Jun 11
21
Buying GSM cell phones online is one of the most popular daily activities of surfers around the world, according to industry analysts who track such data. It’s amazing what this little thing called the internet – of which the WWW is just one part, actually, even if folks commonly use the two terms interchangeably – can accomplish for so many people. Despite being originally developed for research and education (actually, it was originally developed for American political leaders as a communications network that can survive a nuclear attack), it’s now become a popular way to buy and sell, all over the world.
A selection of GSM cell phones exist online, more so than any single old-fashioned brick-and-mortar storefront can stock. Thanks to the web, shopping for your next handset is a simple matter of logging on and reading a few reviews. Well, actually, quite a lot of reviews, really. That’s because the marketers have all but spammed the hell out of things online, and even mighty Google employing some of the smartest folks in the world can’t stop them. This means that a lot of what purport to be reviews of GSM cell phones (or anything else, really) are just plants – planted reviews, planted material, stuff that’s been planted to mislead at best and totally misinform more often than not! That’s right, it’s an eternal war between consumers that just want to make informed purchasing decisions and the online marketers whose job is to simply create more publicity and sales for a company.
Things have gotten so bad that even otherwise reputable consumer review sites have been subject to such efforts at misleading shoppers. A commodity like cell phones is especially open to such ploys, given the sheer volume of business that involves it. How can one combat this?
Quite a few things, actually. The most important thing to do is to talk to the retailer. It can be helpful to talk on the phone. Do you notice the same person always picking up? Does anyone pick up at all? Or is there even a telephone contact provided? An address? And is that address accurate, or one that isn’t just an office in the mail-forwarding business?
For all the plants, however, the most reputable consumer review sites are trustworthy and should be consulted. Most scammers and bad businesses do not have the money to spend on the kind of online marketing efforts necessary to clear their names – for if they had the money, they wouldn’t be in such dire financial straits that they would need to resort to shafting so many of their own customers! So reviews sites are still important; just make sure that those are reputable, too!
