Rating: GearBest.com [AVOID]

We don’t need Gearbest searching BLF for people to become shills for them. For some it can be hard to pass up “free” flashlights. It may not seem harmful at first but every spam post Gearbest gets someone to post for them degrades BLF.

It seems they’ve been informed that we don’t appreciate their behavior. Time is short to change before they crash & burn on BLF.

@ Racer - If that post was mine, then I am sorry if there is any trouble caused. I just asked them for the cheapest coupon they could do on it and then would post it. I don’t have any affiliate relationship there. In fact, the only affiliate I had ever done was for an exduct BLF giveaway that never got paid out to me for the giveaway. In general, I will post deals if I think it’s a good deal and that’s it. I won’t do that for compensation of any kind. I would do reviews for things if given them for review like many others, though that chance hasn’t happened much for me.

…and that’s the slipper slope they are on. Given their behavior, no one knows who’s who and what’s what. If we know they are spamming members with offers of coupons and free stuff in exchange for posting here and on sites like slickdeals.net, and then those posts suddenly appear, how does the community distinguish between legitimate links and shill links? The line gets blurred.

True, I always check for the affiliate tags on the end of links I click and avoid shortened links. I agree that it makes it hard when there are new faces all the time. I know that I can click through brted’s dx stuff since he brings it back for a giveaway. I will try to be judicious in any future deals. If I ever receive anything for review I will disclose that too. I was always a fan of Foy’s ideals from early on since it was simpler:


No referral links and nothing embedded . . . ever.

- buybehappyFoy

Gearbest is obviously reading this thread, so lets hope they take all this great free advice before they sink themselves. Its nice that they have that choice now, where as so many others didnt get this valuable feedback before making unforgivable mistakes.

Along those lines, maybe SB could comment if now might be a great time to add to BLF policy and kill all the shill/referral links that are beginning to dominate and ruin this forum. I agree that the lure of easy money has proven to be uncontrollable to many members here. So much that they often get engrossed in the moment of “free” and post ridiculously overenthusiastic reviews of poor to mediocre flashlights… and they have no idea of what a complete ass it makes them seem in front of others. :smiley: Heck, my first free light review had that overly enthusiastic tone and I was lucky enough to emend it before posting… so I can understand how easy it might be to get carried away. Its human nature to do so, and with no BLF policy to police this particular bad behavior it winds up being abused repeatedly.

I was allowed to pick my GB review sample from one they didnt carry, and I asked them to add it to their inventory. Mainly because I think it will perform in a positive way above its competition. If not, it should make for one heck of a great mod host. But my review is pending the arrival of a separate private order to give a more rounded opinion of this vendors performance. Hopefully others will follow suit in my “blind case study” test, which should hopefully prove the willingness of the vendor to help an average customer that incurred a bad buying experience. Time will tell…

Comments?

I personally just do a review of a thing based solely on the merits of that thing, with one caveat: we’re pretty much all prostitutes, but my goal is to be a classy prostitute, which to me means a well-defined code of personal conduct. Central to my code is not being associated with a company that isn’t classy. And if it’s a new company that I’ve never heard of, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt until/unless they reveal themselves to be otherwise. Classy is as classy does, as mama says :slight_smile:

When I inadvertently click a BLF shillers affiliate link, I always remove the offensive code from the url before I proceed with my purchase. Sometimes the browser wont allow it, so I must log out and reenter the site and find the item through the search engine or sku. IMO, never under any circumstance support the shilling links of others. Yeah, I know there’s two sides to each story, but far to many people here seem to have made a career of it for this own private benefit. Then they use a myriad of ridiculously foolish excuses to justify their actions. Sorry but thats just a crock of crap that gets old real quick. Take your rubbish BS story somewhere else please. Maybe Im being too opinionated, but Ive seen it abused in access for far to long, and its getting worse every single day.

BTW, if you step in dog poop by accident, be sure to leave your shoes at the porch before stepping into your home… the same principle applies here. :bigsmile:

Very well stated Racer, and in so many ways you hit the nail on the head. I did a review last year for a promising new vendor that went bad after 6 months of decent service. I later re-edited my review to remove all references of their company, which I believe was the right thing to do in the service of others. The light was very good and stood out based on its own merits… but not the supplier.

I received this PM here but didn't respond. I don't even know which seller sent it. It's something you have to be careful about.

I got that PM alos :slight_smile:

Got the same email from Dora Wu too. I think they sent the same email to all BLF users. :~

I never heard of this company until I saw a 20% Nitecore coupon code from them on another site. Looking at the page that I was directed to it only list some of their Nitecore flashlights and I’m wondering if it applies to just the flashlights on that page or all of them. Gearbest if you are reading this can you clarify this?

If it does apply then there are some pretty good prices on the SRT flashlights. I paid about $20 more for the SRT7 from another vendor (the best price I could find) at the beginning of April if the 20% code applies otherwise it was about the same price.

I read reviews with some skepticism especially if the reviewer gets a free sample of the item. How do I know the company didn’t cherry pick the item to start. Also for most people there is just too much temptation to skew the review when the item is free. There are however those who can be trusted even when they are given free samples (i.e. selfbuilt, HKJ are two that come to mind).

My other thought is that if there are affiliate links so what. If someone is going to buy an item anyway then way not give a fellow BLFer a commission. At least we know that it’s an affiliate link and not some skewed review. And if there is a review with the link then I just take that into account. OTOH if BLF filled up with affiliate links then it would diminish the value of this forum. Moderation would be the watch word.

I’m also a little leary of giving my financial information to a company that doesn’t have a track record. So I haven’t made up my mind about this company yet but it sure doesn’t look good when they are sending PMs to get people to review lights.

Anyway that’s just my 2 cents worth for what it’s worth.

I was notified about this, and I deleted the sender’s account. It wasn’t GearBest as far as I can tell.

On an unrelated note

A while back got this gimmickly little light for $.01…ended up paying $3.00, 1.99 for shipping and $1.00 for insurance on a $0.01 item (yeah…always always always double double check before you hit the pay button…doh!)
Commodity price : 0.01 + Insurance: 1.00 + Tracking Number: 1.99

Just got a conformation in my paypal they refunded the $1.99…I never asked for it or even filed a complain…interesting

Definitely earned a few kudo points for that

Got one of these inbound for Commodity price : 3.22
Let’s see how well it holds up

Would definitely like to find out the “moddability” of this “police” light…the other ones you can’t disassemble
http://www.gearbest.com/led-flashlights/pp_23496.html

Yeah, if they want the flashlight folks here to stay around, they need pictures of the other end of the flashlights.
Most show the tailcap open, none I noticed show the emitter or driver — nor tell anything about them.

I only did 1 trx with them for multipurpose saber card promo.
order on 6 apr, ship out on 8 apr with unrecognized tracking number.
now, in middle of nowhere.
will just wait since it is almost free item.

I’m just curious if this is a common practice. :~

The lowermost picture in Gearbest’s ad for the Jacob A60: http://www.gearbest.com/led-flashlights/pp_15296.html is exactly the same as my A60 beam shot in my post here (6th photo from the top) in BLF: Beamshot Comparison of my Throwers and Dedomed Flashlights

I think it would be safe to say that they copied from my post because I took that picture just outside my home. :frowning:

Haha :smiley: lol, you are now famous person :stuck_out_tongue:

I ordered two items lately (have not received them yet) and today I got an email from them, a very very very annoying one, and there is no link in the mail to unsubscribe from their mails, and in my account on their website there is also no option to unsubscribe such annoying emails. This is the horrid email (without lay-out, it ended with a clickable button to something on their website I did not want to click):

My Dearest Friend
We also want to say a huge thank you for your tolerance and patience. You have made the journey together an incredible one. But we also want to say how very sorry we are to you.
Why? For the times when you perhaps did not receive your products as fast as you had hoped. Maybe we made a rare mistake and you did not receive your expected products. Or sometimes, our tireless customer service team did not fully resolve your problem in time. You might even feel that you have suffered unfairly.
We are so sorry
From everyone here at Gearbest, please accept our sincere apologies if we have ever disappointed you
...but that's not all
We understand
that sometimes words
are not enough.
So we asked all of our colleagues at Gearbest for their best ideas: we're delighted to offer this modest thank you gift to you.
Yes, the GB staff contributed but deep down we know that we would not still be here today after all this time were it not for each and every one of you.
You're not simply valuable, or even invaluable:
You're amazing

Yours Sincerely
The Gearbest Team

Yeah, I got that same “Dearest Friend” email too (twice)

I’m getting to think a lot of these supposedly different sites are all run from the same desk, just one guy somewhere testing all sorts of different approaches to selling stuff. He’s probably got an account or six here as well …

There was an ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of the email.
I’m testing that out now.