We (Now) Know If You’ve Been Bad Or Good

On Yelp’s one-to-five scale the cheap folks were a two! They had four reviews: a three, a two and two ones. Ouch.

Am I late to this game? Helaine and I were thinking of buying some furniture online (after buying some furniture locally) and the best price lost! Thanks Yelp.

On Yelp’s one-to-five scale the cheap folks were a two! They had four reviews: a three, a two and two ones. Ouch.

One unhappy customer wrote,

I see on the Better Business Bureau that their BBB accreditation has been revoked with a rating of a D+ and the BBB received 82 complaints against them just in the past 3 years!

There’s really no way for me to know if these crowd sourced reviews are legit, but how can I not take them to heart? What choice is there? Recourse is different and limited when you’re buying online.

We ended up going with an online store in Boston. The BBB says they’re an “A.”

I’m willing to pay for that piece of mind.

12 thoughts on “We (Now) Know If You’ve Been Bad Or Good”

  1. Yelp is HUGE here in Portland. Basically no one goes anywhere (especially restaurants) without first hitting up Yelp. It’s a real deal maker/breaker.

      1. It’s entirely subjective of course. If there are only one or two reviews, I generally don’t give them much weight. But if there are a ton of reviews mainly swaying good or bad, then they give a more accurate snapshot.

        The thing you always have to keep in mind is that people generally only write on these sites if they have an extraordinary experience in a good or bad way. A middle-of-the-road experience doesn’t usually inspire that much effort.

  2. It seems like Yelp reviews here in the Northwest corner are skewed…if someone finds some minor thing wrong they get a one star even though in their review they write “This place is great but they gave me the wrong size.” Doesn’t sound like it warrants a 1-star review if you ask me…but then again I guess that could be personal opinion.

    I think the more reviews overall, the more accurate the overall rating will be because people like that won’t skew it so much

  3. I’ve never used Yelp, but I always do searches for reviews on a sight I may purchase from before I do so. Also, know what you are looking for in furniture. If there is a particular furniture line you are looking for that is good, sometimes buying online can be deceiving and also some online stores although cheaper in price are very expensive when it comes to delivery. So you don’t really save. I usually try to buy from local stores. If you don’t mind taking a little drive, Rotmans in Worcester Mass is a great place to go, but bring your walking shoes!

  4. BBB does sell the rights to use their logo on a website. I know about that, I worked for them years ago. People get NICE commissions and even work out of their homes selling BBB logos.

    In any case, a BBB logo only means that the merchant is willing to work out complaints with the customers. You could have a business with 300 complaints and if they were all addressed by the merchant, BBB does not give them a bad rating. The customer may or may not be satisfied, but BBB’s rating only means the issue was addressed.

    Nothing like word of mouth for referrals. And just google the merchant’s name. If there are complaints, they will pop up.

  5. Geoff you have to pay to a member of BBB, so not everyone is there so you never know. I remember of few years ago ordering
    a cabinet from a catalog it came twice damaged and they did not
    even want it back I could not use it because it looked like someone dropped it..

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