask or watch out for though is, do they refund immediately, or after they ‘review’ your review?
i had one situation where they wanted to review my review before reimbursing, which can lead to dishonesty, though i liked the light and the review was ok.
i didn;t like that, but i have not been offered any after that, though.
also they may not say that up front.
Thorfire was good about reimbursing immediately.
even if they reimburse properly and do not review your review, it is still semi unethical.
though i have 5-6 lights from doing that.
none were good enough to keep using day to day
i have FW3A for that. now that is a good light!
I’ve had companies give me 90+ discount (rebate, actually), and think they’re acting within the TOS.
There are lots of reviews on Amazon that state that they were given the product for free or at a discount for review. AFAIK, those don’t get deleted. So, as long as the seller/manufacturer is discounting or giving me the product (specifically before I write the review), not actually paying me for the review, I don’t feel like I’m violating the TOS. And I never shy away from negatives on the review, regardless of how much I paid.
I’ve had offers as the OP describes. It always felt a little unethical to me, and I didn’t do them.
At the very least, I think the reviewer should make it clear in the review that he got the light for free. But that would probably violate terms-of-service. So, yeah, it just somehow feels unethical. It’s probably common, though.