Censorship at the Best Buy website

Hi - you may or may not remember how I recently wrote of buying a 26" LG LED TV from Best Buy - and the TV giving me significant problems that I at first thought were emf-related, but later surmised was a chemical-offgassing issue.  Well, I submitted a review to the Best Buy website in which I rated the TV with only one "star" (I may have generously given it two stars if I didn't resent Best Buy for other reasons) - and detailed the issues that I had with the TV.  I believe that it's been at least 10 days since I submitted that review.  

A short time ago, I returned to the Best Buy website to see if my review was published; to my dismay, my review is nowhere to be seen.  I see that at least a few other reviews (coincidentally - all highly positive) have been published in the time since I submitted my review.  

Maybe I shouldn't be, but I'm actually surprised by Best Buy's actions.  Though I don't hold the company in very high esteem, I somehow thought that they would have more integrity than this.  I didn't think that they would shamelessly engage in such obvious censorship practices.  I mean, I didn't lob any personal attacks at either Best Buy or LG - I simply relayed my honest experience with the product.  

This certainly doesn't inspire faith in Best Buy's review-system, does this?  From now on, when I read reviews on Best Buy's website - I will wonder all the more if some deception is involved in the reviews that we get to see.  

Amazingly - this product is receiving nothing but 5-star and 4-star reviews.  For precautionary reasons, I won't provide a direct link - but if you want to see the censored reviews for yourself, you can go to the Best Buy website and do a search for "LG - 26" Class (26" Diag.) - LED - 720p - 60Hz - HDTV" (or something similar).  

One takeaway from this is - if you find yourself submitting a negative review to a website - you may want to follow-up to be sure that it's published (and remains published).  The other takeaway:  Best Buy is even more offensive than I thought.  

On September 22, "Svetaswan [via ES]" <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Well, I submitted a review to the Best Buy website in which I rated
> the TV with only one "star" (I may have generously given it two stars if I
> didn't resent Best Buy for other reasons) - and detailed the issues that I
> had with the TV.  I believe that it's been at least 10 days since I
> submitted that review.

Well, I think a lot of companies are like that -- they handpick their most
positive testimonials and publish those, and ignore the rest.  It seems
like Amazon.com allows negative reviews, although even today
I was looking at a product with consistent 4 and 5 star reviews, until
I noticed that all of the reviews seemed rather similar, and were probably
all written by the same person using different usernames.  Although
I can't blame Amazon.com for that...

Marc

I don't know...I've posted negative reviews to other websites, and have never experienced the blatant censorship that I just have with Best Buy.  

Oh, yes - with Amazon, I'm not so sure that it's a matter of them withholding negative reviews - but I have noticed the overall problem that you speak of.  On that vast website, I have sometimes come across reviews with a "too good to be true" ring to them - and/or reviews that somehow give "hints" that they were written by company p.r. people.  I've tried to be more discriminating in my perusal of reviews - and not be swayed by everything that sounds good.  

I probably would have wised up even without my cousin's warnings - but a few years ago, he related to me his poor experience concerning Amazon and reviews.  It seems that he was lured into buying a book that received universally positive Amazon reviews - only to receive the book and discover that it was useless.  Of course, my cousin is kind of a voracious intellectual - and his standards may be more demanding than the average person's.  Then again - knowing my cousin - probably the only other people who were buying that book were other intellectuals!  So I suppose a more likely scenario is that the author received a little help from his friends.

That said, though - I've never gotten any indication that Amazon is outright censoring reviews.  As you said, the problem seems to be more with people who "scam" the Amazon ratings system - which may be difficult for Amazon to control.  To me, when you compare Best Buy and Amazon - Amazon seems to be the lesser of the evils by far.  There have been several times when - instead of purchasing something from Best Buy - I elected to go with Amazon.

~Svetaswan

All the reviews I've submitted on Amazon.com products, ranging from 5 star to 1 star,  have been posted.   I appreciate learning about your experience with Best Buy, Svetaswan.    

Thanks - I appreciate your appreciation. :)  Your experience with Amazon just confirms why I think much more highly of Amazon than I do of Best Buy.

I should broadcast this experience with Best Buy elsewhere on the web - this is just not something that they should be able to get away with without their duplicitous actions being exposed.

~Svetaswan