Star system is easy to manipulate – reccomendation for a flag system also

In understand your frustration, but you’re confusing what the review system is here for.

The review system is here for the free plugins in the official directory, nothing else, similar to how reviews for the Gmail app on the iOS App Store are about the Gmail iOS app and not Google’s business practices.

The plugin you’re referring to has several 5-star reviews because the free plugin works well as advertised for those reviews (we do constantly screen for fake reviews).

The reviews should not be considered a reflection on the paid services offered by the plugin’s developers.

If you would like to warn other potential buyers about a plugin developer’s paid services, we encourage you to use your blog.

The trouble is the issue relates to a commercial company. I know what your going to say ‘these forums aren’t for that purpose’ – yup I get that.

I’m glad to read that.

Here in lies the problem… the stars system in this instance is just not effective as the scam is not so much with the plug-in which by all accounts is a decent plug-in but it lies within the services that are up-sold within the plug-in. For example site optimisation for $150

And you were doing so well too.

See, that whole paragraph is just loaded with your experience and doesn’t remain objective at all. You do see that don’t you?

A system like this would be less open to abuse than the star/review system

It used to be easy to manipulate. Now it reflects the realities of the reviews and actual abuse of the reviews are deleted when found. That modifies the star ratings in a short while after that.

Taking a step back:

So the result of this is a high star rating which for someone like myself who is relatively new to WP believes that this plug-in and it’s author are very much legitimate. Also being new to WP and seeing a complex plug-in that promises to speed my site up with an optimisation service for $150 I think this is money well spent – until it turns out to be a scam.

Plugin and theme authors are permitted to upsell here and users are permitted to leave reviews that reflect that experience. Your one star review remains and will not be deleted.

But the reverse is also true. Users who have had a positive experience are permitted to leave reviews that reflect what they’ve encounter. That does not align with your experience but that’s not really a reason to create a new process or “flag as untrustworthy”. That’s your experience but the other reviews are valid too.

As I recommended, take this up with that company. Work with your credit card company if that’s an option. Sort this out away from these forums.

I am not going to close this topic yet, but if you do continue this topic please remain objective.

Thanks for taking the time to respond guys. Genuinely the reason for raising this point isn’t to try and get my money back, but to try and help others not fall victim of this.

I appreciate that this isn’t the main function of the forums. However, I couldn’t find anywhere else to make a recommendation – if there was a contact email to make suggestions away from the forum unfortunately I couldn’t find it.

If there is a better place for suggestions/feedback then I would be happy to use that instead.

Believe me I took my time in phrasing the post above to try and outline the issue (without actually name checking the product) and show respect for the forum. That said it is hard to outline an issue and subsequent recommendations without reference to my own experience.

However, it must be stressed this is not a one off situation. This is not an experience related solely to me. This is not about a vendetta, objectivity isn’t an issue. It is about trying to stop others new to WordPress to not make the same mistake I had.

In hindsight I wish I had looked through the negative comments relating to the paid for add-ons in which there are many similar such issues.

Unfortunately I looked at the 4.5 star rating overall and made the mistake of assuming this many good reviews equates a reliable plug-in and a legitimate vendor. As I mention above I am new to WordPress and I now see this was a naive approach.

I’ve tried to offer a suggestion to help stop others from making the same mistakes. As far as I can see that there is no where else to do this. So perhaps a second suggestion would be for somewhere for suggestions to be made away from the forum.

Anyway i’ve done my part, tried to raise awareness of an issue and made a polite recommendation as to one possible solution.

Just to add on a personal note though…

Jan,

There really is no need for the sarcastic undertone to your reply. It just makes you come across as arrogant, rather than someone who I would assume (as a voluntary moderator) is actually really passionate about the WP community.

Also your penultimate point just suggests you’ve not understood the reason for my post at all. I’m not here to try and get my money back, I have taken this up with the company (hence why I am prepared to call it a scam as there is no response on any channel).

The point of the post was to try and help prevent this from happening to others. Nothing more.

James was able to get his point across without the need to try and belittle someone who is just trying to help others. I suggest you take a leaf out of his book – or maybe I just caught you on a bad day?

The point of the post was to try and help prevent this from happening to others. Nothing more.

You’ve already made that post as a review of the plugin. It’s really not clear what the point of this thread is then.

A forum moderator had mentioned a couple of months ago that the www.ads-software.com forums are not the place to spread warnings of commercial services or products. It was quite simply put:

Per www.ads-software.com policy, these forums aren’t intended for any paid support – you should be using the developer’s dedicated support channel for that. Yes, that kind of situation is unfortunate, but using these forums to “spread the word” also isn’t the purpose.

– WPyogi

There isn’t really much else to discuss.

The www.ads-software.com forums are here to support WordPress, the core application, and themes and plugins that are distributed on www.ads-software.com.