Silly question about the Gmatclub reviews on prep courses

Question

Gmatclub has an awesome page for reviews on prep courses. Here is an example https://gmatclub.com/reviews/veritas-prep-4 It is written and explained that the reviews are verified and i trust that. However, i find it strange that : 1) A big majority of the comment are made by "anonymous". What is the big deal to show your username? Why 80% of the people saying positive comment would want to hide their username? 2) A big majority of the comments with visible username has exactly 0 posts, 0 kudos given/received on Gmatclub :shock:

. Is it not strange that someone would create an account on the website only to post a review? even if they would have created it to use the Gmatclub tests center (free with the courses). Is it not strange that they would have no other activity on the whole website? To put it simply ; i found it hard to see reviews of members of the forum with more than 1 or 2 posts/kudos) If someone has the answer : thank you :wink:

pirimidin1 · Answer

You should take all the sharings with a grain of salt.

I am working in Marketing and I usually need to use a technique called "forum seeding" in which someone is hired to write the comments that are positive for the products. I know it's not really ethical but it's popular in marketing. I trust only posters with more than 20 comments and with a long history of joining Gmatclub.

JoshKoscheck · Answer

I actually went through the same analysis as you in looking for a good review course. I typically looked for users that has a posting history before taking their review seriously.

oss198 · Answer

Thanks guys, so i am the only one doubting the veracity of these reviews. it seems incredible that there is no reasonable explanation... i created the topic in the "General GMAT Questions and Strategies" part. Maybe i will have more chances to have an answer there.

ankurgupta03 · Answer

Hey,

IMO, there are some offers going on if you write the gmat reviews.\
For Ex this.
https://gmatclub.com/reviews/magoosh-345345496

So, people come, create profile and just write the reviews. The registered users give their reviews in the debriefs. Just my personal thoughts.I do not have any data to back my thoughts.

Regards,
Ankur

oss198 · Answer

Thank you for your answer Ankur. mmm you might have a point but my it doesnt explain my first point. Neither it gives me the reason why no gmatclub members with at least 1 post wrote any review. I looked for a review wrote by an active Gmatclub member in the Veritas reviews and i didnt find any!

i stopped to look after a few pages.

bb · Answer

Hi. Good question - we do ask people to supply their score reports and many do (you can see them). Though the names are blurred out, we do get them with all of the personal info and details.

As to the zero posts, I can tell you why - the prep companies are strongly encouraging folks to submit reviews and some are much more aggressive about it. You can see the difference of Kaplan vs. MGMAT (one of them encourages and the other does not).

Hope this helps.
Best Regards,
BB

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Silly question about the Gmatclub reviews on prep courses

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