The Haggler: On a Review Site, Car Carriers Get the Last Word

But which of these companies can you trust? A reader found that question is far trickier than it ought to be.

Q. To move our car from Pennsylvania to Texas this summer, my husband and I chose a company based on reviews on TransportReviews.com. The site is the top Google hit when you search for “car transportation reviews.” I soon realized that using this site was a big mistake.

That was clear after I tried to share the lousy experience we’d had with a company called Door to Door Transport, based in Coconut Creek, Fla. The company was a week late delivering our car, and charged us $215 over the estimate. Plus, I had to spend $315 on a rental car for the days when our vehicle was on its way to Texas.

I explained all this in my negative review. Then Door to Door posted a response that suggested my review was full of fabrications. Specifically, the company said that we had asked for a “closed carrier,” which is more expensive than an open one. Not true. We had never even heard of closed carriers.

Door to Door ended its response with this gratuitous dig, which I’ll transcribe to the letter: “It’s unfortunate they would try to slander a 5 star family-owned company simply because they don’t want to pay for what they agreed too.” When I tried to reply to this reply, I was told by an administrator at TransportReviews that no matter what I wrote, Door to Door would get the last word. Does this seem fair? Tina Peterson

Houston

A. The Haggler first called Door to Door. Then sent a couple of e-mails. Then called again. Not a peep.

But Valley Solutions, the company behind TransportReviews, was more responsive. Valley Solutions is based in Cincinnati, and its president, Andrew Wash, says it owns more than 1,000 domain names, most of them transportation-related, many of them dealing with customer reviews.

“This was an industry plagued by scammers,” he said, referring to the car transport business. “People were going to jail. We decided, ‘We’ve got to do something about this.’ So we launched our site.”

Obvious question: Why give the companies the last word when it comes to reviews?

“I guess we kind of decided to end the back-and-forth at Point 2 rather than Point 3,” he said. “Almost every bad review generates a lot of back and forth, a lot of people angry on both sides. And our administrators are trying to get everybody to come to terms. If we were to allow another round, it would double our work.”

Hmm. How about cutting your work in half and just letting customers post those reviews, without the companies’ response? If the real goal was to limit the number of calories burned to operate the site, that might be a solution.

But let’s get to obvious question No. 2: How does TransportReviews make its money? Three different ways, Mr. Wash explained.

Method 1: For a fee that ranges from $50 a month to $250 a month, a transport company can buy itself a higher profile on the site. For instance, for $100 a month — “silver level” — a company’s name is put in bold in the site’s directory and rotated on one of the four “supporter spots” at the bottom of the home page.

Method 2: Ads for transport companies.

Method 3: For $250 a month, a transport company can vie for the business of people who submit bids for service through the site.

Notice a theme to these revenue streams? Go ahead and reread them, in case you haven’t yet figured it out.

All the revenue comes from transport companies! With that in mind, should anyone trust the reviews on the site? Funny you should ask. Because that very question turns up on a TransportReviews list of frequently asked questions.

“We would say yes, the majority of information on this site is trustworthy,” the answer begins. “There are, however, reasons to be cautious when using this site to help make a decision on which auto transport company to use.”

You might expect in the sentence that follows a word about how all the money for the site comes from transport companies. Instead, you’re invited to click an “About the Reviews” page, which cautions readers that the posts might skew a bit toward the negative because, well, often the people motivated to leave reviews have had a bad experience.

All of this brings the Haggler back to some columns earlier in the year, criticizing the Better Business Bureau for the obvious conflict of interest reflected in its letter ratings for companies that paid annual dues. Often, those grades were A’s when the companies had left hundreds of livid customers in their wakes.

The point is that is whenever you get some online consumer guidance — or any kind of consumer guidance — you ought to know who is underwriting the guide. TransportReviews does not hide the sources of its revenue; a few clicks and you can read all about the bronze, silver and gold opportunities that await anyone with a checkbook. But it could certainly make that point clearer.

Which brings the Haggler to his latest million-dollar idea: a review site that reviews the review sites. It’s genius! Grade them all on trustworthiness, candor and so on. Nothing but page views, right? Now, if only there were an obvious way to finance it.

E-mail: haggler@nytimes.com. Keep it brief and family-friendly, and go easy on the caps-lock key. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/your-money/on-a-review-site-car-carriers-get-the-last-word-haggler.html?partner=rss&emc=rss