Bullying attempt via Marketplace-Review

[Jaylin Whitewood]

Long story short.. we sell an an item of furniture nocopy-mod-trans. (I know we should not, but honestly, it was thought as gift).

So far so good. A customer who brought it in December (and happily made a good review) now seems to have lost it, cause she seems to have gotten it auto-returned, as she claims. and wants another, free of charge of course.

Denying a free copy on the grounds of our shop-policy she suddenly changes and threatens to switch her 5 Star - review to an 1-Star one... really, sometomes you wonder how cut-throaty and low people can become...

Anyway, i rather do something against an 1 Star, that give in to this kind of bullying..

 

Its honestly bewildering that this already questionable review-tool is to be used a tool for blackmail... maybe it should be abandoned alltogether

Did some customer try that with you too?

 

[Monti Messmer]

Abandon it - like all reviews on the net it´s faked too often.

Monti

[Pamela Galli]

Flag the review. Make a comment on the review and paste the description you give above. 

 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

You are within your rights not to replace the item since there is no way the customer can prove they don't just want another free copy or that they gave it to someone else.  Stick to your guns. Inventory loss is not your problem.  She shou.d take it up with LL.  Uf she carries out her threat, do what Pam advised.

Even if LL refuses to remove a review like this if you flag it, you can comment on it and tell the story of what happened. I'd then ignore her review if I were considering your product, other than to think what a fool she was.

 

[Rya Nitely]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

Even if LL refuses to remove a review like this if you flag it, you can comment on it and tell the story of what happened. I'd then ignore her review if I were considering your product, other than to think what a fool she was.

 

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I think this forum is also a good way to show the customer up.

Although this was not my intention when I recently posted a link to my 1 star review - I'm not sure whether this is against TOS, but I 'd seen it done before and nobody questioned the appropriateness of it. However, In posting the link, which reveals the customer's name, he or she may be made aware of the thread, through a friend perhaps. This is another reason I like the lack of anonymity in the ratings system. I would rather have no reviews than the risk of an anonomous 1 star rating.

So, it's just a way for merchants to have some come back when this happens. As it is, my 1 star review was removed, thanks to the commerce team.

I do like ratings and reviews and wouldn't want to see them removed altogether. People do pay attention to it, to some degree. For example, I remade my popular sculpted stone steps by using mesh. Not only does the mesh version look and work better, but they are1 LI instead of 2, and are also much easier to modify and resize. Yet people continue to buy the highly rated and reviewed old sculpted version. I don't understand it, and all I can put it down to is ratings and popularity of the old established version. So people do pay attention to that. Although, many items sell well with no ratings.

 

[LillyBeth Filth]

I did this about 7 days ago. First time in 8 years I have "gone public" over business issues. 

Whilst I was careful  did not name the customers involved,  I did rant a little about how everyone of their 5 attempts of leaving inappropriate reviews had been removed by LL and they still kept on leaving more... I was angry and frustrated... 

I came back to the forums and found the whole thread had been removed AND a PM explaining it was against the TOS.They didn't say "what" was against the TOS - just coped and pasted my post in its entirety. 

I do wish they would be more specific when they say "in breach of the TOS"  because how is one to learn their errors without it being highlighted. (?)

From what I can gather, it may have been the fact I used the phrase  "p1ss*d off" 

Anyway, its the first AND last time I will go public with such drama..

Generally "naming and shaming" reflects far worse on the namer than the shamed... and whilst the public vent may feel therapeutic for your personal anger and frustration.. It's not very professional.... 

Best to keep a "quiet dignity" even when every part of you is screaming " NOT FAIR!!!" lol 

Also, as it happens, the 1 star review they finally managed to leave (because did not breach the Community Standards) was challenged by a customer who purchased the same item a week later and left a 5 star review contradicting everything the 1 star reviewer left. 

I thanked the 5 star reviewer for taking the chance because of the negative review AND leaving a positive one because so few customers bother.

It ticks me off a little when I get a "HELP my product was not delivered" and I log in and sort it out in a timely manner, thank them for their custom and they still don't leave a review but that's the nature of the review system.

90% of the time its there to ensure merchants behave properly and sell good quality items because its like having an axe hanging over your head if you upset a customer who never bothers to leave a positive but enjoys a good old rant when they feel cheated regardless of whether they have been or not.

Its not for a merchants benefit to have a review system it appears more for the customers peace of mind knowing they have some kind of "safety net" if things don't turn out as they feel they should.

 

[Rya Nitely]

Good post!

Actually, the more I think about it the more I can see that it should be against TOS to give a link to a customer review.

I agree with everything you've said. Fortunately most customers are fair.

I have another instance of a 1 star review that I also thought was unfair. In this case the customer didn't understand that sculpties have a bounding box that had to be made phantom for the item to work. But I accepted that review with quiet dignity because it was specifying a fault with the item itself, as the customer saw it.

The review I did not accept with quiet dignity was because the customer had made a careless assumption about the texture on the item despite it  being obvious in the image, and took his disappointment/anger out on the item, and thus on me.

I spent too much time working on that item, especially the texture which I only use once, to let that one go.

Hopefully it will be enough to just flag and not post here. Posting about it with a link to the review was wrong.