Dear LPG,

I have just been to see my grandmother who showed me an article that featured on your site on June 25^th last year(►►►)  and I wanted to tell you a story which I hope will help you to understand just how important those ratings are to the people who sell things on line.

The reason that the whole thing came up in conversation is because I am one of those young people (well not that young actually - 29) who walk around central London with my earphones on so that I can call people like my Nan during my lunch hour while walking down the road to find something for lunch.   She has the best ideas, but I digress.

We were actually talking when my earphones suddenly snapped so I decided on a new pair and they came the next day as I expected.  I had only had the original ones a few weeks so I sent an email, via Amazon, to the people I bought them from and the sellers told me that they would replace the item, which they did. 

I found myself doing my dinnertime dash to the shops and on the phone with her again while I tried the new ones out for the first time and I have to say they were really not up to standard; a fact that I included when I was asked to write a review of the product via email. 

A day or so later I got a telephone call from the company that I bought them from where I was asked if I would consider changing my review to a more favourable one.  I told them that I was not really happy with either of the items they had sent me and they offered me a free gift for all the inconvenience that I had been caused if I would reconsider.  I have to say that it felt more like an incentive to get me to up my rating if I am honest.

The incident left me with a dilemma because I found the offer of an added gift tempting but on balance I felt that I had told the truth about what I thought of their service and the standard of the headphones, so I decided that I would be misleading any potential shoppers and stuck to my original thoughts. 

I have written this down because I think that my story gives a very strong illustration of just how important those reviews are to online venders.  So there are two considerations here. 

It is really obvious that people do check the reviews before buying things online, and the online sellers really value their customers’ opinions!

OS, Woolwich