this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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I have no idea about air purifiers, but Meredith (and better homes and gardens DO have a test kitchen in Des Moines and I wouldn't be surprised if they test other stuff there. My dad worked there and as a kid we got to come through a and try out recipes they were thinking of publishing sometimes.
But ANY site running these review articles at this point, be it for hotels or air purifiers or food kr *30 under 30" lists, are all just paid shills. I don't really have any reason to think "housefresh" is any different either. I don't even really trust consumer reports at this point after seeing them shill really shitty products a few times. Maybe ifixit is ok?
Go to Amazon and filter by one star, then try to ignore the crazys.
This is underrated. This is where you find out management switched over and changed policies, that quality is great but they have trouble delivering, or their returns require arcane rituals on the third blood moon.
There is a dodgy car rental brand in australia, nz, usa and canada that i had used, and exclusively markets to overseas tourists, but not locals - presumably because locals would know that they should not rent a car that failed the technical inspection and is illegal to drive, which to the surprise of nobody happens a lot with cheap, 20 year old rental cars. It's very hard to find organic customer reviews of the company, because their own SEO drowns out any authentic customer voices:
Their links come from "paid blog posts" (they pay the blogger to write some fluff piece) in private travel blogs, advertising banners, forum posts and articles on big travel sites like trip advisor
Their own "travel tips for #country#" websites which offers the same info as other tourist sites, but where they exclusively mention their own business. They have a whole network of their own sites, each for a different country they opperate in, a different language for the customer nationality they are targeting and the age group/price level they want to serve
social media channels of course
In forum posts where the company is mentioned in a bad way, some new account pops up defending the company, or the thread is deleted soon afterwards.
Same with online reviews on google maps, where the company sits at a 4.5 score, but some bad reviews about deposits not being paid out after the car was returned have magically disappeared.
tl;dr: the internet is all ads!
Don't suppose we could get you to name the company?
I dont want to mention a name here, but it's the brand that has an office here ...
I can't believe I ever trusted consumer reports after I read up on how they purposely distorted their Suzuki samurai testing. The CR own record video shows they were determined to roll it.