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Unhappy with ISP Review.

I had an email from Xilo my ISP, stating that if we were happy with their service we "could" submit an review on ISP Review's website.

I have been very impressed with Xilo's service and therefore did not mind taking the time, not only to write the review but also register on this site. I have since learnt that after writing and submitting the review, due to 3 reviews being added in one day (of a similar IP address range - Xilo customers! Doh!), they have taken upon themselves to remove these and ban me as a user from their website. I now get a message:

You have been banned for the following reason:
review abuse
Date the ban will be lifted: Never

So that's two other people who have registered and placed a review of Xilo (I can only assume as they are impressed - they rated highly in the short time i saw the reviews on there) all for nothing.

I questioned it with Xilo and Xilo informed me that ISP Review admin advised them "Three reviews with a similar clean writing style, from the same login IP range and on the same day is something we would act on. Sorry but this is the same policy we have with all providers, anything suspicious is removed, we show no bias."

But this removal was done without any prior investigative work by them or questions asked, this has not only left Xilo annoyed, but I am completely frustrated by their actions. I wonder if the reviews were not good and gave bad ratings whether they would of bother acting on them?!

I know when I joined up with Xilo there was not many reviews about them, that is why I felt strongly about promoting the good service they provide to enlighten others.

I have emailed them and as yet, are still awaiting a response...

I have had to re-register as my old account is now null and void as the admin have "assumed" that I am not independent.

Just feel let down, by people that obviously have just blanketed me as being affiliated with Xilo when I am completely independent and the only connection to them is they are my ISP!

Regards



Ben Bird

ps you can see my activity on thinkbroadband to confirm my independence.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/general/t/3701635-isp-review-a-shambles.html?Search=true&Forum=All_Forums&Words=benbird7&Match=Username&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=3701635
 
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I am sorry to hear about the problem Ben, but please look at it from the admin's side. There were several incidents with small ISP's posting glowing reviews of their own service in years gone by, so when this current issue popped up I doubt if any doubt as to guilt was considered.

To be honest I would have done the same, the chances of 3 glowing reviews from near adjacent IP's and in such a short period of time is very, very, VERY remote.

I spotted a string of bogus review posts myself, less than 2 years ago, and they exactly matched the situation here, near identical posts, from a small ip range all praising the same, small ISP and all posted within a short time frame.
 
People connected to ISPs have tried to spam the forums and reviews in the past and so mods have to police them. Nobody's perfect but it's a dirty job that has to be done. :hrmph:

EDIT: Captain beat me to it ...
 
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Hi Ben,

Sorry you feel that way but we make no apology for being strict on anything that looks like review abuse, whether it be people/ISPs trying to rate their competition down or others trying to push up the rating of their own provider. Unlike other sites we will target and tackle anything suspicious because that is what our members and some honest ISPs (yes, they exist) have in the past asked us to do.

Seeing an influx of reviews from a newly added small ISP with only a single segment of IP range difference (in this case they were all different by this much: 95.172.224.XX), which were all magically 10/10, had a similar writing style and occurred on the same day within a short space of time is something we do target. As others have said, it is very very very rare that occurs and is usually connected to abuse.

We've had a lot of ISPs in the past, such as E7even being one of the biggest examples, who did exactly the same sort of thing. Eventually, after the usual batch of excuses, they did admit to it and promised to stop. Of course it happened again, they just used the controls they had over their ISP to re-register multiple fake accounts.. eventually we were forced to remove them.

We are somewhat stuck between a rock and a hard place because no exceptions are made, all ISPs must have the same principal applied, otherwise it is not fair. Admittedly if XILOs limited batch of IPs falls foul then there is not much we can do, it is rare for this to be the case and I doubt other ISPs on here would like to see us make any exceptions, otherwise that would open the way to wider abuse.

Naturally we will never get everything and I’m sure that sometimes legitimate reviews are caught too, but that is the nature of the beast, so to speak. It may be worth mentioning that, when given a choice of between 1 and 10 in ratings, most real humans tend not to vote for perfection and have variable writing styles.

In addition XILO chose to promote the service via a private mailing list to customers, which is against rule 9 and we ask ISPs not to do this as it can and has been abused in the past (e.g. customers deemed to be getting a good service are sent the email but not everybody). Typically this is almost impossible to police but we just ask ISPs to be honest and to do it in public via a link on their website or similar - not hidden away.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/rules.shtml

We do all this because some years back our readers requested it and other methods are also employed, but we don’t speak about those as it would tell ISPs how to avoid them :) . Consider that on some sites, where they are not so strict, then some big ISPs like Tiscali and AOL can magically get 5 stars out of 5, despite appalling service records.

Still, it's always nice to read an ISPreview hate thread on other sites :) .
 
It appears that other individuals have been subject to the heavy hand of the moderators on this site link.

I for one won't be visiting this website very often, due to the intense and harsh feel I have already been subject to, being scrutinised by the top heavy admin, without any prior investigation as to the individuals concerned, perhaps a PM to them may of clarified the situation?

I do hope that individuals looking for an ISP can take my comments on re my current ISP, as they have been great, hence the reason for taking the time to register (twice now!) and submit my review...

Oh and by the way admin - another person here that took the time to submit a review, that you so swiftly removedhere who submitted the other "independent" review.

Still, it's always nice to read an ISPreview hate thread on other sites :) .

It wasn't a hate thread the title itself leads toward a users own interpretation as to whether they felt that this site was a Shambles based on the removal of valid reviews, judging by the replies, it has highlighted concerns in other areas too.
 
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Hi Benbird!

Welcome to ISPreview.


I can quite understand why you feel aggrieved at your review being removed, but I'm sure that you will find that this site is NOT "intense and harsh"; you may just have been extremely unlucky this time. It is logical too, that moderators will keep a close eye on "new" members, at least until they have contributed to ISPreview for a while and earned some trust; they must have a difficult & thankless task at times.

I must say too, that I would trust the reviews & "Top 10" on ISPreview, far more than on any other similar site on the internet. The moderators displaying a no-nonsense approach must go quite some way in stopping "chart fixing"; though, if they had the time to do so, I would have hoped that they had contacted you by email to better judge your honesty; before deleting/not deleting your post.

I think that you might do best to put this matter down to experience and put it behind you; there is no way that I know of, that you can prove your innocence. I hope you remain around as there are a lot of great contributors on this site; I know that Chrislane's comment about you is not typical of him and that other members would have been aghast at his comment; perhaps he forgot to take his pills :laugh:.
 
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