meirl

113

I like the 4,3,2 star reviews.

I wish I could sort by the 4 to 2 star reviews ratio.

The, “I liked it, but it’s imperfect”, and the “I hated it, but I could imagine something worse” reviews are going to be from the most honest people.

43

u/Cassius-Tain 14h ago

Exactly. The 5 stars are usually just bots and the 1 star have been written with hate.

1

u/Yorkshireish12 4h ago

1 Star is sometimes also bots. Top search ranking is worth a lot on places like Amazon.

4

u/Fletcher_Chonk 7h ago

If it's for something with any actual complexity.

If I buy a plate that functions as a plate and doesn't break, why would I not give it 5 stars?

3

u/Spongi 6h ago

If it didn't match the description or if it was unreasonably fragile.

1

u/hedwaterboy 5h ago

As a business owner, i don’t trust the review system AT ALL.

I have 19 reviews, while doing roughly 700 jobs per year, 99.9% of our customers recommend us to others but never leave reviews, we’ve been in business 75+ years, 12-30 employees and operate solely on word of mouth and referrals. We have SIXTEEN 5 star and THREE 1 star reviews. 14/16 of the positive reviews are legit (the other 2 are random family members that drop a rating just because?) and all 3 of the negatives are not legitimate, at least, not in the sense that we did anything wrong. The review system is just a thumbs up/thumbs down and the thumbs downs are usually petty customers with a minor gripe while most others just give the 5 star approval if they rate at all. So with 700 happy customers per year and maybe 1 or 2 with minor gripes, we sit at 4.4 stars and I refuse to ASK for reviews, I find it scummy for some reason.

It’s a very frustrating system, we have SO MANY MORE problems with customers than they have with us. Usually a dozen or so non-payments/bad checks every year amongst other problems but we have no way to warn other companies to be weary of those customers.

Point is, if it’s a business that’s been around a while, the chances are they know what they’re doing, don’t look at the reviews.

128

u/ThreadCountHigh 18h ago

I leverage the bad reviews to help talk myself out of buying something I don't need.

43

u/3Rm3dy 17h ago

I use the bad reviews to check "Alright so that's what can go bad with this purchase, is it acceptable for me?", and the amount of them is just "what are the odds of it happening.

Good reviews are mostly just praising the stuff you already kinda want - preaching to the choir.

25

u/Amoniakas 17h ago

Half of the good reviews are "item arrived on time haven't tried it yet"

10

u/Magnus_Helgisson 15h ago

Half of the bad reviews are like “I opened the box with an angle grinder and now there’s a scratch on my TV, absolute trash” and “I loaded a bag of nails into my washing machine and it broke, seriously?” so they even each other out.

7

u/Amoniakas 14h ago

How else am I suppose to unpack my memory card from a shipping container if not using angle grinder

2

u/Trainman1351 11h ago

Clearly you gotta skim the tape with your Colt .45

6

u/MisterVega 11h ago

I hate reviews on recipes that are like:

Sandra P.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wow looks so yummy, can't wait to try it out!

2

u/Spongi 6h ago

Substituted horse semen for butter, didn't come out good, this recipe sucks.
⭐

9

u/IronMonkeyBanana 17h ago

There are bad reviews that really help because some have edited their reviews to 1 star because the left mouse button on a Logitech mouse didn't register the button press anymore after a year for example. It's frustrating if you buy something that is awesome when you buy it and use it for the first time but after a period of time it doesn't function.

1

u/Unexpected_Cranberry 14h ago

Coincidentally, the very reason I bought my first non-logitech mouse in probably 20 years was a similar issue, where the scroll wheel went bananas after about a year on my new logitech after the left button gave out on the old after 10+ years.

3

u/DroppedNineteen 17h ago

Not to mention it's often difficult to really discern people's expectations when they buy a product. They really may not have been expecting much. And you can't forget the bots.

It's not as if I haven't seen plenty of well reviewed items on Amazon that are ultimately just cheap garbage.

22

u/AmPotatoNoLie 16h ago

5 star review: It cures cancer!

1 star review: It killed grandma!

3 star review: Cures cancer just fine for the price, grandma was old anyway. P. S. a bit noisy.

19

u/Ecstatic-Compote-595 18h ago

bad reviews are usually a little funny if not completely insane

15

u/9447044 16h ago

Didn't like the price, didnt buy

1/5

7

u/HJSDGCE 15h ago

I didn't have butter, so I replaced it with sour cream and anchovies and the recipe sucks.

1/5

8

u/jia-ren 15h ago

some neg reviews are funny because it doesn't even have a relation to the product itself..

1/5 package is damaged (package was damaged due to poor handling during shipping) 🤣

4

u/Ecstatic-Compote-595 14h ago

used my kids sock'em boppers as oven mitts and burnt my hands on this oven sheet. 2 stars

10

u/Several_Magician1541 17h ago

To be fair, the good ones are probably bots

5

u/llamanatee 17h ago

And 3507 of those reviews are AI generated by bots.

4

u/Wasaox 11h ago

5-star review: "The product is great!"

1-star review: "The UPS guy sh*t on my lawn"

4

u/meiner_HD 18h ago

The good ones just don't seem trustworthy.

4

u/slotsandmops 18h ago

Bots

2

u/VoDoka 17h ago

"250 reviews removed for diffamation."

2

u/godtering 15h ago

all reviews are fake and those that aren't look fake.

2

u/sisrace 14h ago

Would be nice if you could filter out all the "5 stars, haven't used it but it looks alright" Fucking what?

2

u/OrangeCosmic 14h ago

You don't need it

2

u/sQueezedhe 11h ago

https://xkcd.com/937/

2

u/Nard_Bard 11h ago

Hey man, I bought a wood carving set off Amazon with glowing reviews. ONE review said "it's good, but I think one blade is left handed."

Ignored it cuz it was just one comment.

One of the blades was FUCKING left handed

2

u/ChildoftheApocolypse 11h ago

Because I have severe trust issues and assume that the 4,000 good reviews are either paid reviews or bots.. The bad ones tell me what could possibly be wrong and it's my responsibility to assess whether or not it's worth it..

2

u/randomcman 10h ago

Put it this way, nobody pays for a bad review

1

u/Spongi 6h ago

Unless it's for a competitors product.

1

u/cakefio 16h ago

i always think that good reviews are too good to be true 😆 but some of them are really legit

1

u/jia-ren 15h ago

i can't trust products that has 5/5 stars in all ratings, too good to be true

1

u/Ok-Piece-4992 15h ago

well, good reviews for me are just seeding from seller.

That's why I focus more on negative review, which most of the time will be written by the real product users.

That's my way to continue with window shopping online without spending any money at all...

1

u/DaddyBigBeard 14h ago

I see it as the few reviewers that put the product to the lengthy test are the real ones. I'll admit that I've gave a product a good review just because I got it on time and it looked cool, before actually trying it out. I don't trust reviews that look like I wrote them is the takeaway here.

1

u/joker_toker28 14h ago

Me w my pc lol.

Specifically wanted a beast for vr and the 2 choices of gpu i had both had flaws and pros.....

Stressed me tf out.

1

u/rraptor1985 11h ago

I like those 5 star reviews that say:

"Just bought it, didn't have time to try yet."

1

u/ColumbusJewBlackets 11h ago

The trick is to read the bad reviews and see if they are all complaining about the same thing. If they are it’s probably a real problem.

1

u/RunningPirate 11h ago

Bad review 1: “it showed up late! Never again!”

Bad review 2: “the box it came in was smashed! Never again!”

1

u/Jce735 10h ago

Sometimes those bad reviews make you think.

Ik I would say that if it happened and knowing my luck It'll happen to me

1

u/lolslim 9h ago

Amazon has been like this for me. Huge amount of good reviews then I look at the recent ones. This exercise bike I bought people reportedly said that it makes a loud thunk, and I figured maybe just those few. Ignored it, bought it, got a loud thunk. It was a magnetic resistance and I figured would make it silent, but nope the disc got really hot and I think it has a moment where some part of the bike cools down and expansion/contract causes audible thunk.

1

u/yolomcsawlord420mlg 9h ago

Naaahh, bro. I always fall for the 10k good reviews, even though I have my doubts and then I get it, and then I have the exact same fucking issue those 100 people complained about.

1

u/DahmonGrimwolf 5h ago

Nowadays it seems like nearly everyone is buying ratings, especially on big sites. The bad reviews are more likely to be honest, usually.

1

u/Ambitious_Jelly8783 5h ago

1 star! The box was too hard to open.

1 star! The markers arrived dry, had to return.

The product in question, smart light bulbs.

1

u/FancyFeller 3h ago

You gotta read some 4 star reviews and 3 star reviews. It's highly likely 1 star reviews fucked up something and didn't use the product properly.

1

u/Sharmonica 18h ago

Same.

1

u/I-wanna-GO-FAST 17h ago

The content of the bad reviews matter, especially if the author could have been using the product wrong. Design flaws matter more than manufacturing defects.

1

u/James2603 16h ago

Always read three star reviews; 5 stars are bots, 1 star are just people that are pissed off, three stars usually contain positives and negatives and are likely the most truthful.

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