Odds & Ends & Auction Business Frank Ross on 26 May 2007 09:08 pm
eBay Top 1000 Reviewer NARU?
I was interested in researching Memory Foam as I see a lot of Memory Foam mattresses and mattress toppers for sale. But I was a bit confused as to how memory foam is measured for quality and what the “5#, 6#, etc” means.So I decided to check out eBay reviews. eBay lets sellers post reviews and somehow they get into the top 1000 of reviewers. I am not sure how that is tabulated but it must be pretty easy to get to be a Top 1000 reviewer!
Here is a review I found on eBay’s review system on Memory Foam (link here). It appears to be a fairly informative review although not all that well written. It did however, answer some basic questions for me about memory foam so I though I might check out this seller’s listings.
I thought it was odd that the listings shown along with the review were from other eBay sellers so I clicked his feedback. OOPS. Not a registered user — NARU baby. And NARU since about a year ago.
The last of his feedback looks like the seller disappeared or went under. Ok so this kind of raises an issue with eBay reviews. The obvious question here is should eBay have a Top 1000 reviewer that is NARU? In particular, should they have a Top 1000 reviewer that may have ripped people off?
There are some pretty nasty comments at the end of this sellers feedback record and that just doesn’t bode well for being a “Top 1000 Reviewer”. Granted the content of the review is probably still of value, but perhaps eBay should separate the content from the content provider when the content provider goes NARU.
Tags: eBay NARU, eBay Sellers, eBay Memory Foam, eBay Reviewers
on 18 Jun 2007 at 2:46 pm 1.Joshua said …
My guess is because of how new the reviewing system is eBay hasn’t decided to filter out reviews made by people that are NARU. However, you can become NARU for insanely silly reasons, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re reading the review of a scammer. Most people who become NARU work to get their account back in order. I don’t think it’d be right to necessarily delete the sellers reviews, especially if they’ve had a positive impact on the eBay community and we’re scored well by readers. I’m sure the reviews are monitored and deleted when appropriate. I spoke with my account manager and was informed eBay only deletes reviews for misuse of the system, and will not delete reviews just because an account has been suspended.
on 10 Jul 2007 at 4:31 pm 2.trevor Ginn said …
It is actually quite easy to become a top 1000 reviewer (in the UK at least) so people should not hold too much faith in the title. That said writing a review is probably too much effort for a fly by night scammer and so probably shows that they are OK.
As it is not possible to put external links in reviews/guides the possibility of fraud is fairly limited
on 27 Jul 2008 at 9:18 pm 3.Jason said …
Very Poor way of thinking the fact is a reviewer has his content their to help others if he is NARU it doesnt make a difference as it is a state the account is in and it doesnt mean the validitiy of the review is less or more when he is NARU
Small minded thinking in effect here