Marketplace reviews, what is the point anymore.

[Softcakes]

Over my light time spent in SL, 6 years' and a few months. 

I've never understood the marketplace reviews, if it's anything under 4' there's instant animosity and you find your perfectly reasonable review removed, the creator sending you threats as well as their friends hounding you for even daring to say what you've experienced/perceived, with the object you've bought.

"I liked it because of x reason, however it's doing this and that' which makes it not function as it should." Example of something simple - However if it's not a 4 or 5 you'll find it gone within a day. 

Breaking point.

Recently I bought an item and I didn't enjoy it, I wrote simply what was the issues and why someone might be mindful of buying this object, I was reached out to a few hours later by the creator, me thinking he'd be nice as it seemed as such from the start, even thinking to remove the review, or edit it in his favor, yet on asserting why I disliked the item on being asked he began with aggression.

Obviously he removed my 2 star review, but keeps my 5 star reviews up on his other products, which is hilarious- If you don't value my review that is low why keep my high regards up?

One could go into, "low self esteem," but I am no about to make this personal and not name and shame, this is a problem with many, many creators. 

A bad review doesn't mean your income will drop by several thousands, if you fear this then maybe taking some criticism from your actual "fans," frequent shoppers' as I am to this creator, is a good way of keeping the same quality?

So yes, there are some creators who contact you in a forceful manner after having received a bad, perfectly reasonable review on one of their items. 

Which is beyond me, that in SL, Linde Labs are standing with this bullying and accepting the removal of reviews within something like hours, whilst the actual manipulating and threats made by creators, and their marketing ill practices are overlooked. It's simply insane to me... The fact that real complaints with trolling on sims as well as questionable content or other, are very slowly handled, priorities shouldn't be on censoring consumers and keeping bad people unchallenged, it's crazy.

I've had moments where I am forced a refund and told to post screenshots where I delete items from my inventory, of which I scoffed at, but the audacity to make that demand simply because of criticism. Or a review of mine is removed as well as the object, meaning the creator unlisted and listed the same items again, but they do this and LL' simply stop caring about some1 putting up and taking down, as well as that you lose out on something you've bought, I mean you have a receipt and everything yet LL just kind of ignores the facts and sides 100% with creators, I get it- They make the money go around but wow, makes me very frustrated.

There are some stores I'd love to name and shame, the worst of the worst I've come in contact with, but I simply don't wanna start that kind of drama.

[JUSTUS Palianta]

The other week I purchased a pair of mesh shorts for almost 1k.  Upon discovering the fact that the contents did not contain the size I purchased it for when the picture stated it did.  I went to write a review and the item had already been relisted and price had been raised.  So I asked the online creator for help.  They said make a ticket on discord.  (Don't even get me started on people who force you to use discord for SL customer service).  So I made a ticket on discord and I got nothing radio silence 0 help.  Now I hate the pair of shorts.  

All I can do is talk with my money by never buying on of their products ever again.  Thats all you can do.

Edited April 8 by JUSTUS Palianta

[Softcakes]

Sorry to hear, that's happened a few times too, "fits these sizes," yet you get none of the listed sizes.

1 minute ago, JUSTUS Palianta said:

All I can do is talk with my money by never buying on of their products ever again.  Thats all you can do.

This! Very much true. It nonetheless sucks when you can't provide this information about a merchant who's not exactly truthful in their practices to others, they'll buy and be just as disappointed, and the merchants gets away with it : ) Really dumb.

[Rowan Amore]

You've said you "didn't enjoy it" and "disliked the item".  Was there something actually wrong with the item though?    I've purchased things that I ended up not liking as much as I first thought but there was nothing specifically wrong with them.  Just wondering.

I've had 2 items recently that had issues.  One was a single little triangle missing on a pant leg and another was a short sleeve that cut into the body which was not fixable with an alpha without looking worse.  I sent notes to both creators with pictures.  One was fixed in about a week, the other in a day. 

I seldom purchase from.the MP and never purchase without a demo.  If I find an issue with the demo, I'll contact the seller before purchasing.  If they fix it, I'll buy.  If they don't, I generally won't purchase from them in the future and if it were purchased on the MP, leave a less than stellar review.  

[Softcakes]

46 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

You've said you "didn't enjoy it" and "disliked the item".  Was there something actually wrong with the item though?    I've purchased things that I ended up not liking as much as I first thought but there was nothing specifically wrong with them.  Just wondering.

Yes, and there's been many occasions where I found items not to be as advertised or the textures being a huge problem.

Where I said "dislike," was in context to him personally asking me why I'd written my review in where I then told him what I'd found unsatisfactory. 

I feel even if it's a "dislike or like," if I can give a 5 star review stating I LOVE THIS PRODUCT, I can also do one where I say the opposite. If it's my opinion then people can overlook that review, if all one wants to see are 5 star reviews then go ahead.

In this case I'd written a short simple review what I found troubling with the item, he didn't like it. 

Edited April 8 by Softcakes

[Charlotte Bartlett]

29 minutes ago, Softcakes said:

Yes, and there's been many occasions where I found items not to be as advertised or the textures being a huge problem.

Where I said "dislike," was in context to him personally asking me why I'd written my review in where I then told him what I'd found unsatisfactory. 

I feel even if it's a "dislike or like," if I can give a 5 star review stating I LOVE THIS PRODUCT, I can also do one where I say the opposite. If it's my opinion then people can overlook that review, if all one wants to see are 5 star reviews then go ahead.

In this case I'd written a short simple review what I found troubling with the item, he didn't like it. 

Reviews just need to go away on Marketplace - they hold little value in reality on either side of the fence.

Creators cannot remove reviews (in the scenario the rest of the other reviews remained, so the creator didn't delete and re list it).

LL removed the review and likely it meant something in the review was an issue as trust me most of the time they will not remove reviews even the ones that do break the "rules" as they don't review the majority of flags (form experience).

Painting broad strokes works both ways - I have had one star reviews with just bizarre comments: like this house should have been pink as it's my favourite colour (for a wood cabin LOL) and LL don't remove those.  Thankfully eventually those old products retire although I will always miss the 1 star review with the need for a pink house!

Also the good creators don't give people trouble for reviews they will actually work to understand what the issue is if it is a valid review.  But personal taste is subjective so it may not be valid for a creator to make a specific change.   But if it something like the sizes missing as another poster put, or the wrong land impact or perms they 100pct should be correcting (but a courtesy message to them versus a review might get more results).    There are good and bad on both sides sadly so I can understand those who jump straight to a review versus speaking to the person who made the item first.

Edited April 8 by Charlotte Bartlett

[AmeliaJ08]

1 hour ago, JUSTUS Palianta said:

The other week I purchased a pair of mesh shorts for almost 1k.  Upon discovering the fact that the contents did not contain the size I purchased it for when the picture stated it did.  I went to write a review and the item had already been relisted and price had been raised.  So I asked the online creator for help.  They said make a ticket on discord.  (Don't even get me started on people who force you to use discord for SL customer service).  So I made a ticket on discord and I got nothing radio silence 0 help.  Now I hate the pair of shorts.  

All I can do is talk with my money by never buying on of their products ever again.  Thats all you can do.

Oh that stinks, I would be so angry.

I think we've all run into this a few times: size missing, rigging broken etc. Every time it has happened to me I have reached out (via SL) to the creator and they have fixed it but I think I would so angry if I was directed to Discord to begin with (ugh! I have my own beef with that awful platform though :P) but then to do nothing...

SL is such a weird place as far as consumer rights, you appear to have none and I genuinely wonder how that even works given I'm pretty sure digital goods are covered by consumer rights laws around much of the world.

 

[Clem Marques]

Reviews can only be removed by Linden Labs, and they do so fairly, according to the TOS and the Marketplace Listing Guidelines. They do not remove reviews just because they are negative. In fact, there are many items in the MP that have very negative reviews that have just stayed there, because they were truly justified.

These are the things that make a review get deleted when flagged:

1. Profanity, hate speech
2. Derogatory comments about the seller (which can be very arbitrary. I guess the problem is that the focus is on the seller, and not the product being reviewed)
3. Contains chat logs (TOS violation)
4. Review created by seller's alt (disallowed practice on the MP)
5. Review created by a competitor
6. Off topic (which includes "Issue already noted in item description")
7. Advertising other products or locations

If the negative review doesn't violate any of the rules, and is genuinely relevant to the item, it's perfectly fine and remains there, no matter how much the creator flags it.

That being said, if a seller deletes an item on the MP and relists it to avoid a genuine, justified bad review that they cant remove: REPORT the seller! Because that is a violation of the MP Listing Guidelines, and they should face consequences for it.

Edited April 8 by Clem Marques

[Clem Marques]

It's true that some sellers do not know how to handle customer service at all, and can be very unpleasant to deal with. That is truly bad, and customers do not deserve to be treated poorly regardless of what happens. However, this is something to keep in mind:

Sellers are usually more receptive, friendly and helpful if they are contacted about the issues before a negative review is left on their items.

It also increases the customers' odds of receiving a refund.

Edited April 8 by Clem Marques

[Softcakes]

10 hours ago, Charlotte Bartlett said:

Creators cannot remove reviews (in the scenario the rest of the other reviews remained, so the creator didn't delete and re list it).

LL removed the review and likely it meant something in the review was an issue as trust me most of the time they will not remove reviews even the ones that do break the "rules" as they don't review the majority of flags (form experience).

They can, they make a complaint about the specific review being "hateful," or other and wrongful and then poof goes that one review and the 5 stars one remain; of course.

If I wrote that this item has all of these issues and then mentioned nothing hateful or mean towards the creator, being objective and asserting what I've seen and experienced with the item, that shouldn't mean LL suddenly goes to delete it, these bad sellers are abusing a system that is in their favor, simple as, I can see your point but again, this happens and my reviews as with other peoples, aren't so darn mean that LL would personally without being asked by a creator through a complaint have them gone within hours. 

[Softcakes]

10 hours ago, Clem Marques said:

If the negative review doesn't violate any of the rules, and is genuinely relevant to the item, it's perfectly fine and remains there, no matter how much the creator flags it.

Not to sound mean but, wholly from muh heart, not everyone here have the best intentions. 

I get people like to think the best of all people and that LL doesn't act on a complaint from a seller, but in saying this all my reviews that are based on facts' objective as well as perception are wrong on my end, to state actual facts and have it be declined because it's any of the 7 points, yet none of them at the same time?

Am I simply a liar, as would many others be who've gotten the same treatment, a perfectly fine review shouldn't be removed when it's not gone against the TOS.

- Though, correct about lots, many sellers abuse this system as they can say "off topic," or other and instantly have reviews removed.

The reviews that are bad and stay up are 100% because the seller isn't some jerk who cares about a terrible opinionated person.

There's a lot of products with several hundreds of 5 star reviews, but no less than that, since they're being monitored and report anything that's not in their favor.

Whilst again, the seller can message anyone and and tell all sorts of threats and have that complaint never be treated seriously by LL, your review is gone within the day. 

[Sid Nagy]

Name one thing in SL that is not somehow gamed.
Reviews are easily gamed too.

Demo's are your best friend.

[Sid Nagy]

A ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating costs a crafty merchant the sales commission for the product and a friend who is willing to write a positive 5 star review.
1. give the friend the ammount of L$ needed for the product purchase.
2. the friend buys the item and writes the review
3. The merchant gets the money back from the sale (minus the commission from the Lab)
4. Rinse and repeat with another friend or another product.
So for the price of 1 item one can create 10 top reviews. That is cheap advertising.

Reviews are worthless IMHO.
Buy demos whenever you can and take your time to inspect them.

Edited April 9 by Sid Nagy

[Artorius Constantine]

2 hours ago, Softcakes said:

since they're being monitored and report anything that's not in their favor.

You're obviously not a merchant. My experience, being a merchant in SL since before they even bought the old marketplace, is that reviews are nearly impossible to remove.

That's a little over 15 years of personal experience trying to get undeserved reviews removed. Of course, in all that time I have probably only reported a half dozen or so and more were left up than were taken down. if a review doesn't break the rules, it will not be removed.

You, as someone who has never been a merchant, or tried to have a rambling hate filled review removed and been told no by SL because "it didn't break the rules", have no real evidence at all except that one of your reviews was removed so you feel the entire system is a cheat. I bet if you typed that review here, word for word but without names of people or products, we could tell you exactly why it was your own fault it got removed because YOU broke the posting rules.

"This product is the worst ever and the customer service is abysmal," will never get deleted. However, "This thing is a pile of poop and the builder is an $%# who never replies..." will be taken right down.

They both say exactly the same thing but only one breaks the rules.

Just a little rule of thumb you can ignore or not, as you will. Demos and in world stores are your best friend. And check out reviews of other products by the seller. I often go to a stores main page and read several reviews from several products. How the seller responds to reviews is also a sign. For example, I'd never buy anything from me. I'm a real jack hole, and if you read my replies to some reviews, you'll agree that I shouldn't reply to any reviews. In fact I shouldn't talk to anyone at all. So I'm gonna shut up now, Good Luck!

[Softcakes]

30 minutes ago, Artorius Constantine said:

You're obviously not a merchant.

Never said I was one and don't see the point in bringing it up? Does my opinion only matter if I myself make items and sell them? I have literally no say and that's how you feel?

I've sold things on the marketplace and gotten reviews myself, does that now mean we're equal? Or have you as you said spent literally 15 years of your SL lifetime on the MP being a merchant, I've bought thousands of items, I've made many reviews, this was a breaking point.

30 minutes ago, Artorius Constantine said:

if a review doesn't break the rules, it will not be removed.

You, as someone who has never been a merchant, or tried to have a rambling hate filled review removed and been told no by SL because "it didn't break the rules", have no real evidence at all except that one of your reviews was removed so you feel the entire system is a cheat. I bet if you typed that review here, word for word but without names of people or products, we could tell you exactly why it was your own fault it got removed because YOU broke the posting rules.

This is false and it's beyond blindly trusting.

 Also, "Demos and in world stores are your best friend." If you've been a merchant I'm sure you'd know that not everyone can afford to own land where there demos are, nor can they have a demo made for every of their product, be it time limitations or simply don't want to bother. You're after-all a pro and I'm a nobody good merchant.

My complaint is clear, abusing a system in your favor whilst my fair and honest review is taken down.

I encourage you to think from both perspective and not be "you're wrong and we can all see through you," which is laughable and also a bit disheartening. 

You genuinely think I put up, - "I liked it because of x reason, however it's doing this and that' which makes it not function as it should." - I quickly made this up on the original post, and... - you think this would've broken the terms of service, oh-please,  

And if I was hateful or had fibers of malice in me I'd be brining names to this thread and showing off what happened, with the threatening messages I've gotten from merchants, but that would involve a lot of breaking TOS, as well as starting drama, maybe you enjoy that sort of entertainment but I don't, I simply said what I had on my mind and you seem to feel it's me "in the wrong crying." 

Edited April 9 by Softcakes

[Softcakes]

46 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Reviews are worthless IMHO.
Buy demos whenever you can and take your time to inspect them.

I wish they're weren't I'd love to know a bit more about items before buying, some things on MP aren't available in demos and the merchant may not have an in world store or other showcasing their products; hence having a review stating facts of the product would be lovely imo.

But yes, get a demo whenever possible!

[Artorius Constantine]

35 minutes ago, Softcakes said:

Never said I was one and don't see the point in bringing it up?

Because you are making claims that any reviews the merchant wants removed can be easily removed yet you've never tried to have one removed. You have ZERO experience using the system you are making claims about.

You are making claims based on minimum experience from only one side of the coin, and they are patently false.

".my fair and honest review is taken down."

Claims like this one, show us the review and prove it was falsely taken down. You can't just make wild claims with no proof at all and expect anyone to take them seriously.

You've never tried to have a review removed so you can't possibly know anything about that process. That's why I bring the fact you're not a merchant up.

I'm not claiming to "see through you,' I simply believe that your review broke the rules or it would not have been removed. And I believe this due to my own personal experience with the review system. I'm not a fan of it at all, (really hard to believe I'm defending it actually) but what you are claiming is simply not true and paints all merchants with a tarred brush.

 

Edited to add, IMO, which is fairly worthless, if they can't be bothered to create a demo or have an in world store, then they are not gonna get my money. Most of the stuff I sell isn't really something that can be made into a demo easily, so I keep a store in world and try very hard to have rezzing vendors that show the actual product, not just a picture on the wall. Hate following a link to "See item in world" only to be led to the same picture that was on the MP. But that's a whole different soap box.

Edited April 9 by Artorius Constantine

[Softcakes]

6 minutes ago, Artorius Constantine said:

You are making claims based on minimum experience from only one side of the coin, and they are patently false.

Sincerely, just because you see your own opinions above someone else's and deem anything that isn't "likely," as false or impossible, now that I am a liar and anything I've said is false, if this is how you go through life I wish you so much joy  

Hundreds of reviews through a different types of stores have been gone within a day, now you'll go ahead and say, "You're just a bad person and this is proof all your reviews must be breaking TOS-" My point again is very simple, you choose to overlook the facts because they break your limited knowledge and now you're projecting, please just go ahead and think as you wish and be done, you've said yours and it's clearly not an opinion that will change.

-

However, you overlooked a lot.

Facts in this instance that made me make this post- 

I did a review, the merchant approached me, I repeated myself to the merchant who asked about what I'd written, he instantly got angry and remarked I'd never be a customer of his again.

My 2 star review was deleted and my 5 star review was kept up, so in a way my opinions only matter if they're in his favor.

-

Review was gone within the hour; as has happened many times before.

The whole --->

18 minutes ago, Artorius Constantine said:

but what you are claiming is simply not true and paints all merchants with a tarred brush.

I am terrible sorry that I'm not writing about all my good experiences with every merchant I've been in contact with, there's many and I've met so many great creators in SL, but writing a post like that wasn't on my mind, you're just proving the, "nothing can be bad," attitude from me stating what occurred and has in the past.

So yes, if this seems unlikely to you then so be it? It happened, I'm not going to name drop a store to prove you wrong.

  Have a good day.

[Love Zhaoying]

I think merchants take negative reviews super-seriously, personally, and somehow assume that customers should "know" to contact them and also magically "100% understand the description". 

And then again, good luck contacting a merchant if you have an issue with their product.

I think it makes sense that a merchant can block you for "any reason or no reason" (just like anything else in Second Life).

However, if it is super easy for a merchant to get a negative review removed, that's kind of silly.  Like, what even IS the point?  Wouldn't it make more sense for merchants to be able to post "responses" to reviews, for example something like "the description clearly states XXX"?

 

 

[Sid Nagy]

43 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

And then again, good luck contacting a merchant if you have an issue with their product.

Sadly there are a lot of merchants who have called it a day with their active Second Life but leave their merchandise on the marketplace anyway.(To collect their revenuers twice a year or so).
Than there are the merchants who sell with one of their alts who is never online other than to make listings out of a product.
Those are very hard to reach for customer service and support.

On the other hand there are those customers too, who think that every merchant should be online 24/7. That isn't realistic either of course.
Most merchants are hobbyists. A few days of response time, should be accepted by every customer IMHO.

Edited April 9 by Sid Nagy

[Love Zhaoying]

12 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Sadly there are a lot of merchants who have called it a day with their active Second Life but leave their merchandise on the marketplace anyway.(To collect their revenuers twice a year or so).
Than there are the merchants who sell with one of their alts who is never online other than to make listings out of a product.
Those are very hard to reach for customer service and support.

On the other hand there are those customers too, who think that every merchant should be online 24/7. That isn't realistic either of course.
Most merchants are hobbyists. A few days of response time, should not be accepted by every customer IMHO.

Then there are merchants who are merely busy, and whose messages are capped.  For those merchants, it would be great if they let people know to "drop them a notecard" or something, or "who to contact".  (Not everyone knows the "send them a notecard" approach.)

I suspect the majority of the "moderated reviews" are from upstanding merchants who actually believe the person leaving the review either:

a) Did not read / understand the description (this could also cover "follow the directions")

b) Did not understand the purpose of "reviews", for example "I did not like the product" is not a "valid review"

So from my point of view - as a relatively impartial user (NOT a merchant), I would rather believe that "most merchants are not evil" when it comes to reviews.

HOWEVER...

I also firmly believe, that "most reviews are left by unhappy people" - so, those reviews generally skew the impression of a project.  (When was the last time most people left a "positive review"?) Since "most people" buy stuff online these days, it is pretty "obvious" that happy people don't leave reviews; why would they bother?

IMHO, this can lead to an overreaction by merchants when a "negative review" is left.

 

 

 

[Sorciaa]

the #1 thing i tend to use reviews for is to try and date the age of the product. It is not exact but on some things you can see when the first review was in 2014 or in 2024.

 

 sure be nice if the MP had a time stamp on when the item was listed, then a stamp for every time the listing was changed.

[Luna Bliss]

2 hours ago, Softcakes said:

Hundreds of reviews through a different types of stores have been gone within a day

You sure do give a lot of low-star reviews -- this must keep you quite busy.  From your photos it looks like you're using high-quality items on your land though, so I'm wondering why you're needing to make hundreds of low-star reviews.

Also, I tested with an alt and a fellow merchant, and low-star reviews are not automatically being removed, as you are claiming.  I think you need to post an example of a review (without naming names, of course) so we can investigate this further.

Edited April 9 by Luna Bliss

[Zambe Boo]

18 hours ago, Softcakes said:

Over my light time spent in SL, 6 years' and a few months. 

I've never understood the marketplace reviews, if it's anything under 4' there's instant animosity and you find your perfectly reasonable review removed, the creator sending you threats as well as their friends hounding you for even daring to say what you've experienced/perceived, with the object you've bought.

"I liked it because of x reason, however it's doing this and that' which makes it not function as it should." Example of something simple - However if it's not a 4 or 5 you'll find it gone within a day. 

Breaking point.

Recently I bought an item and I didn't enjoy it, I wrote simply what was the issues and why someone might be mindful of buying this object, I was reached out to a few hours later by the creator, me thinking he'd be nice as it seemed as such from the start, even thinking to remove the review, or edit it in his favor, yet on asserting why I disliked the item on being asked he began with aggression.

Obviously he removed my 2 star review, but keeps my 5 star reviews up on his other products, which is hilarious- If you don't value my review that is low why keep my high regards up?

I have also had this happen. Sometimes the creator will even delete the item and relist it. It's unfortunate and shouldn't be possible. As a creator, I have a very hard time removing reviews (even when they are false) so I really don't know how these folks are able to get the lower ratings removed. As for the relisting, I'm hoping that at some point they force creators to keep the same listing number when the product has all of the same UUIDs inside.

[AmeliaJ08]

34 minutes ago, Sorciaa said:

the #1 thing i tend to use reviews for is to try and date the age of the product. It is not exact but on some things you can see when the first review was in 2014 or in 2024.

 

 sure be nice if the MP had a time stamp on when the item was listed, then a stamp for every time the listing was changed.

If you have Chrome/Firefox and the Tampermonkey extension there is a nice little script available that displays the age of the items in MP. It is in the metadata, for some reason it just isn't displayed.