Clarification re rules on recomendations please

[ukmastiff]

LO, I always 'try' to keep my posts either fun or helpful and nothing else . However I am getting just a tinkle frustrated at seing garage recomendation posts because as far as I can tell you are allowed of course to post one BUT you arent allowed to post the opposite I.E that you had a bad experience and would not recommend a particular garage.

If this was the case then it would make the recomendations on here worthless as you could have one happy customer and ten who hated a place but couldnt say. Its not a moan re the rules or anything I just want to clarify , are you or are or are not allwed to post that you would not recommend garage A or garage B.

I would add this is NOT in response to the last recomendation post , I have no experience of that garage at all and could probbaly do with them being near to me. I have however had two very bad experiences in the last few months and feel I could have maybe saved someone else having the same.

Thanks

Mas

 

[DavidL]

I think the issue will always be that there are two sides to every unhappy story.
I can see it from both sides - I have customers too and they are definitely not always right. I use my own judgement as to what is reasonable. Generally if there is an ounce of truth/reasonableness in what they are saying I'll fix it but sometimes they really are just trying it on. These people will go away unhappy but I'll live with it.
Fortunately it happens very rarely.
Most people are very reasonable and if you explain are quite happy with a constructive rectication of a problem.

Obviously not all dealers are angels but most who are in business for a good length of time can't be doing too much wrong but will occasionally make a complete balls up. Its the way the handle this that is ultimately more important.

A public forum is never the best place to air these issues and a public slanging match doesn't help anyone.
Good communication is the key to all of this but I would hope that sitting down and explaining the problem to a reputable company will resolve things.

There are legal issues for forums too regarding defamatory statements that "may" have no basis.

ETA I didn't get chance to finish!

 

[pauljmcnulty]

It's impossible to have a hard and fast rule. The official line is:

Name companies, or individuals, in relation to accusations of malpractice, fraud or other criminal or civil offences.

As it's almost inevitable that "name and shame" posts would fall foul of this, it's not encouraged. Along with the fact, one I personally agree with, that companies often don't have the right to reply. Even if they do, I've seen plenty of cases on other forums where businesses have been roundly slated by many posters, only to find a little post at the end withdrawing all accusations.

To me, if someone recommends company A, and someone else has a good reason to counter that recommendation, a polite post or a PM won't be a problem. What I don't think anyone wants to see is the pages of long posts detailing every aspect of someone's complaints. Every business makes mistakes and internet forums are probably the worst place to try to correct them.

 

[ukmastiff]

Hopefully you will see that I'm not in the habit of slagging anyone. I am the sort of person who is likely to give recommendations out of loyalty which is one reason this non balanced feedback situation came to my notice. I mainly mentioned it for the very reason that any 'plus post' is totally valueless if it is on a forum where you cannot say " from my experience , I would never go back " or similar. That phrase or similar certainly could not raise any legal case against either poster or forum.

Ta for the replies , I was interested but not stressign over it []

 

[DavidL]

Its a reasonable question and one that will arise over and over.

It is awkward as especially on this forum there are a number of people that are here regularly with similar outlooks on things mechanical. It seems reasonable to warn your friends of poor practice or service but it may not be as simple as this.

If need be a private message saying caveat emptor could be inorder if someone really felt they had something to say.

 

[pauljmcnulty]

I mainly mentioned it for the very reason that any 'plus post' is totally valueless if it is on a forum where you cannot say " from my experience , I would never go back " or similar. That phrase or similar certainly could not raise any legal case against either poster or forum.

I think that's perfectly fair, as long as it's politely written, with a genuine reason behind it. I'd certainly not expect anything like that to be considered in breach of any rules here. []