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Comment by nebulous1 | Hacker News Reader

Although they should have let him write the review, I don't think people should leave reviews for damaged/broken items before they've tried to remedy the situation with the supplier.

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Why? When I receive a damaged product, this causes me substantial hassle (communicate with customer support, send item back, order replacement, ...). It seems very natural to write a review that reflects the poor quality of the product in this situation, and this review would be a useful signal to others.

My take is that damaged and broken items happen, particularly when items are new. I'm not saying that this information is irrelevant, but as a review of the product it isn't valid (as it's a review of a damaged product) and as a review of the supplier it isn't that helpful either (as I'm more interested in how the supplier responds to this situation: any supplier can send you what they have in stock, the true test is what happens when things go wrong). So, as per my original comment, I think you should seek remedy before reviewing, not after.

If a product is poorly packaged from the manufacturer or (more likely) poorly packaged by Amazon and that leads to a lot of people receiving a damaged product, then it is clearly beneficial to see that in the reviews before you purchase.

Or maybe the product just has poor QC, again, it should be allowed to show up in reviews.

If it's just a one-ff then it will be watered down by all of the other reviewers anyway

I haven't said otherwise. You haven't explained why you're writing a review before dealing with support rather than after.

Also, perhaps a higher percentage of people with bad experiences will write bad reviews than people with good experiences writing good reviews, so the watered down argument isn't perfect. I would have left out the word 'perhaps' but I don't actually have any hard evidence.

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