Hi people,

Something has been bugging me for a while now. Based on my own experiences, I have found that when I buy something online from a far eastern website - the type who sell consumer gadgets, electronic parts, Arduino hobby stuff and the like - that when I give a good review it makes it through into the reviews for others to see, but when I give a bad or even neutral review, it gets blocked.

I first heard of it happening to someone else (a gadget that really was junk quality), and I was shocked. Then it happened to me on the same website, except I had first complained, and then I had no way to review the product. The complaint was fobbed off, so I had no recourse. I stopped buying things from that website.

Another website I bought from seemed better - the reviews looked to be reasonably balanced - but mainly five stars of course. Then one thing I bought really was junk, and the review I wrote went into detail about it. The review was not published, and when I enquired as to why I was given some "points", presumably to console me. I kept contacting the company and eventually I found I could write a review again. I wrote another review (I had kept a copy of the first one fortunately). Alas, we're coming up on a month now and many E-Mails to support, which are increasingly just fob-offs in my opinion. So I'm not buying anything from them any more either.

Getting back to the subject at hand, I'm wondering, do any of the big online far eastern sellers accept non-shining reviews? I mean, there are often the odd bad reviews, but are these carefully screened and scrutinised before being allowed to be published by the store? Or am I being overly cynical? I guess growing up with a more "western style" Amazon where ones opinion in a review does get published, I find it despicable that these other sellers appear to be fiddling the review process. The solution would appear to be to buy from Amazon instead, but, and here is the challenge I have at the moment, the lithium ion battery charger I have researched and want to buy simply isn't carried by Amazon.

Your experience with writing neutral or bad reviews would be appreciated. I'm hoping to find a new supplier for my geek/gadget cravings that also has scruples!

This is my first post here and I hope I have put it in the right forum. If not, my apologies.

-Martin

[Mod edit (MF): inserted some paragraph breaks)