OCUK pick and choose product reviews?

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I wrote two reviews yesterday, both on optical drives in the ocuk shop. One was a 1 star review and the other 4 stars. I wrote the reviews within a minute of each other.
The 1 star review was based on a drive I recieved which was faulty, I then RMAd it and was given a drive of identical model as a replacment, which was also faulty. The build quality was also awful. The product I wrote it on has no previous reviews and I felt it was a very fair assessment of the 2 drives I had recieved. The 4 star review was on a drive from another brand I had ordered after getting a refund for the second faulty drive.

Yet only the 4 star review has been approved.

There's no reason I can see for this other than the fact that OCUK don't want a product shown with one 1 star review in which 2 of that product recieved within days of one another were faulty - as it would impact their sales of the product. Hardly fair on the customers?
 
if your looking for common purchases and safe pruchases like me i go for products with loads of reviews, h50, g11, fatal1ty headset etc, all around 50 reviews. i wouldnt say no reviews means bad reviews, but i tend to read around on different sites and watch reviews before i buy most things.
 
A while ago there was a load of fake reviews up taking the piddle, I started a thread pointing it out which was quickly deleted! :confused: The reviews remained, so I just thought fffffffffffuuuuuuuu :D
 
The OcUK review system as it stands is completely unprofessional at detracts from the store enormously. It’s obvious to everyone that they’re vetted and even then they don’t do a good job beyond glancing at how many stars they have been given as many reviews are ‘jokes’ by people who don’t own or plan to own the product.

It’s unethical to provide ‘impartial’ reviews and then vet them so that there are barely any bad reviews, on the other end of the scale, to have walls of 5 star reviews is completely unsettling to anyone with half a brain. They need to be done away with completely, they certainly don’t add to the purchasing experience and if anything only add doubt about the store in entirety.
 
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eLbot said:
The OcUK review system as it stands is completely unprofessional at detracts from the store enormously. It’s obvious to everyone that they’re vetted and even then they don’t do a good job beyond glancing at how many stars they have been given as many reviews are ‘jokes’ by people who don’t own or plan to own the product.

It’s unethical to provide ‘impartial’ reviews and then vet them so that there are barely any bad reviews, on the other end of the scale, to have walls of 5 star reviews is completely unsettling to anyone with half a brain. They need to be done away with completely, they certainly don’t add to the purchasing experience and if anything only add doubt about the store in entirety.
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This to be honest... Plenty of retailers mange to do honest user reviews, in the long run allowing bad reviews to stand improves the integrity of the shop.

There are only two options, (a) no user reviews or (b) all user reviews, with spam and any abusive stuff removed. The current situation doesn't work.
 
Its a product review though, there was a big thread a while back where they said the reason why a lot of poor reviews were not published. In the case of yours, it was based on a faulty product. I think that was one of the reasons given.
 
PhillyDee said:
Its a product review though, there was a big thread a while back where they said the reason why a lot of poor reviews were not published. In the case of yours, it was based on a faulty product. I think that was one of the reasons given.
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That's the other side of the coin; people are (mostly) motivated to post a review for two reasons, they like it and want to reinforce their purchasing choice with a good review (technical choices always end in strong views at the end of the day and a good way to be confident in your choice is to talk about it to others.) Or the other common reason, they’ve have a bad purchasing experience and the product doesn’t fit the bill (normally due to a fault or embarrassingly consumer error and so OcUK remove or decline to approve the review).

Even still then, we’re left with the vast majority of reviews being 4s and 5s and a very small handful of 3s and almost no 1s and scarcely if any 0s. This looks bad and undermines confidence to the common purchaser when they see walls of very good reviews they know it’s too good to be true. I’d say reviews could have a place here whilst still being vetted to be only about the product (if we give them the benefit of the doubt that it is indeed what’s happening) if they did away with the star system. A review doesn’t need to be simplified into a score and even if it did, a system that doesn’t result in walls of 5’s would have to be put in place.

Change has to happen, the current system looks incredibly unprofessional to new customers.
 
The Razer Imperator Mouse had only a 1 star review for months, I bought one in the end but came close to not doing so because of the review, loved the mouse and gave it a five star - dont see any dodgy going on here, although I agree about the 'joke' reviews.
 
Research the products via other respected review sites seems to be the moral of the story.

Plenty of products on sale have really good reviews yet have none at all on the OCuk site. I'm sure many have no reviews because no reviews have been submitted even though the product has been sold recently. :)
 
I too have written negative reviews on products (e.g. the emprex keyboard).
None have been published.

They should rename the 'review' section to a 'praise' section.
 
Definitely looks like bad reviews are vetted (save a few that seem to have slipped through net). I suppose it makes business sense not to stick "don't buy me" signs on products.

I wonder how good the vetting is? If they just go by star rating, I suppose you could give it 5 stars and rip into it in the review.
 
PhillyDee said:
This was the previous one

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18118020&highlight=product+review
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I can guarantee my reivew contained no bad or abusive language and was not factually incorrect. How can it be? I recieved and was refunded for two faulty drives which had a flimsy quality of build in the first place, there's nothing there to misinterpret. I can safely bet it was declined simply for being a slating review.

I won't be posting any reviews good or bad from now on, as it isn't a fair assessment of the products if the good are let through and the bad aren't. I wont contribute to a review system that allows people to continually buy less than mediocre products because of a vetted and unfair ruling.
 
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I've found this in the past too. Only written a couple of reviews below 4 stars and neither got approved, but all the 4 star and higher have been approved.
 
All reviews need to be relevant, a faulty product is an annoyance but is not a fair review of the products performance (it can't be, it didn't work so you couldn't review it).

2 faulty drives is unlucky but is certainly not statistically relevent.
 
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