This issue of customers bashing a retailer following a pricing error has been going on for years - the reputations of several companies on ResellerRatings have been affected by angry customers upset about simple honest mistakes that were promptly corrected. In the past, our policy was to remove both written reviews and ratings relating to price errors. However, on 10/12/2004, this policy was revised such that written reviews will remain, but each review's accompanying rating will be disabled and will not affect the merchant's rating averages.

Without this policy, retailers are treated unfairly since too many people flock to our site to report the exact same thing, which inaccurately lowers a company's rating. The point of ResellerRatings is to show that a merchant has performed multiple instances of poor service, or good service, over time, not to punish a merchant for a single honest mistake that happened to affect thousands of "deal seekers". A track record of poor service or good service over time WILL be accurately reflected in a merchant's rating.

We can't pick and choose which ratings to remove, as that would put us in the role of an editor or moderator which we are not. Instead, we will remove a group of ratings under this umbrella policy, such that it is clear to our users as to which ratings are not allowed. Our policies are CLEARLY stated on our terms of use page and we created a policy to deal with this specific type of issue.

Our policy states that we will remove ratings, not written reviews, that relate to pricing errors that are corrected within 3 business days (see the Terms of Use). This isn't an arbitrary decision about whether or not a rating is retaliatory, libelous, etc. It is quite clear when a review is posted about a pricing error and we will remove positive ratings that relate to the pricing error as well as negative ratings.

We can also determine when a retailer is doing something repeatedly on purpose and when it is an honest mistake, just as we do our best to detect and prevent fraudulent ratings through dozens of manual and automated checks every day. Even if an errorneous price shows up in PriceWatch or another price site, it's not necessarily intentional since such systems are automated. If a merchant makes pricing errors repeatedly, we'll suspect fraud.

As always, we are committed to ensuring fairness for customers and retailers alike and continue to improve the site as a buyer-driven watchdog to make online buying a less frustrating experience for everyone.

The ResellerRatings Staff