The title is somewhat misleading; the real reason for exclusion would be his reaction.
Here’s the situation:
A tradesperson offered me a service on MyHammer. He is new to the platform (or using a new account) and has zero reviews. So, I searched for his company on Google to check the reviews.
The reviews paint a very confusing picture. There are some very old reviews, all very negative (1 star). To me, these do not seem genuine. Almost all come from reviewers who only ever wrote that one review about this company and nothing else. I suspect these are either competitors’ work or other fake reviews. Following those, there is a whole batch of positive fake reviews. The company has over 40 reviews, and based on a quick sample, I would estimate over 90% are fake. This is clear especially because nearly all 5-star reviews are from “people” who a) find everything and everyone on Google absolutely great, and b) coincidentally all the people who rave about this tradesperson also rate the same ice cream shop in xyz and the erotic massage studio in Hannover as amazing. This is the classic pattern of a Google profile polished by some marketing company.
I confronted the tradesperson about the Google reviews.
His response was simply, “Like fake news, I know nothing about it.”
Somehow, my gut feeling now tells me it’s probably better not to hire him. If he reacts defensively to a simple question about his Google profile, I don’t know how easy it will be to deal with him if there are any issues with his work.
Besides, I don’t believe his answer is honest. People usually don’t write fake positive reviews for free. Companies generally pay for that, so I’m quite sure he knows about it.
Am I being too picky, or does this seem reasonable?
Here’s the situation:
A tradesperson offered me a service on MyHammer. He is new to the platform (or using a new account) and has zero reviews. So, I searched for his company on Google to check the reviews.
The reviews paint a very confusing picture. There are some very old reviews, all very negative (1 star). To me, these do not seem genuine. Almost all come from reviewers who only ever wrote that one review about this company and nothing else. I suspect these are either competitors’ work or other fake reviews. Following those, there is a whole batch of positive fake reviews. The company has over 40 reviews, and based on a quick sample, I would estimate over 90% are fake. This is clear especially because nearly all 5-star reviews are from “people” who a) find everything and everyone on Google absolutely great, and b) coincidentally all the people who rave about this tradesperson also rate the same ice cream shop in xyz and the erotic massage studio in Hannover as amazing. This is the classic pattern of a Google profile polished by some marketing company.
I confronted the tradesperson about the Google reviews.
His response was simply, “Like fake news, I know nothing about it.”
Somehow, my gut feeling now tells me it’s probably better not to hire him. If he reacts defensively to a simple question about his Google profile, I don’t know how easy it will be to deal with him if there are any issues with his work.
Besides, I don’t believe his answer is honest. People usually don’t write fake positive reviews for free. Companies generally pay for that, so I’m quite sure he knows about it.
Am I being too picky, or does this seem reasonable?
Joedreck schrieb:
Who actually claims that hardware stores always offer lower quality?
It depends on the product. And it doesn’t matter where the installer buys the materials. If they don’t want to install supplied materials, that’s their choice. Someone said earlier that specialized companies always provide better quality.
I don’t believe that either. What I do believe is that hardware stores are usually unnecessarily expensive.
Joedreck schrieb:
And it doesn’t matter where the installer buys the materials. If they don’t want to install supplied materials, that’s their choice.In principle, I wouldn’t mind buying everything from one source, but usually they only have a limited selection, or am I mistaken? If I want a combination of wood panels and a washbasin because I like that style, I don’t know where the plumbing company would source these wood panels from, what they look like, or how good the quality is. I prefer to choose the appearance myself.