[Update] MSI paying reviewers to remove their bad reviews of their products

[GoodBytes]

Planning in purchasing an MSI product? Perhaps its time to reconsider.

 

A small'ish reviewer on YouTube, TechTeamGB, pointed flaws on a review sample from an MSI laptop. Before publishing it, just to be sure that he didn't get a laptop that faced the manufacture error bad luck syndrome, wanted to confirm with MSI about the issues he faced with the laptop before publishing his review. Instead of replying to the criticism or sending a different unit if it was indeed faulty. They took a long time to reply... and their reply was along the line of: Here is some money, if you don't post your review. Let's just keep this between us!.

 

The reviewers who has integrity, has refused MSI "offer" and decide to post it anyway. MSI came back with a reply asking him to change the review title. They didn't like the fact that the word "disappointing" was used, threatening him of no longer having review sample nor future sponsorship if he doesn't change the title. He decline again. The reviewer believes that the fact that the laptop that he got had, in his opinion, featured a poor display, ad thermals and "track pad felt like it was broken", believes that indeed it is disappointing.

 

Refusing to do so, MSI requested AMD help (the laptop featured an AMD CPU) to take down his video. However, AMD took the reviewer side instead, as there is nothing wrong with the Youtuber, but there is with the laptop.

 

MSI has yet to reply.

 

On Twitter TechTeamGB says:

Quote

I don't normally name and shame companies and their less-than-idea behaviours, but this is going too far. 

On Monday I posted a review of an MSI laptop, which had a number of flaws. The display was poor, thermals were terrible and the track pad felt like it was broken.

Prior to posting the review, I contacted MSI to see if they could confirm my findings. I held the review for weeks waiting for them to test a unit, but they didn't. Instead they offered to pay me to not post the review and tried to persuade me ("only you and me know you have it")

I declined and posted it anyway. I had a call earlier today in which they asked me to remove to word "disappointing" from the title, again I declined. I was then threatened with no more review samples or sponsorships if I didn't comply.

What a disgrace to this industry, that instead of understanding the flaws in their product, and working to fix them, they try and suppress valid critisim from independant media. And try and leverage other companies to do the same.
 

I'm no @HardwareUnboxed or @GamersNexus, I'm a single guy making youtube videos from his house. I can't fight MSI, especially if they aren't above trying to ruin my name with other companies.

 

Linus actually replied to his story on Twitter with:

Quote

Me counting all the reasons this is not okay.

Ur followed and our dm inbox is open if you need any help wtih this.

This doesn't match our experiences working with MSI, but I've always believed that the true measure of character is how someone treats the small guy.... - LS

 

I am following the news and share any details that comes out

 

Source / Story:

 

 

Personally, I now have MSI on my blacklist of product to ever purchase, next to Creative Labs, Kingston and others.

I was considering their MSI ITX motherboard for my new built, now I prefer to spending more and get someone else.

 

Update:

GamerNexus releases talking about this, including their own experience with MSI

This has been ongoing for a while now with MSI.

 

 

[BobVonBob]

And now I want to know what's going on behind the scenes here. How long has this been going on? Is it widespread, or is it one guy on the marketing team that doesn't care about the morality of this? No matter how this goes down, not a good look.

[SabianSVK]

Gonna wait for how this turns out .. Hopefully LTT will make a coverage of this.
I am not gonna try and convince anyone that big companies don´t do shady stuff, cos they definitely do ... but I´d preferably want to know the full story, if it´s just some guy in PR/Marketing or half the company, if it´s first time or a casual thing for them, and so on ...

Either way, this will be interesting.

[Guest]

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

I have the feeling a lot of smaller guys are going to start speaking out.

Stories like this don't stay silent for long once the ice is broken.

[Sorenson]

6 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

And now I want to know what's going on behind the scenes here. How long has this been going on? Is it widespread, or is it one guy on the marketing team that doesn't care about the morality of this? No matter how this goes down, not a good look.

This is the internet, due process isn’t allowed. 

[WereCatf]

4 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

Is it widespread, or is it one guy on the marketing team that doesn't care about the morality of this?

If it was widespread, I'd think we'd have heard of this far sooner and from far more sources. I, personally, am inclined to think this is some person or a couple of people in the marketing-/PR-team. Wouldn't be the first time an over-eager marketing-/PR-person does this.

 

Still, I hope we'll hear some more.

[soldier_ph]

Good guy LTT helping out the small guys, that's how the Community is staying together 

[Techstorm970]

They're lucky he's nice.  I would've promised, taken the money, waited a bit, then exposed this bullshit and posted the review anyway.

Just now, WereCatf said:

If it was widespread, I'd think we'd have heard of this far sooner and from far more sources. I, personally, am inclined to think this is some person or a couple of people in the marketing-/PR-team. Wouldn't be the first time an over-eager marketing-/PR-person does this.

 

Still, I hope we'll hear some more.

Somebody there is trying too hard to work up the ladder.

[BobVonBob]

1 minute ago, Den-Fi said:

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

I have the feeling a lot of smaller guys are going to start speaking out.

Stories like this don't stay silent for long once the ice is broken.

I'm not sure we'll see anyone else speak out. Anyone who had this happen to them and stayed quiet up until now risks their reputation by saying anything now. Either they took the bribe, ruining their perceived integrity, or they didn't take the bribe but also didn't expose shady business practices like this in the first place, once again ruining their perceived integrity.

[Guest]

Just now, BobVonBob said:

I'm not sure we'll see anyone else speak out. Anyone who had this happen to them and stayed quiet up until now risks their reputation by saying anything now. Either they took the bribe, ruining their perceived integrity, or they didn't take the bribe but also didn't expose shady business practices like this in the first place, once again ruining their perceived integrity.

Of course I don't mean those who are already tainted.

You can't unspend that money. I mean smaller channels who were bullied into silence and those who are bound to be in the future.

[StDragon]

I wonder if this is a rookie sales guy at MSI. Someone is about to get thrown under the bus and lose their job.

[emosun]

I'm sorry but msi was blacklisted for me in 2006..... why was it ever whitelisted for anyone else?

Is Diablotek gonna all the sudden become whitelisted? Is Dynex a good manufacturer now?

I hate how people forget things , it's beyond annoying. Asrock is still on my shit list. Will never forgive them for the absolutely terrible motherboard I bought from them in 07

[19_blackie_73]

31 minutes ago, emosun said:

I'm sorry but msi was blacklisted for me in 2006..... why was it ever whitelisted for anyone else?

Is Diablotek gonna all the sudden become whitelisted? Is Dynex a good manufacturer now?

I hate how people forget things , it's beyond annoying. Asrock is still on my shit list. Will never forgive them for the absolutely terrible motherboard I bought from them in 07

I am personally not a fan of blacklisting complete companies. I once hat a shit laptop from dell in the 2010s, but that doesnt mean I'm not more than happy with my 2 dell monitors. Look at the products you are looking to buy, not what they had 10 or 20 years ago that was shitty. Also don't buy products blind from one company because you had one good product, evaluate each on their own.

Support can change over years too, its not set in stone only because the support was shit in 1999 it still is today or the other way round.

I personally wouldn't know what I would want any different than my msi board and gpu, both run very good and fulfill my needs.

[Techstorm970]

27 minutes ago, emosun said:

I'm sorry but msi was blacklisted for me in 2006..... why was it ever whitelisted for anyone else?

Is Diablotek gonna all the sudden become whitelisted? Is Dynex a good manufacturer now?

I hate how people forget things , it's beyond annoying. Asrock is still on my shit list. Will never forgive them for the absolutely terrible motherboard I bought from them in 07

Sounds to me like you hold grudges for too long.  A lot can happen in 15 years.

 

Today's Apple does not look the same as Steve Jobs' Apple from, like, 2010.  Similarly, HP built much more reliable computers in 2010 than they do now.

 

From what I've heard from others, ASRock has turned a corner.  They're a noticeably better brand than they were just 5 years ago.

[emosun]

1 minute ago, 19_blackie_73 said:

 

yeah well i like products that actually function so I think i'll stick with blacklisting bad companies

[Duskie]

They've been doing shady garbage like this for a long time, especially regarding laptops. Take a read here if you're interested in similar debacles: https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/dont-buy-msi-they-mis-sold-top-spec-gt-series-laptops-with-mxm-graphics.18746748/

 

TL;DR MSI lied about upgradability of their laptops, removed their UK social medias, hid evidence & charged customers different prices for the same 'exchange'.

[emosun]

5 minutes ago, Techstorm970 said:

Sounds to me like you hold grudges for too long.  A lot can happen in 15 years.

 

Today's Apple does not look the same as Steve Jobs' Apple from, like, 2010.  Similarly, HP built much more reliable computers in 2010 than they do now.

 

From what I've heard from others, ASRock has turned a corner.  They're a noticeably better brand than they were just 5 years ago.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me

How oh how...... will i ever find somebody else that makes motherboards...... if only there was some other company that wasn't asrock that made motherboards.

[Trik'Stari]

How in the actual fuck do companies think that this shit won't get called out almost immediately?

 

Has NO ONE learned the gospel of Gabe Newell?!

 

'Don't ever, ever try to lie to the internet - because they will catch you. They will de-construct your spin. They will remember everything you ever say for eternity.' - GabeN

 

Seriously, how does any marketing person not get this yet? You really think some random person is going to take your minor bribe over the absurd amount of attention they can get from calling you out for it?! The amount of value this guy just received in calling out your bullshit outweighs almost anything you would be allowed to pay him off with.

 

And in return, the damage you have done to your own brand is completely absurd. I know now that I will NEVER buy an MSI product, out of sheer principle alone.

 

(nevermind the horrible edgy 10th grader branding of black/red+OMGDRAGON)

 

1 hour ago, SabianSVK said:

Gonna wait for how this turns out .. Hopefully LTT will make a coverage of this.
I am not gonna try and convince anyone that big companies don´t do shady stuff, cos they definitely do ... but I´d preferably want to know the full story, if it´s just some guy in PR/Marketing or half the company, if it´s first time or a casual thing for them, and so on ...

Either way, this will be interesting.

Given his history, I'd bet actual money (if I had any to spend currently) that @LinusTech covers this in some way.

 

I'm fairly certain that he has covered this type of behavior in the past, and said something along the lines of "do you really think you can offer me enough to willingly damage the single biggest value my company has, that being the trust between my audience and myself?!" or something along those lines.

[FeIIex]

Welp, time to swap out the tomahawk board in my build list, oof.

[mr moose]

I've never trusted reviews for this reason.  I have no reason to trust reviewers or the internet unless I have built up a communicative relationship with users on a forum over several years (like this one).  

[themoose5]

I'm very curious to see how this ends up playing out for MSI. 

 

My money's on this is a rouge-ish PR person. I say rouge-ish because almost certainly this person didn't act on their own but as a result of internal pressure or mandates from MSI's higher ups. The internal mandate probably didn't directly say "Pay off reviewers for positive reviews" but I'm sure there is a policy that would reward this kind of behavior by the PR person.

 

Either way extremely suspect when this kind of behavior starts coming out of any company.  

[Kisai]

4 hours ago, BobVonBob said:

And now I want to know what's going on behind the scenes here. How long has this been going on? Is it widespread, or is it one guy on the marketing team that doesn't care about the morality of this? No matter how this goes down, not a good look.

This has been going on with Chinese vendors for as long as there was incentive to cheat reviews. It's not just MSI, it's everything.

 

Go look up on youtube how various companies cheat amazon.com's reviews by having the reviewer buy the product themselves and offering to pay them the cost of the reviewed item if they leave a good review. You simply can not trust reviews, even from "customers" who bought the product, because they may have been paid off after the fact.

 

More to the point on eBay this has been going on for at least 20 years with feedback farming. Everytime you read "please contact us before you leave feedback" means that is a shady seller who has been selling garbage and doesn't want you to plow their feedback score into the ground. Because it only takes selling two bad products on eBay to get banned.

[divito]

No reviews can ever be truly trusted, whether reviewer or "actual customer." 

Like others, this strikes me more as a lone person taking their control of PR too far. It'll be interesting to see MSI's official response, and whether LTT and other tech reviewers have anything to add or say on the matter.

As has been formerly outlined, others who come out of the shadows to pile on MSI will probably have their credibility tarnished, as we can never truly know if they took the pay offs.

[Astroflash]

6 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

-snip-

What's Kingston done?

[Arika]

37 minutes ago, divito said:

Like others, this strikes me more as a lone person taking their control of PR too far. 

 

5 hours ago, WereCatf said:

If it was widespread, I'd think we'd have heard of this far sooner and from far more sources. I, personally, am inclined to think this is some person or a couple of people in the marketing-/PR-team. Wouldn't be the first time an over-eager marketing-/PR-person does this.

 

Or it never happened and this reviewer is trying to get more exposure. Where's the emails? I have started refusing to believe anything any such claims that pop up on social media until there is proof.