ToolGuyd has been around for 13 years now, and I have racked up a lot of interesting experiences in this time.
10 years ago, most PR and marketing professionals were still more accustomed to working with professional media outlets. Everything was a little more formal than it is today, and I learned a lot from working with the best in the business, as well as from my share of mistakes.
Because of this, I have now-old-fashioned views on tool review and media industry decorum.
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As I am sure you are aware, social media and influencer marketing have completely changed nearly every industry. Most PR and marketing professionals, within tool brands, retailers, and external agencies, have evolved with the times – then and now – without sacrificing their ideals, ethics, or professionalism.
Unfortunately, this has not been universally true.
I like to think I can recognize “right” from “wrong” when it comes to tool reviews and marketing practices. There is a relative “right and wrong for ToolGuyd,” where some practices align with my goals and ideals but others do not, and a more absolute sense of “right” and “wrong.”
For instance, earlier this year I wrote about the company that asked me to help them manipulate their way into Home Depot stores. That was an absolute wrong.
I recently received an email from a marketing agency, and the situation is so egregious that, unless my morality dial is broken, this incident needs to be shared with readers, tool brands, and retailers alike, as it hurts everyone’s interests.
The First Email Request
Subject: [Brand] Review Needed
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My name is [redacted], and I am an account manager at [agency].
We are trying to boost a “[product].” We are asking people if they would be willing to leave a 5-star review on [HOME CENTER’s] website (Here) and post the [product] as a story on IG. We will send you the [product]. Is this something you would be interested in helping [agency] with?
Sure, a brand or marketer can want 5-star reviews on retailers’ websites or influencers’ social media channels, but wanting and asking for something like this are completely different.
This email was sent to me in late November, and the product in question was a holiday gift center-type of item.
Was the marketing agency tasked with making the product seem popular in order to drive Black Friday and holiday sales?
Might the tool brand point to the number of 5-star reviews the next time they talk business with the retailer? Might the number of 5-star reviews help the brand in their relationships with other companies and retailers?
Will the marketing agency point to the boosted reviews when trying to win over other brands as new clients?
There could be big money riding on this 5-star review request.
I can tell you that this email referenced Home Depot or Lowe’s, but I won’t disclose which one. The marketing agency works with brands sold at both retailers, and so there’s no way to tell if this is an isolated incident or common practice for them. There are plenty of news stories about fake reviews at Amazon, but this was the first real indication of foul practices at Home Depot or Lowe’s that we’ve encountered.
You might be asking why would any influencer do this? Well, the product in question is not a high-priced item – this time. But what other product samples or review opportunities might this lead to?
What would you do for a free table saw? Cordless power tool combo kit? A fancy new grill? Snow blower?
Making things worse, this particular agency is known to hold a lot of money to spend on tool brands’ advertising and influencer marketing. There have been rumors of undisclosed paid partnerships, but this happens a lot (both rumors and the lack of proper disclosure), and so far nothing has been substantiated.
What would you do if a deep-pocketed marketing company asks you to “help them out” with something? Who wouldn’t want to be in their good graces?
Maybe some of the “boosting reviews” would be honest, but how many would be done to gain favor? This creates an inherent conflict of interest, and it’s completely unacceptable to bring this to a third party platform such as retailers’ customer reviews.
It is inappropriate for marketers to ask influencers for 5-star reviews, and utterly wrong to ask for incentivized reviews on a platform intended for customer feedback.
I have seen a lot of unethical behavior from bloggers, YouTubers, and social media influencers over the years – things like undisclosed payments and secret paid partnerships, and situations where reviewers’ private opinions and recommendations completely contradict their public ones.
Luckily, many if not most content creators strive to be honest and ethical, or at least I like to think so.
Still, this email encourages bad behavior. What it’s asking is wrong, and there will be pressure for some influencers to do it anyway.
The Second Email
A second email came in the following day, from someone else as the same marketing company:
Subject: [Brand] Follow Up
My name is [redacted] from [same agency]. You recently received an email from a team member that appeared to ask for a review in exchange for a product. I want to clarify what we were requesting and assure you that we would never ask you to compromise your reputation in the industry by giving a review that might not be honest.
We are working with a client to increase the number of reviews for one of their products on [HOME CENTER website]. We would love to send you the product in hopes that you would leave a review. While, of course, we love 5-star reviews, we want you to be honest with your feedback, whatever it may be.
Please let me know if you are still interested and I will follow up with more information.
We are so appreciative of your partnership with [agency] and look forward to hearing from you soon.
I should note that we do NOT have any “partnership” with this agency.
In my opinion, this isn’t much better! While I didn’t read the first email as offering a product in exchange for a review, and I’m happy they aren’t explicitly asking for 5-star reviews anymore, they’re still asking influencers to leave customer reviews on a retailer’s website. That’s still a shady request.
Home Depot and Lowe’s both apply special badges to reviews where a customer received a free product, promotional consideration, or other incentives.
It does NOT look like the marketing agency is cooperating with retailers. Unless the retailer in question is on board and applies appropriate labeling that indicates a reviewer received a free product, customers will get the wrong impression.
After looking at the reviews for the product being “boosted,” it seems the marketing agency successfully convinced some influencers to leave reviews for them, and those reviews lack any “free product” or “incentivized review” badges.
Many influencers don’t mention product origins or monetary exchanges in their social media content, and although there’s greater awareness about this today, nobody expects this to happen in Home Depot or Lowe’s customer review sections.
Asking influencers to “boost” reviews on retailers’ websites seems wrong to me.
I would hope that all tool reviewers and influencers would recognize the ridiculousness of what they’re being asked to do here, but some might not and others might be incentivized to be in the marketing company’s good graces. The marketing team should not put influencers in this position.
What Happened Next
Let’s look at some data.
Just after the email came in, there was a surge of (16) 5-star reviews the very next business day, along with a single 1-star review, and (1) more 5-star review the following day.
There were just 6 reviews over the 3 weeks before the email came in, and aside from the surge of reviews right after the email, there was only 1 more review over the next 3 weeks. There are a number of seemingly genuine 1-star reviews.
After the more than 3 week gap, there were just 2 other user reviews, and 2 reviews (one 4-star, one 5-star) that were left by recognizable influencers. After that, there were a couple of reviews from customers that acknowledged receiving free products.
From the charts, it certainly looks like the marketing agency succeeded in “boosting” the number of reviews at this retailer. The first email arrived Friday afternoon, and (16) 5-star reviews appeared that next Monday.
Here’s a good question – were those rapid-succession 5-star reviews left by the marketing company’s influencers, or did the marketing agency boost the review count itself? How many other brands or products is this agency doing the same for? Are other marketing agencies doing this too?
If the reviews were left by influencers, how could they have requested, received, and tested the product between Friday afternoon and Monday?
For the tool brands that hired this marketing agency to handle their advertising and influencer campaign budgets, is this the type of exposure you’re paying for?
Here’s a look at only the 5-star “customer” reviews for the product. I believe in coincidences, but does this look real to you?
Many of the reviews are vague and shallow, similar to “great buy, nice to have, would definitely recommend.” However, because these reviews are bookended by both seemingly real and officially-labeled incentivized reviews, they still give the impression of 5-star popularity, and that will sell more tools.
If these reviews are as bogus as they seem, I must ask – how widespread is this practice at Home Depot and Lowe’s?
Summary
A marketing company asked influencers to leave 5-star reviews for a particular product on a retailer’s website, and then backtracked slightly so as to not explicitly ask for 5-star ratings.
(16) 5-star reviews appeared the next business day. Outside of those reviews, there were only (4) other 5-star reviews in more than 50 days, excluding later reviews where the customer or recognized influencer received a free product.
If you look at just the first 6 weeks after the first review appeared, there were only (2) other 5-star reviews outside the (16) left on one day.
It is extremely unlikely that the surge in 5-star reviews were from bona fide customers.
Who is responsible for that surge in 5-star reviews? Influencers? The marketing agency? The brand that hired them?
Why Not Share Full Details?
Frankly, full details would likely lead to an “oops, our bad, it’ll never happen again” response, while fewer details might increase the chances of broad internal conversations and investigations.
Why Post About it at All?
I hope I’m not the only one who thinks this, but I feel it’s highly inappropriate for advertising and marketing agencies to leverage an army of influencer partners for the purpose of planting 5-star reviews on a retailer’s website.
If we don’t talk about how and why this is wrong, it might only get worse.
Is this how any tool brand intends for their products to be “boosted?” I would not have expected this from the tool brand in question, but maybe they aren’t aware of what’s going on.
Maybe everyone will shrug this off. But personally, I am deeply disappointed. Fake reviews are known to happen at Amazon, and I’d rather not see it become rampant at Home Depot or Lowe’s.
There are reasons why you cannot always take online user reviews at face value, but I really don’t want marketer-prompted reviews by incentivized influencers to be another reason on top of that.
We don’t know what happened between the request for 5-star reviews and the all but statistically impossible count and timing of 5-star reviews that followed, and so there’s the remote possibility that there’s no correlation.
However, it really seems to me that this paid marketing company is manipulating home improvement retailers’ “customer reviews”, directly or by using influencers, to mislead shoppers. That’s not an acceptable practice in my book, and it’s something everyone needs to be aware of.
Todd
Happened to us as well!!! We told them to buzz off!
Stuart
Glad to hear it, although I’m not at all surprised. =)
Michael Veach
I am probably odd. I like to read the 3 and 4 star reviews. Among these, I look for details. I find most 1 and 2 stars are sour graphs. Most 5 stars are fan boys.
Subzrit
Have to agree, through out the best and the worst. Seems most 1 & 2’s are customer know how. Personally, I’d never give a 5 without a minimum of 5ys of trouble free use, which I have experienced-even before reviews were invented.
D K
I am unfortunately not surprised in the least. This also leads to all around finger pointing as to the actual truth of the results.
A while ago I noticed several online reviews supposedly from customers on the companies own websites that flat out in the beginning of the review states in parentheses “this review is from a promotion”.
While I do read reviews, I realize that not reviews are honest or equal.
Nothing is free in our world. Even this comment section is asking for something (name and email) to post said comment.
Stuart
To be clear, your comment name can be anything you want, and the email is only required for spam checking. For any unique name-email pair, after your first comment is manually approved, future emails are automatically approved unless they trigger manual moderation or anti-spam checks in a different way.
There are conveniences in using a real email address, such as helping me (and only me) to connect private conversation participants with their public aliases, and at times when a question warrants a direct or private email response. Since many readers use an alias, email addresses help when I receive private messages and emails where real names are used.
Use of name or email fields doesn’t go beyond that. In other words, you’re not trading your name and email address for access to the comment system, or signing up for a newsletter, you’re providing a name and email address to facilitate use of the comment system.
Emails are also used in comment follow-up subscription emails, which is an opt-in feature some readers asked me to keep active.
Julius Rosen
Thanks for your honesty, it shows how really stupid these marketing promotional companies are, as I could simply post every one or two weeks using a different account and add my own reviews very hard for anyone to see difference
Joe E.
None of this surprises me.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to read through the b.s. reviews on Lowe’s website. Many are written so professionally and with so much excitement that they are difficult to believe. I get “fake” vibes from most of them.
I’ve attempted to leave a couple of honest, well worded Craftsman reviews on Lowe’s website which were not approved. One for their screwdrivers and another for their pliers. I guess they didn’t want anything below 2 stars?
Dave the tool
Lowes reviews it always seems are from outside and or people that get free stuff to leave reviews. In a nutshell, worthless!
Matt the Hoople
It’s gotta be to try and boost sales with the general consumer doofus. I too tend to feel that I’m savvy enough that I can pick up on a theme of illegitimate reviews pretty reliably. However, I admit to occasionally being a doofus by falling for a slick pitch. Hey, that’s how we gain wisdom.
I don’t think it could be to get in better with a retailer as the collection and analysis of data is so well refined nowadays that a big box would pick up on the one day spike in reviews no problem. Same with other trends that could point to shenanigans.
Julius Rosen
Typically Chinese companies do this, whether or not it’s Chinese you can easily tell when reviews are fake as most of them are very similar. Also when you don’t see any two three or four star reviews interest with five star reviews you simply either know they were taken down or not approved as there is no product that is perfect.
Chris
This is not the first time you’ve “called out” companies without naming names, but what makes Makita so special that you were willing to name them?
To clarify, I don’t care about Makita and If they deserve to be drug through the mud, so be it. But why protect these other companies?
I (or others for that matter) can’t go to Home depot, Lowes, or anyone else and question them on their business practices (especially in the age of social media)… because I don’t know who it is .
You’ve written a piece to ruffle feathers. It’s all bark and no bite from where I’m sitting.
Stuart
Different situation, but I take shill comments and fake reviews here very seriously and personally. I only called Makita USA out after they failed to address their manager’s pattern of shill comments here.
My first response is usually to call out shills in comments. I will usually bring it up privately as well, and if I’m confident it won’t happen again, that’s the end of it. If I believe bad behavior will continue, I call out the offending party.
“Naming and shaming” usually isn’t the most effective tool for discouraging bad marketing behaviors.
In this case, what would that accomplish?
“All bark and no bite” is precisely the point. If a dog bites someone in silence, that person is affected and the world carries on none the wiser. When you hear barking, no singular entity is hurt but everyone that hears it asks questions.
Joe W.
Naming and shaming may not discourage bad marketing behaviors, but it would make us better informed consumers. Personally I’d rather not purchase at all from a brand that has to resort to deceit to sell their products, but at the very least it would make me take reviews in context before spending my money.
Rog
I disagree with the ‘bark and bite’ analogy.
If someone gets bit–in this case publicly called out–it will immediately teach them not do it again. If more people get bit by the dog there will be less reaching into its mouth in the future.
Barking just leads to shrugging from the offending parties and continuing their ways with no repercussions.
Gordon
Being punished for getting caught doing the wrong thing doesn’t teach them to stop doing the wrong thing, it teaches them to not get caught.
The benefits are too great, and the punishment is too minor. So what if the marketing company gets in trouble? The brand can always say “we had no idea they were doing this”. There will be no long term ramifications. Remember all the people that said they would never buy a lithium powered tool after every company ditched ni-cad? I’m sure Milwaukee, Makita, and DeWalt are really losing sleep over them.
fred
Just another example of the lack of morality in the world that we have thrown in our faces more and more via the internet. The world may not be any more or less moral than it was in the biblical time of Sodom and Gomorrah – but we sure seem to be able to promote bad behavior faster and to a broader audience. The fact that so many people are so willing to believe what they see on the internet – without doing any fact checking or applying logical/scientific thinking – is perhaps just as disturbing as the thought that a marketing company has come up with a new scheme to hoodwink us.
Thanks for sharing this.
Al
Fred, spot on, after all the fake news has been certified by the highest office of the land, I only believe in what I have personal knowledge thru use and friends.
People want someone else to tell what they want to believe
Daniel Reyna
I tend to see three different types of reviews:
1) Reviews by individuals who are legitimate users who are informed and know what they are doing.
2) Reviews by individuals who are legitimate users but of the type that should not be allowed to tie their own shoes in the morning much less use the product they are attempting to review.
3) Reviews by people trying to boost or dump a product on others for whatever reason.
I try to go through reviews of any product and attempt to weed out 2) and 3) so that I can collect actual information I can use to make an informed decision. To be honest, I tend to find more of 2) than 3) so I don’t think that “influencers” are playing much of a role except maybe with new(er) products.
Munklepunk
This 18v DeWalt charger doesn’t fit my Milwaukee 12v batteries. 1 star, don’t buy.
Dave R.
The worse one:
“Batteries arrived 2 days after it was supposed to, now my kid can’t drive his new birthday toy. ” 1 star.
“Item was left outside in the rain. 1 star.”
Those really bug me when I’m REALLY doing research.
Gordon
Great product! Was absolutely everything I needed in life. But shipping was 1 day delayed because of a natural disaster in which I lost everything I own. 1 star. Would absolutely buy again!
MM
My gripe is that the #2 and #3 reviews tend to outnumber the #1 reviews by such a large degree that it’s rarely worth bothering to read them.
I’ve started seeing this pop up more often now: reviews of brand-new power tools praising their longevity and durability. If you’ve only had the tool for one day then how on earth are you qualified to give anything other than initial impressions let alone comment on its “long term durability”. Yet another easy red flag….
Jeremiah Ducate
Thanks for sort-of informing us of this. Doesnt surprise me at all, but i think the language of the initial email was a bit too enthusiastic in telling reviewers what their rating should be.
It somewhat reinforces my system of auditing reviews when researching a product. I put little creedance in 5 star reviews and mostly read the details of the lowest or 3-4 star reviews. That said i would likely not buy a product that had few or no 5 star reviews.
JSxLV
I’m not a typical home-type tool purchaser. I’m far from a basic DIYer but not truly a professional in all areas for which I purchase tools. I also do purchase for other professionals that I work with.
Anyhow, I hope that most tool purchasers will realize that manipulating reviews is a tactic of questionable morality. This type of behavior affects the prices we have to pay for tools, and can even affect the quality of tools to which we have access, or affect the availability of new gadgets and technologies. The reviewers are rarely professionals who write reviews that reflect usage scenarios that the target market might experience.
Because of this, I hope more people will do what I do: When I see a product with reviews that are obviously subsidized but hardly useful, I contact the manufacturer explaining my position. I tell them, “Hey I saw your product reviews on that were labeled . These reviews weren’t informative in a least, just reciting basic specs. Since the price for me of your product is now inflated to cover the cost of distributing free products, I don’t want to cover those costs and unfortunately will not be purchasing this product for that reason.” (SBD is a frequent recipient as they invest heavily in this type of marketing, albeit above-board and seemingly always disclosed.)
I believe if more people took this approach and let the manufacturers know that the core market is not as easily swayed or misled, they’d not participate as often.
Jon
Power tool sold at both Home Depot & Lowes… has to be Dewalt. Probably something from the sub par Atomic line up.
Plain grainy
Let’s hope they can clean up this valuable customer review system. Another complaint is reviews that are for the wrong product mixed in. I’m also not happy with the non-readable dates on my bread loafs.
Stuart
That’s the result of aggregators, and they won’t/cannot do anything about it.
I haven’t made up my mind whether it’s intentional or unmonitored.
For instance, let’s say a new subcompact drill kit launches – but isn’t available yet – and it already has 40 reviews due to being thematically tied to other subcompact drill kits. Is that misleading? Yes. But is it intentional, or one of x-number of new products that the review aggregator algorithm applies to without informed human oversight? Still, that’s very different from what happened here.
Matt the Hoople
Home Depot is the worst for this. There will be 7000 reviews for a listing for a tool and then you find out it’s for every tool that was ever in a tool kit with the one you are looking at. Amazon is equally as bad when they have one page with several options. Was looking for a cheap pocket sized voltmeter the other day to replace my broken one. The one I was interested was on a page with 4 other models. Of the 200 reviews, I could only readily pinpoint two to the specific model I was interested in.
Frustrating!
Rob
With amazon, if you click on the “See all reviews” link, you can select just the product you are interested in seeing reviews for, under the “All formats” drop-down sorting filter.
Matt the Hoople
Learned something new. Thanks.
Ball_bearing
Sometimes amazon allows filtering reviews by the specific model you have selected. I say sometimes, cause I have seen the option in some listings, but not in others.
csroc
Disappointing but not remotely surprising, I have to read reviews with such skepticism anywhere these days. I’ll cross check against different sites and look for reputable blogs or youtubers talking about something, especially if it’s big ticket, but there’s so much that slips through the cracks. Not everything I’m looking to buy has been talked about by someone I can trust, and I may not have friends with experience with it.
Good return policies help, but I wish we didn’t have to be so skeptical of everything online now.
Joatman
That’s certainly deceptive. I think all rating scales on ALL websites should have a filter that enables you to filter “verified purchases” leaving out the BS reviews mentioned above. On another note It’s always puzzled me to see reviews on one site referencing the fact they they bought the product from another. For example, when reading a review on Amazon, the person will say something like they bought the product at HD. I’ve seen this quite a few times. Who does that!
My rule of thumb when researching a product is that the 4 and 5 star ratings must equal at least 90% of the total ratings. I like the 5-star ratings to be 75-80%. Then I read the lower reviews just to get an idea of what the main concerns are. I dismiss the ratings that point to ignorance on the consumer’s part……or packages being torn upon arrival……delayed shipping….etc. Those sort of things have no bearing on the product itself.
Also, I think a zero-star rating should be a choice. Some products don’t even deserve one star…..especially if their customer service is poor.
I also take into account the total number of reviews….or lack of. And the lack of negative reviews. Also check the reviews on more than just one site.
Unfortunately, after tons of reading and research, sometimes it’s just a crap shoot…..you just have pull the trigger and be your own judge.
Tom D
Verified purchaser is a scam too now – I’ve received emails offering to give me money to buy a product to review it.
Not worth the hassle or the immorality but sheesh.
Joatman
I can believe it. Nothing really shocks me too much anymore in the social media world.
Carcollector4072
I regularly put reviews on different company sites so there will be at least some legit reviews. I have also had reviews rejected for unknown reasons.
JMG
As a consumer, I almost never read the five star reviews… I generally start at the low end and look for any that make sense, or have repetitive issues. I ignore the anger issues that show up and focus on if there have been any response posts to the legitimate problems causing the low reviews.
I find that this process is a better indicator of a product or brand item than trying to sort through any fluff that someone may have posted.
Mike
Yea but you can’t read the 1 star reviews as they can be competitors. I always focus on the middle reviews or the content. For example, if someone gives a tool a 1 star review because the guy at home depot was mean to him, that review doesn’t count to me.
TonyT
I’ve become a lot more cynical about reviews in the past few years, so I’m not sure concerned about the number of 5 star reviews. Like others, I tend to look at the lower rated reviews – in general, I think 3 & 4 star reviews tend to give the best balance, especially since most of the time I’m not trying to figure out if the widget is the best thing since sliced bread, but to determine if it will fit MY needs, is reliable, and of good quality.
I agree with @Daniel Reyna that many reviews don’t have a clue about what they are reviewing – this especially happens when newbies review professional products. There are some professional products I love that have pretty bad reviews on Amazon.
Finally, there is definitely review grade inflation. For example, as much as I hate this, when I’m reviewing Kindle e-books, if I like it, the book gets 5 stars, and then I can explain more in the comments, otherwise it’s not fair to the author. (I’d prefer to reserve 5 stars for the few classic/amazing books I read, instead of the many good books I read).
ken
I really don’t fully understand why you will not call them out by name. You claim it would only lead to an opps it won’t happen again response. Let them make the claim and that way you and others can hold them to it later. I know they probably won’t leave you in the mix but they will still call on others like you and if they already heard about their past bad practices they will be watching this time and call them out again just like you did the first time. If you see someone robbing a store would you give police a description of them even though they would only deny it or say it won’t happen again? They need to be held accountable as a company and even one time being caught doing this type of thing will tremendously affect their reputation and companies may think twice about hiring them in the future so they are not associated with a marketing company that has low business ethics.
Even though I do not support or fully understand your position to not name names I respect your decision as I realize you are better informed about it than me. I am just giving you my opinion from the outside as a long time toolguyd reader and enthusiast. I would like to be part of any effort to rid ourselves of this type of unethical behavior but I also realize it will never end. There will always be scammers!
Hon Cho
While I do occasionally look at reviews on retailer sites; over time I’ve found them to be of marginal use. Unfortunately, while we have more and more places to look for information on products, the overall quality of information is widely variable. Too many reviews are linked to people with an economic interest in helping to sell the product under review. Heck, even here on ToolGuyd I detect a bit of boosterism toward products by site sponsors and while Stuart claims/seems to be a straight shooter, his business model is about us buying goods through his affiliate links so it’s in his interest to promote products that he can legitimately say are worth spending money on. To be clear, I’m not accusing Stuart and ToolGuyd of any impropriety. ToolGuyd does provide value to me, otherwise I wouldn’t frequent the site as often as I do.
Frank D
One of the things I have noticed is the abundance of 3-4-5 word up to one line “reviews” that tell you absolutely nothing, as they could be for anything under the sun; … and don’t get me started about all the similar ones that are gathered as part of a sweepstake. They dangle a $500 gift card per year out there and get an unlimited boost of 5 star ratings and ” reviews ” pulled from any give site; … most of which are again usless, as they contain no practical info. It really skews the numbers. Looking at you primarily, Ryobi!
Stever
Thanks for the honesty. Please let us know if Lowes/HD put forth some effort to curb this. I frequent HD a lot for my tools, basing my purchases from reviews if no personal experience.
Robert P Purcell
Had to be Lowe’s. They are so underhanded and sneeky. I worked for them, they always fudged the numbers on everything. All it is with them is sell, sell and more sell.
Bob Abooey
If you owned a store it would be your philosophy too
Bob
Agree It’s not ethical but this is nothing new. radio DJs we’re doing “payola” back in the 50s. Carpet baggers were slinging mythical “snake oil” in the 1800’s. Even the Romans watered down the wine they sold as export.
You can’t catch all the disingenuous reviews but I agree with others they all have a shady feel about them.
It would be nice if retailers didn’t put up with the shenanigans. But at the end of the day “you pay’s your monies and you takes your chances.” At least both of those big box stores have a generous return policy.
I say that in jest but it does end up costing the consumer more.
Allen Powers
I’m getting this vibe from Flex tools at Lowe’s. From what I can tell they’re good, but, 4.9-5 good with over a hundred reviews?
Jared
Great article. 👍 The charts really paint a picture.
When I’m considering a product I usually read the reviews (not just the stars). It’s not just fakes I’m worried about, but also whether the users writing the reviews understand what they’re talking about. Sometimes the 1-star reviews are just as important as the overall rating – e.g. do they indicate a common failure or just a bunch of bone-heads? I might have to also start paying attention to 5-stars to see if they seem genuine.
I also use reviews to filter results or decide between options, so this type of greasy behavior is troubling. I can’t say it’s terribly surprising however.
Tangentially, I noticed some retailers auto-sort reviews by number of stars – so when you start scrolling through the reviews it seems like it’s all glowing praise. Just something else for the wary shopper to watch out for.
Stacey Jones
The first email was completely unethical. The second was borderline. If you’re the type of person that can be honest and forget that you got the item for free while reviewing, I don’t see anything wrong with it. But I do believe these people are uncommon.
SeenItAll
I’ve been writing about home remodeling for 15 years and have seen the same pattern.
In the early 2000s, you might be approached by a legitimate PR firm. They might offer you a review product with no strings attached. And that would happen maybe once or twice a month.
Now, I get five emails per day offering products, often quite annoying and sometimes with strings attached. I ignore every single one of them.
It’s a glut of review products more than ever. All it takes is offering one of those idiot Cafe Media Elite Publisher bloggers a free Kreg, and suddenly you have a write-up and a link for practically nothing. With that kind of economy of scale, who wouldn’t do it?
Jim Felt
Stuart.
Stick to your position. These bozo “marketers” are most likely industry newbies in an era of questionable remote worker ethics.
Personally your reviews weigh heavily on any purchase decision I make for several entities. Though I’m not always in agreement. No one has the same combination of needs/preferences/budget/brand loyalties.
As for random sellers/site Reviews I barely open any of them. Especially the big boxes. Amazon with specialty item reviews are frequently better. Plus Amazon let’s me rant and knock products all the time. Just like Yelp and Google. So at least I know they’re more tolerant of actual non flattering reviews. BTW I much prefer to carry on if something is surprisingly good too.
There are so many better research/decision making options then just anonymous “customer” reviews. Just invest the time to identify them.
Keep up the great work Kimosobe.
EXFFDC
Regarding reviews on Yelp (and Angie’s list), I worked for a company that was resisting being strong-armed by Yelp. Certain industries are entirely driven by reviews, and Yelp knows this. Their algorithm is secret, however it’s pretty transparent. If a company advertises with them, the reviews which are deemed useful suddenly skew much more to 4 and 5 stars. However, there is a very small, nearly invisible link at the bottom of the list of “preferred reviews” to the list of “currently not preferred reviews.” I can’t remember the exact wording right now- it may have been “helpful” rather than “preferred.” If the company advertises with Yelp, the hidden reviews will be mostly negative; and if they don’t advertise with Yelp, the hidden reviews will contain just enough of the positive reviews that the company cannot have a rating above 3 stars. We once had a negative review on Yelp declaring “1-star, AVOID!” even though the reviewer said right there in the review that they hadn’t even been to our establishment, but thought we sounded rude on the phone. Thankfully we had a good phone call monitoring system that recorded calls and what number the call originated from. Turns out it was a competitor, and the person who called was rude, not our person. We could prove it, so Yelp had to remove that review from the preferred review list, but since we refused to play their game and advertise with them, they simply swapped in another low review from the hidden list.
My point in all of this is simply that Yelp and Angie’s List, and probably other review sites, have to pay their overhead somehow and aren’t taking a financial loss to provide the consumer with unbiased reviews. They are paid by the companies that advertise with them, and you will only find the honest reviews if you read both the featured and hidden reviews- whether or not a company advertises with them.
R.k.
You do realize this has been going on with Amazon reviews for almost as long as they have been around. I always warn people if a review says its a “verified purchase” its usually because it was a free product and they were paid to leave a 5 star review and usually you will see a 100 verified purchase 5 star reviews half as many 1 star reviews and nothing in between. Once I realized this tatic on my own I avoid those products all together because they are usually garbage
Stuart
Yes, but we’re not talking about Amazon now.
On Amazon, they’re cracking down on generic import brands and sellers that try to incentivize 5-star reviews. Here, this is a 3rd party marketing company seeking to manipulate reviews outside of Amazon.
JSxLV
Amazon has claimed to be cracking down on these things for many, many years. But it is never fixed. And the simple reason is at the end of the day, Amazon makes money from people buying their “amazing” junk. (If I see something is “amazing” in a review, I am strongly disincentivized to purchase it because it’s either a fake review or positively reviewed by a person with whom I am not a peered).
Fyrfytr998
Stuart,
Just want to take a second to thank you for your stance on being bought out. There happens to be one other tool review site I frequent, and lately all they have been doing is rehashing old articles.
You click on the links thinking you’ll be reading something new, only to find yourself rereading the same old stuff you read months and sometimes years ago. Were only a few days into 2022 and they already have “best of 2022” article up with zero new products in it.
I have yet to visit this site and see a reposting of an article presented as new. Thank you.
Fyrfytr998
Since they want to delete comments respectfully critical of their content. I guess Pro Tool Reviews doesn’t want my clicks any more?
Fair enough. There are plenty of other tool review places to visit.
Julius Rosen
I also want to say there are some good websites selling product with reviews that are fair and honest. I do see some especially for kitchen appliances that tell you up front in the review I got the product for free or a reduced price as payment for writing my honest review and believe it or not I read through these and do see good and bad comments as most people consumer-wise are truthful
Dominic S
It’s so hard to find honest reviews these days, or even honest information about anything anymore, given the level of shady marketing tactics out there. Fake reviews, fake review websites (usually obvious) and influencers posing as reviewers. Sometimes you just have to go out of your way to try something out yourself.
Rx9
Stuart, one of the reasons I and many others come here is because of your coverage of scams, whether it be of fake reviews, fake retail sites or other nefarious deeds. So, thank you, once again.
I’m glad to see the data analysis you did. A lot of these astroturfed influence campaigns can be sussed out by looking at the timing. Another good test is to see if anything substantive is being said in the negative reviews.
There was a youtuber who recently did a piece on an unscrupulous youtube multi-influencer push by a major autonomous driving tech firm. I highly recommend it as it illustrates the mechanics of these campaigns fairly well.
Ricardo
Very, very quickly these people will make all reviews completely worthless. Reviews at Amazon already are. The real challenge will be when they go “underground” and hire trained reviewers to post reviews at sites not directly connected to the “sponsoring authority” or their agents; Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hardware, etc. are the “agents” because that’s where the sales are made (and by “trained” I mean educated in how to make a review sound authentic, or more likely, a well-programmed artificial intelligence bot).
Dave R.
I’d be curious if a company like Home Depot and Lowes would be so bold as to only allow people who purchased the item to leave reviews on those specific items. I don’t even want the “trusted reviewer” badge. Just seems to cause incentive.
Case in point: I’d love a new Jointer. I do woodworking as a hobby, I may make 1 table a year. I don’t need a huge jointer for making beautiful pieces, I’d like something affordable and performs as well as it can. So, I may WANT to look at Wen, for example, but when you see the YouTubers that say “I got it for free in exchange for my honest opinion”, well… it’s not as honest is it? (I know you all receive items similarly.) That’s all fine, I know to discount the idea that you have no skin in the game. (except a reputation here, not so much for Joe Scmuckatelli who have 2k subs.) So, then I goto place like HD, Amazon, Lowes to find people who’s actually put some money into it.
I like seeing the ratio of # of star reviews, helps some. But i’d be nice if there was a badge that said “Paying customer.” I guess they’d find a way to exploit that as well.
J.C. Novack
Is it a surprise in our “like” and “dislike” mentality these days. I’ve had sellers send along similar requests with product I have actually purchased. Ultimately, the honest review which motivates a product’s engineering and manufacturing teams to improve their product is lost in the world of Marketing manipulation.
Better yet is the “review” from someone who apparently has yet to even touch the product. “Looks great” or “seems like a good value” is a seemingly pathetic need to get their opinion, albeit meaningless, up on the site or Internet.
I appreciate this transparent revealing of these tactics that we all should be aware of and consider as we make purchases. And remember, we and we alone must use our own senses and criteria to determine how we will use and what we expect from anything we purchase.
John Fal
Sometimes bad! Is bad! With these being on clearance cheap I thought I might grab one, but remembering when I first saw the product on line back in the spring, all the (regular) feedbacks where 1 and 2 star. With that said, I saw promotional feedbacks and they where all 5 star and other reviewers talking about it too! Now it’s full of feedback for all sorts of items that are not even it!
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kobalt-Kobalt-40-Volt-Handheld-Power-Cleaner-2Ah-Kit/5000182691
Frank D
I hate the Sweepstakes entries and the ” Vine ” / whatever free previews. 99% of them are 5 stars. The long ones are super generic. A sprinkle of excitement, a bit about unboxing, dimensions, couple features, used it once seems great … but they’ve never used a competing product and/or they got it for free … so ALL GREAT! 5 stars.
IndianaJonesy (Matt J.)
Stuart…thanks as always for being a bastion of transparency and honesty. There are very few left in the tool review arena at this point. I’ve been around here for probably 10+ years now and while I may not 100% agree with your opinions on every tool, I always trust that it’s an honest review and you’ve done nothing but confirm that here. Thanks for all you do!
Poor Lowes Employee
5 stars for the writer of this article! ETHICS human kindness right and wrong mean nothing to greed of big money CEOs. Bottom line and the big bonus that’s what matters. Deception is their best-selling skill. Paying employees poorly,tiring to get there stocks higher stock holds are more important the workers and their families. No honor no shame. Greed tiring to look like something you are not. These ceo don’t care if there workers are on welfare and the American tax payers pay.So lying is easy for them. Lowes and Home Depot have shame on them don’t get any on you
x lu
Quite pathetic really. But in the end the internet is generallya very poor source of truth. While you should be calling out the offender, we understand you cant for commercial reasons. On the other hand, calling them out just means you would be culled and wouldnt know the next time someone pulls the same stunt. But this is the inernet-everyone is conflicted, no different then in the days magazines pretended advertising and editoral were seperate. I still nearly cough up a lung laughing over that.
With that said, unless there are hundreds of reviews to create statistical significance they are best ignored. I only read the 1s and 2s and only to see any specific observations on my use case. There are not now nor has there ever been bias free sources of truth. And for the most part, if you buy quality, you will simply be burned less often.
This is a great post in that it provides the reminder we all need-trust little of what you read. And remember on manufacturer and manynretailer sites, poor rebiews are not always published-they are curated.
Jimmie
I’m curious…after last year’s incident where you were basically asked to shame Home Depot into picking up that new product line, did you notice if any other tool review sites posted such an article?
Justin
As a web developer who implemented ratings/review scripts on many sites I don’t trust any online review or review site. Too much shadiness around this. The stuff clients asked for has made me distrustful of nearly all reviews.
For retail sites it’s really easy to implement a feature to ensure a user has actually purchased a product to leave a review. They don’t do it because a fake 5 star review is better than nothing. I’ve seen 5 star reviews for products that haven’t been released, but the company is happy to see it because upon launch day they already have a 5 star product. 5 star reviews where someone states they didn’t use or buy the product (this was particularly bad on Amazon). People who leave a review just to ask a question, but rate it 5 stars. Etc etc. It goes well beyond just free tool handouts.
The only valid reviews are from a person who specifically states they purchased the product or service with their own money. And this person also mentions exactly how long they’ve been using it. And to top it off the only reviews truly helpful fall in the 2-4 star area. Those reviews are so rare it’s worthless to look through for anything other than an expensive purchase.
Then you have product specific review sites made just to make a brand’s product look like an industry leader. Sites that look like: bestgasgeneratorsreviewed_com Definitely cannot trust those.
Online reviews are just gross at this point.
I do appreciate you writing this article. At least I know someone else is bothered by this.
David Zeller
Stuart, as a long time reader, I’ve seen you visit similar topics many times. I’d like to appeal to you to revisit your logic in not naming the parties involved. I’ve read your reasoning, but respectfully disagree that your approach works best for changing in the situation or informing your readers. It’s time to bring the bad actors to light, both so they take some heat and so we know which companies we should be most wary of.
I hope we should look forward to a revealing follow-up article.
Stuart
I name names on a case by case basis.
In this case, my goal was to inform everyone about a particularly bad marketing practice, and also to help discourage it on the business side of things.
I want brands and marketing agencies to ask “oh no, was this us?” and to ensure it’s not something they are or would ever be engaged in.
We don’t know how pervasive this practice is, but I have never been asked to leave reviews on 3rd party retailer’s customer review sections before.
Is this marketing agency doing this for all of their clients? Or was this prompted by a couple of individuals? I hope their response would be “oh, that was bad, we shouldn’t do that again.”
Not naming the retailer puts both home centers’ review sections under greater scrutiny.
Naming the brand(s) would cause undue backlash since it’s not clear whether this was something they asked for. I am of the opinion that the marketing agency is the responsible party here. Even if the brand asked for these specific practices, and I have no reason to think they did, the marketers should have declined.
Is the entire marketing agency responsible? Or just a couple of individuals?
Readers have never heard of this company, and probably never will. Naming the marketing agency won’t help readers. If brands want to know whether they’re involved in this, I could tell them privately.
If I name the agency publicly, the company can then defend themselves to their clients or potential future clients by questioning my motives or goals.
Here’s an experience that happened a few years ago. I wrote about one brand’s new products, and someone left really negative comments. I was informed by a product manager that this individual was associated with a competitor and was besmirching them all over the internet. I added bold red notices to all of their comments. Nothing happened beyond that, and so a separate post wasn’t warranted. A while later, a VP at the competitor contacted me. They apologized and told me that an associate had gone rogue and that their unacceptable behavior was addressed. I removed the comments from the posts.
In a different experience, I named names in a post, not as the focus, but as an aside. I got yelled at by a VP, and I yelled back at them, that they should get their dishonest colleagues under control. They were upset, not that their colleagues or subordinates were leaving fake reviews and shill comments, but that they were called out on it.
In a different instance, a product manager refused to answer reasonable media questions, presumably because they didn’t have a good answer or it would paint them in a bad light. They were involved in a pattern of shill and competitor-bashing comments. I brought it up with the brand, and they refused to address it. Naming names wasn’t done as punishment, but because they could be doing this type of practice all over the web – in retailer reviews, website reviews, social media, YouTube videos, forums, or elsewhere. I felt that readers would benefit from being on the lookout or this. Naming names is also a deterrent, to discourage others from engaging in unacceptable marketing practices.
What happened there, when I named names? Some readers thought I called out the brand because of ongoing frictions, others swore never to buy their products again. Neither were intended or productive responses.
Naming names can hurt my goals, and gives perpetuators more ways to defend their actions. If a client calls out the agency here for their bad practices, that conversation is going to be about the practice. If I name them, then the conversation might be more about why I called them out.
One can always name names should it be necessary. But once you name names, you can’t really take that back.
Naming names needs to have a beneficial or helpful purpose, and I don’t see that being the case here.
Will
We’ve seen that those emails from foreign princes asking for bank information so they can wire you cash are purposely written with typos and other grammatical errors in order to weed out critical thinkers and skeptics. Do you think there might be any of this going with fake reviews? Just a quick thought I had.
Emilio Gonzalez
I no longer trust many reviews. Everyone has an opinion. I go with trusted brands and dealers only. So sad what the world has become now. Too many people are just out for themselves and customer service is a quaint idea.
Lowes emp1
As an employee for corporate Lowes on the digital side, I can tell you that those reviews are managed completely from a third party company. I think that you’re doing a disservice by not naming the company, they may not even be aware that their vendor is doing this. At the very least, I hope that you make someone in the company aware.
Stuart
Both Home Depot and Lowe’s corporate know how to reach me.
Maps Bam
Amazon is the worst for fake reviews. They are also the worst for shipping fake/clone products in place of the real thing. Yes, that has happened even shipping directly from Amazon. Best to avoid Amazon.
Pete
From a consumer point of view it does not make much of a difference other than a small inconvenience. And that is returning the item to the “big box” stores or Amazon if the item is not what it claims to be. As much as an inconvenience it is to me its a bigger inconvenience and a loss both to the big stores and the manufacturer to repackage the item or sell it as reconditioned and eat the shipping costs.
Looking at the big picture they are not doing themselves a favor with fake reviews.
Leanna
I am in Home Depot Seeds program where you write reviews in exchange for a freebie. Whenever I write an honest review including some negative features of a certain product and submit it, it will never make its way to be published, This
happened multiple times. The HD is looking for the upbeat positive reviews. All negatives even if true are swept away. JMHO
Joe
lol so many miss informed lying people. No Home Depot or Lowes do not give you a free item you review in there program. They ask you for an honest review and they give you a $5 gift card…PERIOD!!!
Stuart
No… this was a 3rd party marketing and sponsorship company asking influencers (potentially paid or maybe at least unpaid but hopeful) to boost reviews for certain products.
Home Depot and Lowe’s also do have free sample programs where yes, they provide top customer reviewers with free products they want them to review. That’s not what I’m talking about here. It seems you’re unaware or mistakenly doubtful such programs exist.