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In an even more sinister twist, this same firm hires models (usually beautiful 19 year old girls) to go to malls and hang around in front of certain stores, or going into the stores and trying on clothes, making nice comments etc.
Welcome to the wonderful new world of viral marketing!
"Man, with THAT drill I could fix anything!"
;)
By the way, great blog. It's one of the best written most insightful site on the Internet. Way to go!
Scott - I did something similar to that in the UK when I was doing the PR for a book ... had selections of very good looking people reading it on the subway system etc ...
The examples are definitely plants, it is like fake testimonials on sales letters.
If something like this was ever officially investigated, would a site like Hone Depot be able to cover up evidence by deleting comments before an investigation could take place?
Would they be smart enough to use proxys to make the comments anonymous?
Anonymity is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's what gives the Internet such power as a platform for free-speech. On the other hand, it makes it extremely difficult to establish a trusted communication link with an unknown party. (See famous cartoon here: http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/ido...). Eventually, these problems will be worked out - but until then, the Web is a bit like the Wild West, a deception-laced free-for-all where many will cheat and defraud any way they can, to turn a quit buck.
Incidentally, Ben, did you pay Joe to say that? ;)
Thanks for the comments so far, very much appreciated - and truly extending the conversation intelligently.
So should I presume that you're against people planting comments in their own blogs as well? I would never leave myself a positive comment (mostly because I don't think they have any weight), but I might ask myself a question as another person (and then answer my own comment) on a new blog that wasn't getting any comments to try to encourage others to comment.
Maybe it was just a developer faux pas. I wonder if anyone at Home Depot will take notice and let us know?
Truth has a way of being found out. And here in the digital age the scammers inevitably leave a trail of ones and zeros around the globe. We've got a whole planet full of folks willing to dig deep enough and invest the time it takes to flush out these frauds.
Good on ya Ben for pointing out some Home Depot weirdness.
But could rest of us get off the "It's the wild west out there" theme and stop pretending that people have suddenly gotten more sneaky and deceptive than they were before this technology was available to us?
Chris,
I have this great wooden horse statue that I want you to see. What was your address again?
;)
Homedepot.ca is currently running a contest where customers are entered in a weekly draw to win a $500 gift card, each time they write a review on the site.
(See the contest info here: http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servl...)
From what I see, there's nothing to prevent "Sudbury Gal" or "Sally" from copying the review from "Small town gal from Saskatchewan" to try to get entries into that contest.
So the real story here may be that web-trolls are copying reviews to try to scam Home Depot.
But it IS like the "wild west", in that the laws/structures that our modern society has established to root out the fraudulent element within its ranks are more easily subverted on the 'Net, which is predicated on the sort of freedoms that have not been around since the days of gun slingin' card sharks.
The webosphere is still very new, and we are still very much in an acclimatization period (one that, arguably, may never end as the evolution is constant and rapid) that keeps things very interesting indeed.
But I think fake "reviews" are common on any site that offers them. Companies trying to push products, competitors trying to discourage sales. It's all out there and there's no way to know what's real and what isn't.
I once bought a book on Amazon.com after reading rave reviews from a handful of reviewers. The book was the WORST I ever read. I'm convinced the author got a bunch of friends to say nice things about it. And I was one of many suckers who fell for it. Now I pretty much disregard reviews I see online.
Most liely they had a lower wage employee just key them in. Sorry, when it come to big corporations I'm a tad cynical.
s
Just wanted to drop a note and let you know that we do not post reviews on our own site to promote a product or encourage our vendors to do this. We work hard to create an open environment for people to gather and share information – either negative or positive – as we believe that consumer’s interactions can provide additional insight into the product that we or our vendors cannot provide.
Thanks for bringing this up and let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks,
Simon
homedepot.ca
http://www.badslacks.com/home-depot-you-can-do-...
But yeah, we need at least 3 kinds of identity: totally anonymous, pseudonyms, certified person.
[quote]AlmostAlive wrote:
But who says "smaller budget" in real life — real people say "cheap" or at least "inexpensive" and advertising writers say "smaller budget".[/quote]
1) Home Depot is writing these.
Comment above from directly from Home Depot suggests they are not, and I believe it. Think about it...for this tactic to make any meaningful impact it would have to be so wide spread across categories that this wouldn't be the first posting about this. And how many corporate employees do you know would have the kind of time or incentive to do this? Let alone, take the job risk (i'm sure they can check IP address).
2) Supplier is writing these
Noted in the post...unlikely since these rugs are from different manufacturers
3) Users are writing these.
My theory is that another user without much creativity grabbed the review from another person to get a review in the system. Therefore it is not necessarily a 'fraudulent' review (in the intent of that definition) but rather spam. And if this is the first and only mention of this, probably in the vast minority of honest reviews.
Personally I'm of the opinion that any government involvement would be far less effective and far more costly than the millions of Ben's out there keeping their eyes on everything and shouting out whenever they see something fishy.
Neither freedom, nor an absence of laws equates to lawlessness as you implied. It can lead to it, but I don't see the web as the anarchistic frontier where the few powerful "gunslingers" are praying on the poor helpless masses.
The very freedom you seem to fear, and the unprecedented access to information we have right now, is exactly what allows folks like Ben to do what they do so well, call out the fishiness they see.
I do appreciate you bringing this to our attention and as a customer centric organization we do value the voice of the customer as part of our greater community on homedepot.ca. When we added reviews we felt that this authentic word of mouth advertising and community building aspect of our website would continue to make us a leading destination for online shopping in Canada and help our customers in making decisions with this powerful user generated content. As many of your readers have pointed out it is important to ensure that the level of trust is maintained or the whole project would be a failure. To ensure this not only do we not post our own reviews on the site or condone over vendors in doing the same but the overall review acceptance process is handled by a third party to ensure our biases are not reflected in the process.
The conversation this post has generated is a great look at the issues we all have as marketers and consumers in the new user generated content world. I think the response shows the value in true user generated content in consumers' eyes and the need to work hard to maintain this trust.
Thanks,
Simon Rodrigue
Homedepot.ca
"the overall review acceptance process is handled by a third party to ensure our biases are not reflected in the process."
This is true, and that third party also guarantees that HD cannot obtain any individual customer information such as IP addresses. How exactly did you do an IP address check? Sounds like a little corporate BS to me.
At one time HD was a very customer centric organization, but during their growth stage of the last several years much of that has changed to where they currently have the worst customer service in the industry.
Anyway it's not like HD would scam customers on purpose.
http://www.nbc4.tv/homedepotinvestigation/index...
Second, I agree - something stinks. The question remains, though: who stinks? This could be interesting from both points of view. If HD did this, they're going to look bad for obvious reasons, and they'll deserve it.
But they're also likely to look bad if they didn't do it, and that's quite a problem, too. Shoot - everyone overlooked the obvious explanation here: Lowes planted the comments and then slipped Ben a few bucks to blow the whistle.
Just kidding, Ben. ;-)
I think when all is said and done, the effect of this sort of thing is going to be to erode the credibility of anonymous comments for product reviews. You're looking at the next "five out of six dentists surveyed..."
D. Lambert - Lowes definitely didn't slip me anything, I don't think we even have Lowes up in Canada, at least not in Quebec - but that's the good conspirator in you thinking hard! *smile*
Good insight even though its sad to have online marketing going in that direction.
This article is an eye opener for me.
I, myself when I shop for things I always try to make it a point to read the reviews of the products before deciding to buy them.
Now, I won't believe those reviews right away. Who knows if it's really true or not.
Home Depot Canada is running a contest:
From now until March 31, 2007, for every review you write, you'll be automatically entered into a weekly draw to win a $500 Home Depot Gift Card.*
People are probably writing multiple bull&^% reviews to get the numbers up.
JPL
As mentioned in my earlier post it is very important for both homedepot.ca, and our 3rd party provider, that the user generated content is trusted and valued and as such we do not create reviews or condone this behaviour from our vendor community. We believe that it is the extended homedepot.ca community and the content that this community generates that will be one the keys that will continue to allow us be one of Canada’s leading online retailers.
In the coming months we are looking forward to expanding our user generated content on homedepot.ca and it will be interesting to see what you and your readers think about the enhancements and new features.
Thanks for the great discussion on this topic, it truly shows the importance of user generated content on a site and we are glad that consumers like yourself took the time to highlight this important issue as community based interactions continue to take a greater importance in the overall online, marketing and customer service strategies.
Thanks,
Simon Rodrigue
Homedepot.ca
The fact that Home Depot took the time to comment on your blog is very professional. Most companies are completely ignorant of what is written about them in the blogosphere.
Simon - Your comments are appreciated. It was a pleasant surprise to have someone from Home Depot step up and respond to this post. The first point of success with anything like this is for people to know that companies are listening.
satisfied in Houston TX.
Ben noted a potential problem, Simon investigated and provided lots of information on how things like this are handled.
I think there was great professionalism on both sides. Whilst it is true that Ben has a "good eye for a story", I have never known him to be malicious or unprofessional.
Having a "good eye for a story" just makes his content unique, and his blog successful.
Satisfied customer in houston tx.
I should point out that I'm not an unsatisfied Home Depot customer. I also don't hate Home Depot. I noticed something odd on their site and posted about it.
An employee of Home Depot found the post and responded - and I thanked that person several times (here and in email) for paying attention and responding professionally.
We didn't draw any horrid conclusions, and in fact the most likely answer is that testers/programmers were experimenting and didn't delete the comments, although I'm still not a full believer in that explanation.
This type of post can go sour - if they're presented unfairly or rudely. I don't think I did that. And although there are some mediocre comments, the bulk of them are well thought out and interesting...
http://www.intuitive.com/blog/eu_makes_fake_blo...
That kind of thing annoys me not because of the sneakiness of trying to falsify reviews, but because they can't even put any effort in. How hard would it have been to make up 3 different stories. A new one for each rug.
Any project/plan can fail if you don't pay attention to the details...including the under-handed ones it seems :)
With the recent housing market plummeting and 50% drop in earning for the 1st quarter, I would say they are in a bit of trouble now..
I have also had bad experiences in with other items purchases or when trying to purchase from the Home Depot. I know shop Rona and speciality shops... much the wiser in Toronto.
Click here: Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU)
From what I can gather it appears things took a turn for the worse when the founder retired turning over the reins to others who are interested ONLY in the bottom line and their wallets. They really do not give a rat's patoot about the assiciates who are in the trenches. They, like many other retailers, have cut their staff and expect those who remain to take up the slack with no additional compensation. This is the main reason why a customer may go there and not find anyone to help them. If they do find help then quite often that associate is not fully knowledgable about the product or service.
Please don't jump to the conclusion that the associate doesn't care. THD makes big promises in terms of 'making a career.' Take training for example. They tout excellent training. But it's all web-based with cartoon characters talking smack. There is no real-world, hands-on training. You view the tedious session and take a multiple choice quiz then that's it! You're thrown to the wolves! They expect you to help cover multiple departments. I work in the hardware department. I quickly found out I had a great deal to learn there and even after 14 months I still find myself stumped. Next door is plumbing where at least 50% of the time there is no or at least inadequate coverage for numerous reasons (someone called in sick, someone quit or was fired and nobody has been hired to replace them, they worked overtime sometime in the past week so they had to leave early to 'cut' that overtime, etc etc) so, because of my close proximity to that department, I get asked for help in plumbing; "Excuse me sir, can you help me over here in plumbing"? My stock answer is, "Well, I'm willing to try but I really don't know much about it". The worst is someone with the stem out of a faucet that they want to replace. What a sad joke. There are so many variations on things like that and THD can't begin to stock them all. Add the fact that I have no experience in repairing faucets and you have an extremely frustrating exercise in futility, for both the customer and the associate. Are there people out there with that knowledge who THD could hire? You bet there are. But they didn't gain that knowledge overnight, it took years. And are they going to share that knowledge and experience while putting up with the corporate mindset and resulting frustrations for $9 an hour? Not for long.
Sorry, just venting. But try to keep all this in mind when you shop anywhere, not just at Home Depot. Working retail is no picnic.
Shop around, in this economy there are lots of deals out there, in fact you'll probable get a BETTER job.
This is what I wrote:
“The five star comments appear to be staged. I have no opinion on this product because I have never used it. I am a college student and I have taken many English courses, so I am aware of certain styles of argumentative writing. They usually start with a first sentence that grabs your attention, sentences that support the first sentence, and a final strong statement that sums it all up, which all of these comments have. The comments are all well written as if done by an English major, which most of us are not. If you look at the other higher priced Electrolux vacuums, then you will notice the same writing style at similar dates; for example, the CAPS LOCK in the early part of the year. They seam fake and I just want others to take a second thought before getting to excited about these claims.”
My take on this is that Home Depot does NOT want negative reviews.
FYI - I posted on a Honeywell humidifier and a Ridgid sump pump.
For anyone that purchased or had a 401 plan under Home Depot Futurebuilder during June 2001 until present, there is a class action lawsuit pending. For information contact:
Law Office of Alfred G. yates Jr
519 Allegheny Building
Pittsburgh, PA 15219 or
Call 412 391 5164 or 800 391 5164