Saturday, June 27, 2015

Abusing and Misinterpreting Amazon Reviews: The Case Against Chummie, Dry-Knight and Lil' Jumble.

We seem to be spending much of our time expressing our displeasure with Amazon's review system, and how it is being exploited by unscrupulous sellers. We should point out that the major violator of Amazon's policies was Chummie, who went well outside any bounds of acceptable ethical and legal boundaries and Amazon's seller policies in order to exploit the weaknesses in the review system and fraudulently vault his product(s) into the Amazon reviews firmament - first by the insertion of very many fake reviews, both in favor of Chummie's products and against competitors products on Amazon, and later by exploiting Amazon's very weak Vine reviews and other Amazon-blessed reviews donated to the seller by grateful "reviewers" receiving free products. This latter matter of getting many gratuitous reviews has been noticed by at least two relatively new sellers with a product of doubtful value, who's Amazon reviews are absurdly puffed up by these "freebie" reviews. These sellers, selling the "Dry-Knight" and "Lil' Jumbl" bedwetting alarms would fall flat without these purchased props. Further details for our excluding such freebie reviews from any positive consideration can be found in our previous blog entry: Fallacies on Amazon Reviews - Hyping by Dry-Knight and Lil' Jumbl. 
Looking at the brief summary presented in that blog entry, if these freebie reviews were excluded, Lil' Jumble would have NO credible reviews as of this date, while Dry-Knight would drop to below average (2.9).


The situation is made substantially worse for both of the sellers of these and identical products pushed by the same manufacturer in various names in the U.S. by the fact that no seller or the manufacturer has bothered to register this alarm with the FDA. By FDA regulations, these products cannot be shipped from a U.S. source without being registered. Consequently, the current sale of these products from U.S. sources, including Amazon, is illegal, and buyers are essentially helping the sellers to flaunt U.S. laws.


We are therefore presenting readers with much more in the way of hard facts and evidence as to why they should NOT be wasting their money on these poor products, both over-hyped and over-priced, when there are much better alternatives available. This is a very exhaustive and detailed features and prices comparison of what, in the light of significant experience, we consider to be poor features and values compared to good features and values. We have made quick scanning of this table easier by marking in 
Green the GOOD features and values, 
Red for POOR or BAD features and values, and  
Black for NEUTRAL matters.
This color coding will allow you to focus on overall effectiveness and also examine in detail each of the alarms and what they have to offer.
The over-hyping and over-pricing of the first three product in the above table should be very apparent. We have intentionally included three of the best wireless bedwetting alarms (in our opinion) as it is very apparent that wireless offers MUCH greater value and convenience compared to the value of the three wired alarms that we think poorly of. Unless a buyer is very financially constrained and can only afford an inexpensive wired alarm, we see no rational reason for purchasing old-fashioned wired alarms for $70 to $120 when a very good wireless alarm with substantially better properties and abilities is available for less than $90.

Our appeal to readers is very straight forward:
Examine the factual details of each product and its price, and not succumb to being overcome by the fiction that you read in the Amazon reviews. Let your objectivity not suffer from the reviews purchased by sellers on Amazon. The "herd" mentality, which Amazon's reviews try to accentuate, together with their abuse by some sellers, is often not the best direction to follow. 
We also urge you to be respectful of U.S. laws and regulations, and not purchase illegal products because sellers simply do not care about observing laws by properly registering their product(s) with the FDA. Also consider how poor the financial viability of the manufacturer and sellers of such products must be, if they cannot afford to pay the FDA fees to register their product. This may well be a genuine case of "Buyer Beware."