5 ms·

11 people have the wrong idea; Call it the "Get Satisfaction" effect

38 points by brandnewlow 18y ago

mr_justin 18y ago
I don't know, people having been doing this sort of thing long before Get Satisfaction was around. The average web user is very lazy.
buugs 18y ago
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=better+business+bureau+chicago&fr=yfp-t-501-s&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8 http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=better+business+bureau+chic... If a search is so high up and allows people to post comments and the first comment someone sees is a complaint people will jump on the bandwagon thinking this is the proper place. Edit: The top result also has similar 'reviews'.
swombat 18y ago
Huh???
- patio11 18y ago
  The submitted page is a directory listing for the Chicago Better Business Bureau. The directory allows business reviews. 11 people have tagged the BBB itself as 1 star, with comments indicating that they have a variety of complaints against non-BBB businesses. The working assumption is that because this listing for the BBB was the first on a search engine when looking for "Chicago BBB" or something that people, without reading any of the page to correct their misconception, decided "Oh, this is where I go to file complaints WITH the BBB". (Note to non-Americans: the BBB is a semi-official semi-impartial semi-compliance-mandatory arbitrator between businesses and consumers, which many people know, in a vague way, will listen to any complaint you have about any business and try to resolve it for you.)
  - brandnewlow 18y ago
    Yes, exactly. The largest text on the screen says "Better Business Bureau." People are asked to leave reviews. They're assuming this is a place to file complaints that the BBB will follow up on. They are in error.
  - silencio 18y ago
    Minus "semi-official", minus "semi-impartial" (well, maybe that depends on the BBB in question), and minus "semi-compliance-mandatory". The BBB in no way is official or has the power to do anything (except maybe help you complain to the people who do have the power to make things happen without extortion). That's quite possibly the biggest misconception about the BBB ever. It's a lot simpler to first ask the business, then go to the city/state/federal licensing and consumer affairs departments and directly file a complaint. Maybe the information doesn't become public, but businesses also tend to Start Caring when it's their license(s) or permits at stake, and it's not like the BBB is even close to acceptable in this regard. I seem to be writing a lot about the BBB here (i.e. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=541244 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=541244), but someone has to spread the word.
    - mynameishere 18y ago
      If a company charges you incorrectly, the best way to complain is to call up mastercard/visa and let them do it for you. Never fails.
      - silencio 18y ago
        Well, I used to be super trigger happy about filing disputes, but not anymore. Most of the time when there's been a mistake the business has usually been open to fixing it. I deal with inventory for a small business and buy/sell a lot of stuff, and I've only disputed one charge this year - personal, to boot - because the business wouldn't get back to me about the issue. Anyway, if it's about the alarm company, we didn't pay them but they wouldn't stop sending us bills since obviously we stopped paying them after terminating the service on our end per the contract we had signed originally. This soon added up to a lot of money and threatening to send to collections, and I just got really super tired of the BS of not picking up their equipment and sending us those stupid bills. I sued them for what I thought was a logical amount of money in small claims court, then the owner stopped being a dick after I ended up having to get a sheriff to serve the papers to him, and then we had to meet in person in the court and he was AWFUL but the whole process was worth it to get him to finally go away.
      - 18y ago
pyr3 18y ago
I used to work for the a casino, and as any hotel operates, the prices fluctuate based on how full we are, if it's a holiday, etc. I would get A LOT of calls from people that would hit up the travel.yahoo.com page for our casino/hotel, see that the price was $145, and complain to me that I wasn't quoting them the price on 'your website'. I would explain over and over that travel.yahoo.com is NOT owned or operated by us, but these people would not listen. To be fair, casino patrons are not the brightest bunch... But why is it that people are so stupid sometimes? I mean, if I put up a website that says "Larry's Business" and post a photo of "Larry's Business" and make some sort of claim about the business, why in god's name do people think that it __must__ be official? How is this any different than my writing crap on a napkin in crayon and telling them that it's the 'real deal'. There were quite a few people that really needed to have a hammer go through the phone and knock them in the face.
- ableal 18y ago
  I recently came across http://notalwaysright.com/ http://notalwaysright.com/ You may have a story or three for them, just for therapeutic purposes. (Haven't the faintest idea if the site's stories are legit or ghostwritten - some do seem a stretch.)
Skeletor 18y ago
I actually see this as how users can creatively use a site for what they really want to use it for despite how it is designed. These people wanted to vent their complaints and have other people see them. Since they were complaining about really small businesses, few people would ever really see them unless they searched for that specific business (that is how the site is designed.) So by crowding all of their complaints on the BBB listing they can maximize how many people see their complaints. If Yahoo really cared about this product they could come up with some creative ways to get the user's entering their comments in the correct place by also providing an outlet for them to have their complaints be more visible. In a sense all of these random comments are complaints against the BBB because the BBB makes it so hard to complain online (or doesn't provide a better way to do it.)
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
dustmop 18y ago
Same idea: http://www.ok-cancel.com/archives/link/2004/09/google-answers-hci-phd-program.html http://www.ok-cancel.com/archives/link/2004/09/google-answer... Guy's blog, named "Ok/Cancel", has a story about Google, and thus comes up first for the search of "Cancel Google". He gets inundated with comments from people trying to "cancel" google.
- derefr 18y ago
  I really wish the guy would do something to help these people, instead of just letting them throw their complaints uselessly into the aether while thinking they're accomplishing something; perhaps redirect the page to http://www.google.com/contact/ http://www.google.com/contact/ (though, oddly, I don't see a single point of contact there for "general complaints"; they seem to suggest using their Help newsgroups.) http://getsatisfaction.com/google/ http://getsatisfaction.com/google/ might actually be your best shot at a clear, simple and direct response, which is sad given how good Google is at keeping most of their other services simple.
- shizcakes 18y ago
  This is particularly hilarious, and I recommend that people take a glance at this.
  - jamesbritt 18y ago
    I did not care for this comment, and will be posting my complaint on that site momentarily.
GHFigs 18y ago
Note well that there is no text on the page unambiguously indicating that this is something other than what these people think it is. It'd be easy to say that they are just stupid, but the page is a cluttered mess in the volume and variety of information it is trying to present and the number of actions it is inviting the user to do. It is a breeding ground for stupid.

38 points by brandnewlow 18y ago

I don't know, people having been doing this sort of thing long before Get Satisfaction was around. The average web user is very lazy.

buugs 18y ago

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=better+business+bureau+chicago&fr=yfp-t-501-s&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8 http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=better+business+bureau+chic... If a search is so high up and allows people to post comments and the first comment someone sees is a complaint people will jump on the bandwagon thinking this is the proper place. Edit: The top result also has similar 'reviews'.

swombat 18y ago

Huh???

patio11 18y ago
The submitted page is a directory listing for the Chicago Better Business Bureau. The directory allows business reviews. 11 people have tagged the BBB itself as 1 star, with comments indicating that they have a variety of complaints against non-BBB businesses. The working assumption is that because this listing for the BBB was the first on a search engine when looking for "Chicago BBB" or something that people, without reading any of the page to correct their misconception, decided "Oh, this is where I go to file complaints WITH the BBB". (Note to non-Americans: the BBB is a semi-official semi-impartial semi-compliance-mandatory arbitrator between businesses and consumers, which many people know, in a vague way, will listen to any complaint you have about any business and try to resolve it for you.)
- brandnewlow 18y ago
  Yes, exactly. The largest text on the screen says "Better Business Bureau." People are asked to leave reviews. They're assuming this is a place to file complaints that the BBB will follow up on. They are in error.
- silencio 18y ago
  Minus "semi-official", minus "semi-impartial" (well, maybe that depends on the BBB in question), and minus "semi-compliance-mandatory". The BBB in no way is official or has the power to do anything (except maybe help you complain to the people who do have the power to make things happen without extortion). That's quite possibly the biggest misconception about the BBB ever. It's a lot simpler to first ask the business, then go to the city/state/federal licensing and consumer affairs departments and directly file a complaint. Maybe the information doesn't become public, but businesses also tend to Start Caring when it's their license(s) or permits at stake, and it's not like the BBB is even close to acceptable in this regard. I seem to be writing a lot about the BBB here (i.e. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=541244 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=541244), but someone has to spread the word.
  - mynameishere 18y ago
    If a company charges you incorrectly, the best way to complain is to call up mastercard/visa and let them do it for you. Never fails.
    - silencio 18y ago
      Well, I used to be super trigger happy about filing disputes, but not anymore. Most of the time when there's been a mistake the business has usually been open to fixing it. I deal with inventory for a small business and buy/sell a lot of stuff, and I've only disputed one charge this year - personal, to boot - because the business wouldn't get back to me about the issue. Anyway, if it's about the alarm company, we didn't pay them but they wouldn't stop sending us bills since obviously we stopped paying them after terminating the service on our end per the contract we had signed originally. This soon added up to a lot of money and threatening to send to collections, and I just got really super tired of the BS of not picking up their equipment and sending us those stupid bills. I sued them for what I thought was a logical amount of money in small claims court, then the owner stopped being a dick after I ended up having to get a sheriff to serve the papers to him, and then we had to meet in person in the court and he was AWFUL but the whole process was worth it to get him to finally go away.
    - 18y ago

pyr3 18y ago

I used to work for the a casino, and as any hotel operates, the prices fluctuate based on how full we are, if it's a holiday, etc. I would get A LOT of calls from people that would hit up the travel.yahoo.com page for our casino/hotel, see that the price was $145, and complain to me that I wasn't quoting them the price on 'your website'. I would explain over and over that travel.yahoo.com is NOT owned or operated by us, but these people would not listen. To be fair, casino patrons are not the brightest bunch... But why is it that people are so stupid sometimes? I mean, if I put up a website that says "Larry's Business" and post a photo of "Larry's Business" and make some sort of claim about the business, why in god's name do people think that it __must__ be official? How is this any different than my writing crap on a napkin in crayon and telling them that it's the 'real deal'. There were quite a few people that really needed to have a hammer go through the phone and knock them in the face.

ableal 18y ago
I recently came across http://notalwaysright.com/ http://notalwaysright.com/ You may have a story or three for them, just for therapeutic purposes. (Haven't the faintest idea if the site's stories are legit or ghostwritten - some do seem a stretch.)

Skeletor 18y ago

I actually see this as how users can creatively use a site for what they really want to use it for despite how it is designed. These people wanted to vent their complaints and have other people see them. Since they were complaining about really small businesses, few people would ever really see them unless they searched for that specific business (that is how the site is designed.) So by crowding all of their complaints on the BBB listing they can maximize how many people see their complaints. If Yahoo really cared about this product they could come up with some creative ways to get the user's entering their comments in the correct place by also providing an outlet for them to have their complaints be more visible. In a sense all of these random comments are complaints against the BBB because the BBB makes it so hard to complain online (or doesn't provide a better way to do it.)

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

dustmop 18y ago

Same idea: http://www.ok-cancel.com/archives/link/2004/09/google-answers-hci-phd-program.html http://www.ok-cancel.com/archives/link/2004/09/google-answer... Guy's blog, named "Ok/Cancel", has a story about Google, and thus comes up first for the search of "Cancel Google". He gets inundated with comments from people trying to "cancel" google.

derefr 18y ago
I really wish the guy would do something to help these people, instead of just letting them throw their complaints uselessly into the aether while thinking they're accomplishing something; perhaps redirect the page to http://www.google.com/contact/ http://www.google.com/contact/ (though, oddly, I don't see a single point of contact there for "general complaints"; they seem to suggest using their Help newsgroups.) http://getsatisfaction.com/google/ http://getsatisfaction.com/google/ might actually be your best shot at a clear, simple and direct response, which is sad given how good Google is at keeping most of their other services simple.
shizcakes 18y ago
This is particularly hilarious, and I recommend that people take a glance at this.
- jamesbritt 18y ago
  I did not care for this comment, and will be posting my complaint on that site momentarily.

GHFigs 18y ago

Note well that there is no text on the page unambiguously indicating that this is something other than what these people think it is. It'd be easy to say that they are just stupid, but the page is a cluttered mess in the volume and variety of information it is trying to present and the number of actions it is inviting the user to do. It is a breeding ground for stupid.