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Sonic Cameras Review: Doing Evil With Google’s Help
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
I was using GMail today and noticed an ad at the top of the window for a new Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera that seemed like an amazing deal. Now, I know what “too good to be true” means when dealing with the Internet and digital camera prices specifically… it usually means we’re looking at an ad from one of the many bait and switch scam artists that seem to be centered in the New York City area.
Here’s what the ad looked like:
And when clicked, I ended up at the Sonic Cameras web site.
For me, alarms were already going off. The red text, all the freebies, heck, even a free lens shade for a lens they aren’t providing with a camera body-only purchase.
So what do I do next? I search for them on Reseller Ratings which is my best way for “stink testing” an online retailer. What did I find? An utterly abysmal rating of 0.6 out of 10!
Read thorough the list of comments and you’ll see how bad it is. Numerous complaints of insults, order cancellations, high-pressure sales for items that should already come in the box… outright lies.
What’s the Problem?
The problem here is that Google prides themselves in “doing no evil” yet by allowing ads to horrible companies that are deceiving and harming consumers daily, they are doing just that. If Google protects web visitors from visiting sites known for Malware, why not hold advertisers to the same standards? You’d think a 0.6% satisfaction rate out of over three hundred ratings would prove there is a major problem.
Review of Sonic Cameras
Now, I certainly wouldn’t fall for this trap, but many others might. That’s why I’m posting this review of Sonic Cameras on my blog. In fact, every link in this post goes to the Reseller Ratings page for Sonic Cameras instead of to the Sonic Cameras site. I don’t want anyone to get there and mistakenly purchase from them. Luckily, the second site in a Google Search for Sonic Cameras is the Reseller Ratings page. The sad thing is that there are dozens and dozens of other stores doing the very same thing.
The argument that it takes too much time and effort to manually approve or review items is hogwash. They could automate things using Reseller Ratings if they wanted. They already manually check every site in their index for Malware reports... so why not extend that to AdWords ads?
Could it be because AdWords directly generate revenue?
So, in short, never, ever give Sonic Cameras a single cent of your money. Maybe we can dissuade them from advertising on Google AdWords by clicking their AdWords links by the tens of thousands...
- Category:
- Random
- Tagged With:
- reseller adwords google store criminals photography ad fraud
- Posted By:
- Ian Pitts
- Posted:
- 03/18 at 12:18 PM
- Views:
- 2789
Comments:
Funny thing is that I did this YESTERDAY! Sonic Cameras and another vendor for $1599.
By Matt on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 [Comment Permalink]
Always good to be alert and be a good consumer. So I approve of this post, in general.
I’m not sure I agree on how easy it would be for Google to manually check out their advertisers. Certainly a user-empowered “report abuse” type link might be helpful, but automated scanning for malware then manually checking for false positives is a lot different than evaluating ‘scams’ and deceptive advertising.
I’m sure for their malware they rely on a couple of noteworth vendors of blacklist information, maybe do their own scanning. I know I read up on it at some point, but I forgot the details.
But if they rely soley on Reseller Ratings, or even a few rating sites, what’s to stop someone from artifically bumping up or down the ratings on those sites to abuse Google AdWords further?
And what about the many ‘gray area’ ads that seem deceptive, but aren’t outright lies. Or the ones where they’re charging a good 70% higher than some of their competitors. Is that a ripoff or is it just what they feel their product and service is worth? We, as consumers, have some responsibility for smart buying.
I’m just not sure how you’d properly police something like this and where you’d draw the line without doing too little or going too far. I think people just need to know to look around, check out BBB and places like Reseller Ratings, and do their homework before ordering. If they don’t, then there’s something to be said for Darwins ideas too.
By Trevor Gryffyn on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 [Comment Permalink]
Hey thanks for this. I was drawn by a 1600 camera that normally costs 2000+ then had the sense to check these reviews. this is almost like organized crime.
By Suckernot on Thursday, April 09, 2009 [Comment Permalink]
Suckernot, you’re very welcome. This post is now #3 on Google for “sonic cameras review” and since I was able to help you save your time and money, my time spent posting this is all worth it. Thanks for posting here to let me know it helped!
By Ian Pitts on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 [Comment Permalink]
I’m not sure I agree on how easy it would be for Google to manually check out their advertisers. Certainly a user-empowered “report abuse” type link might be helpful, but automated scanning for malware then manually checking for false positives is a lot different than evaluating ‘scams’ and deceptive advertising.
By Electric treadmill on Monday, January 11, 2010 [Comment Permalink]