I just came across reviews and people's comment here: https://www.productreview.com.au/listings/ozbargain
I was surprised to see the overall review is very low. All the reviews and comments look genuine (i.e real humans with their experiences and not fake reviews).
Just wondering what are the thoughts?
Edit:
Added a poll as well. How would you rate ozbargain forum community (not the deal)?
Reviews are directed towards the forum on productreview.
I was going to say well done to you, @mspaint and @randomusername2017foe this
https://www.productreview.com.au/reviews/ab14e246-3411-54f2-…
I wonder if B-tech is Temu V-tech?
It was a real team effort to break him so hard he had to cry on product review, I'm just so proud of everyone.
I took a quick look and one of the negative reviews starts off like this:
Used it for years but too friendly to nazis
Why? Because someone posted a link to the documentary 'What is a Woman?' I'm sure the reviews are real, but if the complaint is that someone posted a deal for a free documentary that they disagreed with, then their review is stupid and should be ignored.
More broadly, this is why I always read at least a few reviews before judging if a business is good or bad. If the negative reviews are unreasonable complaints, or the positive reviews are obviously astroturfed garbage, then there's no point taking them seriously.
Yep, and almost anyone that mentions nazis can safely be considered disingenuous and ignored with no further context required.
I've ignored Musk for years
I was talking to the moderation team earlier this year about having a "Product Reviews Review" post where we dissect and respond to each individual review — not on their sites but here on the OzBargain forum. The mod team has pretty good idea on who those reviewers were, as they almost always correlated to some specific incidents.
But then there might be too much drama and becomes a distraction from all the bargain hunting here.
@spackbace and I used to link up all the reviewers with posters here. It was a fun game and there's even a review directed at me. He deactivated his account after I provided him with the fix :/
For example here's Chris upset in 2018 that his deal was no good. So much for a 10 year warranty when his store doesn't exist anymore.
Even better when they cross-post their crap onto Trust Pilot as well
(lol that the site is classified under Restaurants and Bars)
Give the public what they want Scotty
I’m a firm believer in Scotty doesn’t know
I would love to see that, for entertainment value alone
I have no doubt these 'reviewers' wouldn't hesitate to spew up more lies after the facts were laid out on the table.
Are all negative reviews about Ozb lies?
@MS Paint youre famous
That was the dude who paid Amazon twice because they didn't want money sitting in their savings account due to the security risk.
I want them to take my money immediately not when they ship the item*
*Something like that. What a muppet.
That was a recent thread, it was incredibly what a clown that guy was. One of those guys who always makes it "someone else's fault" because it could never, ever be a problem of his own making.
Since deleted thread. Not sure if the user deactivated.
@MS Paint: Astonishing such a critical PSA was deleted. Future generations of Barry's are being deprived…🤔
To be fair to that guy, it is a weird business practice to not take payment as soon as soon as you process your transaction and hit "pay". I still only know of Amazon to do that. If he was new to Amazon I can understand his confusion. It is preposterous (without prior knowledge, which evidently he did not have) to assume customer service reps for a big company don't know what they're talking about, which was the crux of his issue.
In a similar vein, I think sometimes a lot of people in these forums and even in deal comments respond to genuine people with genuine questions assuming they have the same knowledge base. Another good example of this is pretty much always the comments section of the JBHF - Telstra phone deals. Someone inevitably asks how to get the deal (because it is most often not explained or explained very poorly in the deal description) and then people start replying to the question as if that person is a twat for even asking.
@tenpercent: You've got a point, there is assumed knowledge and experience and this forum has it's biases.
But a big reason that thread went off the rails so bad is that he just had a personality that couldn't admit fault (in this case a bit of poor judgement, a lack of cynicism about CS competence, thinking that gift cards are a good idea, overall lack of experience) and had to keep doubling then tripling down and arguing with everyone.
We've all made mistakes, and will continue to do so. But hopefully most of us learn from those mistakes.
Instead of learning, he just threw his toys out of the pram and left in a huff. You can tell in his productreview post that he still thinks that he is 100% right and made no errors in judgement.
You occasionally come across people like this IRL. They are insufferable, always victims or always blaming some higher authority for their woes.
@tenpercent: Happened to me yesterday. Order placed on a very good deal. 48hrs later CC still not charged and order appeared to be paused. I couldn't risk losing the deal so I got a local price match and cancelled Amazon order.
@tenpercent: Lenovo only does a pending transaction on your card until the product is shipped. One laptop i ordered got delayed for 3 months and they kept putting a pending charge then expired and re-execute the pending charge every 2 weeks it was driving me insane keeping track if I was overcharged or not.
At least with Amazon it doesn't do a cycle like this and only does it once at the end when the order is shipped.
I was surprised to see the overall review is very low.
Why? People are far more inclined to post a negative review based on a bad interaction/getting banned/complaining about content they dislike, than any of us would actively go post a positive review out of the blue.
I've always thought that, but some companies or industries get overwhelming good reviews, think thousands of 4.8-5 star reviews and I wonder how that is so. I'm thinking it must mostly be fake?
A good example of fake reviews on Product Review is for internet dating. Most services barely scrape in at 1.5 to maybe 2, but one service has a near five star rating. Most of the reviews are short two line blurbs: 'Wonderful service, met my soul make. Give it a go!'
The reviews for all other services are littered with jaded people and broken hearts. Why should one service be stunningly good while all others have realistic reviews?
The reviews for all other services are littered with jaded people and broken hearts. Why should one service be stunningly good while all others have realistic reviews?
That's EXACTLY what the spoofers want you to think.
The internets resident lunatics.
Hey, that's our title!
JV gets a mention, but not a single review has the word "Austria" in it. Sad. https://www.productreview.com.au/reviews/01c01bf4-ec4c-460f-…
A ripper yarn.
Productreview is pointless. As noted in recent post here, people tend to post only when they have a negative experience, less so a positive one.
If I'm researching a product, I put more faith in the comments on Ozbargain.
Several negative reviews all highlighting some specific failing about a product can be useful though. I would have avoided frustration and effort to return at least a few items over the years had I read all the negative reviews first.
Agreed, my mum got a $100 torch recently from a local hardware store, just from the shelf without and research.
Upon trying to charge with USB a birthing smell filled the room. Torch died.
I searched the model and heaps of people had the same thing happen, makes justifying a return and refund much easier.
A birthing smell is pretty outrageous. Bad enough having that when your own child is born
Just blokes like this having a whinge when deals for their dropshipped junk get negged - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozot1eruE3Q&t=124s
Lol at all the recent comments about how right wing this place is. Pretty much every political poll here leans heavily left and all the cookers who came out over COVID seem to have left in the last year or so. There's a few resident MAGA nuts but that's fairly representative of the population, like have these people gone outside or maybe left Victoria?
Sir, I do not appreciate you calling me a nut
It's not a good look for advertisers.
The site appears to be doing well, much to the distress of numpties who wrote all those bad reviews.
Pretty sure all advertisers care about is the clickthrough rate and it's pretty insanely high on this site. Newest top deal has had 1.3k clicks in 2 hours.
Wouldn't surprise me if the advertisers didn't even know they were on OZB and it was all automated.
I think ozb is a fantastic site and community. I use it multiple times a day. Yes I am not interested in the gaming posts, but I just scroll past them. Forum posts are mostly ok, although you do get the odd account here and there who is unfairly undermining the OP.
If you prefer, you can hide the gaming category completely here. Scroll to the bottom, under 'General' and 'I want to include' click 'Deals For Selected Categories' and click every category but gaming.
Alternatively, if you don't want to hide them completely but just see less, you can scroll to the top of the same page and drag the slider for 'gaming' to the left, to still see gaming posts, but much less on the front page only (replacing them with other deals from different categories).
I think the reviewers who claim there's no freedom of speech are missing the fact that it's a for-profit website. The business strategy might encompass creating certain narratives to suit their purpose.
It's not that different to any reddit sub or twitter.
If you want freedom of speech head over to 4chan or the dark web.
It would appear that many of the reviews are the result of a single event or interaction that wasn’t in their favour.
Some people think that someone else disagreeing with them is “trolling”, even when they’re demonstrably wrong about what ever the subject is, and it’s simply raised for discussion.
Those types of people appear to have less tolerance to different viewpoints, and when something doesn’t go their way, they’re more than happy to close their account and leave a bad review.
I reckon @Dr Phil saw what you did thier.
He won’t even see this because it’s not the first comment.
It's strange how none of the reviews mention Platinum-Level-Tier. Guess that's why Barry was so pissed off in his 1 star review, he never got an invite. While platinum members are kicking back with free express shipping and giftcard inception deals - poor Barry is out there having a full blown meltdown because his blood pressure monitor didn't arrive. Somehow I don't think he needs this machine to know that his blood pressure is through the roof.
The first rule of OzBargain Platinum Tier is though…
I don’t have time to read the reviews, I’m too busy chasing the best bargains. I figure most of those reviews are just from people who missed out and are a bit salty about it.
Guessing it is some of the conspiracy nutjobs or extremists that don't like being corrected or called out. You have to be pretty out there or attacking others to get moderated on this forum so I think if they were having constant mod problems then it speaks volumes about them.
Because every time someone ask a question others are jumping on their other posts.
TBH all Internet forums can be pretty toxic at times. It's about finding a toxicity that you can handle and a forum that makes life (mildly) better not worse.
Otherwise, for your own sake, leave. Three months ago I made a posted saying I was giving up on Reddit - haven't posted since and honestly life's (not been good) but better.
There are many iterations of the Internet forum: OzBargain will suit some, not others. It suits me. If you can pretend all the downvotes are actually expressions of jealousy - even better.
Wow i didn't even have a slightest idea that ozbargain's reviews exist. I'm here for bargains and i get those every now and then, it's a simple equation for me.
Looks like some people take this place way too seriously.
I love that in the same set of reviews, OzB is simultaneously a draconian oppressor of freedom of speech and 'too kind to Nazis'.
We must be getting something right.
Wouldn't worry about it.
Had some less than perfect experiences from this site but it's honestly always saved me money and had a lot of positive experiences so a twice weekly habit.
Doesn't cost me anything but time.
Not into the affiliate links or cashback schemes personally.
But it's the best bargain forum around.
I was going to write a negative review because I still haven't been paid for any of the comments I have made here. If JV is why aren't I?
But I don't want to give any more publicity to the site!
I wonder if Slavoz or pam have reviews on there…
The peoples republic of bargain
Am I missing something when people are saying ozbargain is right wing and homophobic? Lol, I've been using this site for years and it's literally 95% left wing echo chamber like what.. some of these reviews must be fake man
Yeah nah.
Depends on the post topic. There's way more than 5% RW trolling activism on this site.And ditto for cooker action.
Depends on the post topic
@Protractor: That Trump coffee deal brought out both types, along with "What is a Woman?" and "The Real Andrew Fauci" book. Can't forget the COVID vaccine posts either
Advertising S. 14h · The admins and mods played soggy biscuit with me - I was the biscuit, 10/10
Not sure if this review is fake or there is another even more exclusive tier above platinum.
You gotta risk it to……
While I can laugh at most of the negative reviews and dismiss them as idiots, this sort is thing is not funny.
If you dig deep on Google I am told, you will find a complete list of the moderators and their real names and a photo of their face (It came up on a popular forum)! They may act differently when they realize people know who they are, and they can't hide behind a computer pretending they actually have some meaningful existence.
Crazy idiots are still crazy.
Stay safe guys.
Are you talking about digging to ID Ozb Mods or PR mods?
I agree with the review, forum here is toxic.
the bargains are genuine though
I agree, but I keep coming back for the bargains, not the forums
The irony of reviews on a site called product reviews for something that isn’t a product. Whingers should get a hobby.
"A concerningly pro Chinese website"
Personally haven't seen this Ozbargain. But whoever wrote it should check whirlpool out. Yes the sites are different, but that place is a sespool. For example, the pro Israeli moderation.
This place has its moments, but is relatively peaceful.
It's because they label those darn chinese products as good deals!
Next time you see a deal on flights to China, try mentioning their human rights track record. You'll be accused within 45 seconds of being some sort of Russian troll farm bot. Apparently that's what I am. TBH, the immense pile-on by such posters would make me call them the pro-China bots. It's just not a natural level of frenzied defence of a country that everyone knows does some horrific stuff.
(I bought the flights, and am going there in a few days, but still)
ProductReview has always been a very, very bad way to judge a product or company. It's sad to see some people refer to it here as if it was a reliable resource.
People tend to specifically look for a website, sign up, and write a "review" only when they're annoyed by something even if it was user error or the user not understanding how something works. The legit negative reviews just get buried in all the noise.
People who are completely satisfied with something won't bother signing up and posting a review saying "It works great", although there are categories where you get die-hard fans who'd skew ratings upwards instead.
If ProductReview were actually a reliable website, nobody should ever buy anything from Apple Australia as they apparently have pathetic customer service and products with only 1.7 stars.
Have to generally disagree,re the PR website.(not sure about the Apple reviews)But 'generally' When the number of reviews per product/service is high, and the complaints consistent in direction, from ppl who have multiple reviews over the site, I trust the trend or take serious note/do extra due diligence , or avoid that product/service.
But 'generally' When the number of reviews per product/service is high, and the complaints consistent in direction,
The problem with that is, the larger a company the more negative posts you will see simply because there are more products out there and people definitely tend to post negative reviews more than positive. e.g. I'm sure you're enjoying OzBargain but did you bother posting a positive review? What about your fridge or microwave or vacuum cleaner at home?
Let's say an acceptable defect rate for consumer electronics is 1%. If company A sells five million products a year across ten different product categories, they're going to get plenty more negative reviews compared to company B that sells half a million products a year in three categories simply because there are 10x more products out there - even though their failure rate is the same.
from ppl who have multiple reviews over the site,
I think reviewers like that need a bit more scrutiny as it could be indicative of someone who complains for the sake of complaining, or someone who thinks everything is always someone else's fault. If they consistently praise where praise is due and complain when it's legit (unlike this guy who posted a 1-star review because they tried to return a phone past the returns policy because they were on holiday, their reviews could be worth something.
Unfortunately it's poor-quality "reviews" like the above that pollute the site making the star ratings worthless and filling it with so much noise that it's often just a waste of time.
You need to check out the 'reviewers' history, on this high review products/services. If all they have is neg reviews, then take the review with a pinch of salt.
I'm more suss on new high praise reviews with no review history before or since.They usually follow shit reviews on said service/product.
You need to check out the 'reviewers' history, on this high review products/services. If all they have is neg reviews, then take the review with a pinch of salt.
In reality too many people just look at the number of stars as they don't have time to go through hundreds of reviewers' post histories to determine how many of those reviews are legit. The site simply attracts disgruntled users which is not a good real-life indicator of a product or service but a great example of self-selection bias.
Settle down Michael
@bin555
Your thoughts?
Not sure if my opinion matters. It's really scotty's call as the owner what he wants to do and whether every person opinion matters.
On productreview or Google review, some business owners get involved and write comment. Obviously, takes resources.
If it was me and had access to data, use AI to get some analytics like toxicity, friendliness, etc (I'm sure there are standard measures for community discussion sites). Then progressively work on improving the numbers that matter the most. It's never going to be perfect but productreview reviews surprisingly had consistency in their reviews.
What would you do if you do if you were Scotty?
Reviews on OzBargain have very little impact on the operation of OzBargain itself. When was the last time you decided to (or against) registering an account on a discussion website based on the reviews from a 3rd party website? I think for most people — almost never. The main business model of ProductReview might be tapping into people googling "<brand name> reviews" before making a purchase, but in this case it's merely a place for disgruntled users to vent about the community, moderation decisions, etc. If someone who happens to come across that ProductReview page and derived everything said there is the general public's opinion on OzBargain — I'll just shrug as I've got nothing to say.
Those reviews have more impact on myself personally, as those are often filled with personal attacks and misinformation. That's one of the reasons why I want to step back a bit this year so I don't get drained mentally. I also deliberately decided against replying on ProductReview. Often those "reviews" were posted after multiple TWAMs and there's nothing left to be reconciled, and we certainly do not want to drag their problems to another platform.
And I am not sure what you meant by consistency in those reviews. They are complaining about either under-moderation (too many rude users, how can they allow these topics, etc) or over-moderation (no freedom of speech, moderators abuse power, etc). At the end what's consistent is that people complain about not getting what they want.
What continues puzzling me is why OzBargain is on ProductReview in the first place (and often rated 1-star for "value for money"). There's no way to opt ourselves out either, when it's just a community website rather than a brand or a product.
Yeah that's why I said it's your call. Do whatever you want. You are the boss!
I'm sure if you run a campaign to post positive reviews on pr, you will get thousands of reviews (especially around the annual ozbargain birthday outings)
I'm surprised this thread got so much attention.
Perhaps right words instead of consistency is that there is a general sentiment/consensus across all reviews that you have summarised. There are only 2-3 point all of the reviews are trying to make.
What is a TWAM?
What is a TWAM?
Talk with a Moderator forum which I believe you are already familiar with. Moderators work through hundreds of TWAM posts each month.
agreed, it would hit the owner personally, small business owners are held at ransom, do what i say otherwise im going to give you a 1 star review and if you look at some of the reviews, they've been stung by merchants, and on the other hand moderators have done their job but people think they can do/say whatever they want on here without being banned/penalised fairly.
First of all I thank you for running a great site, and the effort of the mods, who are perhaps volunteers?
I've accidently stepped out line (broken the rules) and quite honestly in hindsight deserved the ban. But frankly I was completely offended (Butthurt) by the approach and wording by the mods when my intention was purely to help the community here.
Look I get it they "deal" with many thousands of clowns or people abusing the system, and it's an extremely tough unrewarding gig.
My only advice\recommendation is perhaps softer wordings, perhaps caution, may go some way to change the perception of the mods.
PS: I read through many of those comments, really not worth responding to, I wasn't even sure they related to this site, some were really strange,
Why were you surprised the rating was so low?
As it deviates from what I would have expected.
I feel 1 to not a fair rating and can see why Scotty takes it personally. Some comments are very harsh and not productive. It's pretty much doing name calling.
In the end bulk of it is from the other community members. Every post, I expect there will be 20% of troll type comments that one needs to ignore, >40% are really helpful and genuine comments and rest are people trying to be witty with their own style of sense of humour. My personal favourite is where there are always some people who go the extra mile to play detectives and come to inferences based on your posts in the past.
So overall you need to see this is training to not get emotionally attached and walk away in case there is getting out of control.
Moderators are kind enough to even take full threads offline occasionally.
My personal favourite is where there are always some people who go the extra mile to play detectives and come to inferences based on your posts in the past.
I think it's reasonable for people to look at someone's post history as it paints a picture of what kind of person they are. If people are wanting to hide their past maybe something isn't right.
@eug: Yes. Of course. That's what I mean by going the extra mile.
Most people are not going to spend the extra time and effort.
I'm honored to get a mention on there ❤️