Surpluscomputers.com

[greggen]

Bought something from this company a few months ago, so I am on the mailing list. Got an email from this company with offers, and noticed they are running a promotion.

"TWO FREE NEC 4x DVD-R Drives!

We're giving away 2 FREE NEC 4x DVD-R drives to 2 lucky customers!* To enter this contest please goto to http://www.resellerratings.com/survey.pl?seller_id=2391 and leave feedback regarding your experience with Surplus Computers. The more feedback you give us the better we may serve YOU! That said, if you are not pleased with your experience with Surplus Computers please leave feedback stating so we may improve. Drawing will At the end on the August 2 and we will contact the winner via email
*Feedback must be left by August 1, 2004"

I think that resellerratings should not allow companies to promote 'paid' reviews. Sure they say to put any feedback down, but if you were reviewing for a chance on a prize, what would give you a better chance in your opinion, a good review, or a bad review?

I do really like resellerratings.com and have used the impartial feedback, but if tatics like this is allowed to be used, I would not be able to trust the reviews posted here.

[Admin RR]

Merchants are allowed to solicit reviews from their customers as long as they do not specifically request positive reviews or state that the customer must post a positive review in order to qualify for the prize/contest. In this case, SurplusComputers specifically said that, "if you are not pleased with your experience with Surplus Computers please leave feedback stating so we may improve."

There is nothing unethical about offering people a contest entry in exchange for submitting feedback, and doing so does not degrade the quality of our reviews whatsoever, unless the merchant solicits and requires only "good" reviews, which as I said, we most definitely do not allow. When we find cases of that, we remove all reviews that were submitted in connection with the merchant's solicitation.