Is SAWG tools manipulating their customers feedback ratings?

[Landslide]

I've bought products from SAWG over the years and really have no complaints with them. I bought a brake kit like the one in the video but the widest one they offered (I think 50 something inches wide), I bought it with the flat bar and finger kit but never put it together yet. I bought two hydraulic cylinders to build a standalone full hydraulic break press. But life yaknow.

Anywho, I was browsing the youtubes and came across a video with a guy and his break press kit from SAWG. I wanted to see what he had to say about it as I thought he had bad experiences with his kit. Turns out his kit was ok but something else about the SWAG company not so much.

I freakin hate dishonest businesses and really hate those that will go out of their way to distort or hide customers feedback on their products and or services all in the name of "Their image". I get that there are people out there that are Karen's about everything and live to be whiny bitches, but when it's honest feedback, you need to show it no matter what or change your business to correct the complaint. This one strikes a nerve with me as I want to purchase products made in the USA over cHiNa made commie crap. But I want to be able to be the one to make that choice and not be fooled into bait and switch tactics.

This guys video shows in detail about how they treated his feedback on his issue with his purchase. He wasn't being a PITA over it but wanted people to know what was up. Some of the comments about his video show other issues with SWAG. Now I get that sometimes running a business can be a tough thing especially today, however, that is still no excuse for treating customers in this manor in the name of fraudulent or selective feedback to keep only those that favor your company. Let people know what it is and address it, it would go further in helping then in pulling crap like this IMO.

Video posted below. Please understand, it's not about the product, it's about customer relations and being truthful to the people who keep you around in business, How can anyone truly believe the feedback on their products anymore knowing this?

 

[Lee]

Barnes 4WD did the same thing to me last fall. I didn't make a YouTube video about it, I just made it my signature here.

I still bought a truss kit and some link brackets from them after that, Black Friday sale was good enough for me to swallow my pride.

 

[jamscal]

I'm not condoning it but manipulating ratings has been around for a long time...When I was young and dumb and bought a new car the saleman gave me a tank of gas if he could fill out whatever BS form Ford had about the buying experience...

(plenty of threads on here about how you had to keep a 5 star rating as a tech....a 4 star was as good as a 1 star, etc)

I also have a guilty pleasure hobby of following certain local restaurant reviews on google. To see how the reviews come and go, how the algorithm orders the reviews, how many spam reviews there are....makes me know never really to trust reviews.

But the most fun ones are the people butthurt that their reviews are censored and make a second review to let the world know.

 

[SomeGuyFromOlympia]

people edit the reviews?
being shocked is also the same person that is shocked that Biden isn't a chess champion

all perfect reviews is just as much as a red flag as the crappy reviews, I just want to see that they take care of business properly, there are some people that can't be pleased no matter what you do and they are easily spotted
kind of like people shocked that steel rusts

I always thought that SWAG was a small guy running out of his garage

 

[bgaidan]

I'm not condoning it but manipulating ratings has been around for a long time...When I was young and dumb and bought a new car the saleman gave me a tank of gas if he could fill out whatever BS form Ford had about the buying experience...

(plenty of threads on here about how you had to keep a 5 star rating as a tech....a 4 star was as good as a 1 star, etc)

I also have a guilty pleasure hobby of following certain local restaurant reviews on google. To see how the reviews come and go, how the algorithm orders the reviews, how many spam reviews there are....makes me know never really to trust reviews.

But the most fun ones are the people butthurt that their reviews are censored and make a second review to let the world know.

Review manipulation or just flooding good reviews to wash out bad ones is big business and there are companies dedicated to doing just that. Pretty scummy.


Of courses you should never trust a company/site that has control over it's reviews on its own products.

I always thought that SWAG was a small guy running out of his garage

They definitely were years ago but it sounds like they've grown enough that that started outsourcing some of their stuff....to China.

I bought one of their portaband tables during a sale many years ago. I love the design, but my saw never fit quite right and is nowhere near square to the miter slot. I never bothered to follow up with them to see if the plate I got was wrong or something and it was very possible I ordered the wrong version for my model of saw.

 

[SomeGuy]

Review manipulation or just flooding good reviews to wash out bad ones is big business and there are companies dedicated to doing just that. Pretty scummy.


Of courses you should never trust a company/site that has control over it's reviews on its own products.


They definitely were years ago but it sounds like they've grown enough that that started outsourcing some of their stuff....to China.

I bought one of their portaband tables during a sale many years ago. I love the design, but my saw never fit quite right and is nowhere near square to the miter slot. I never bothered to follow up with them to see if the plate I got was wrong or something and it was very possible I ordered the wrong version for my model of saw.

I don't know why people buy their tables for the prices they are...you can make one in an hour or two with a chunk of plate, a couple short pieces of tube, drill a couple holes to mount the saw and use the bandsaw itself to cut the slot. Costs $10-20 in materials and works just the same.



As for how businesses handle reviews, there's three main patterns I see:

• Bend over backwards to make them happy, be it refunds or whatever. Doesn't really fix anything but makes the customer less grumpy.
• Thank the person for the feedback and say you'll use it to improve the design/fix the problems going forward, even if you don't do it. This is what I do for negative comments on my youtube channel (sometimes I can fix, sometimes I can't).
• Defend your product like a dink (or like fireball tool) and make yourself and your business look like shit but the owners pride stays in tact.

 

[Wisconsinite]

Defend your product like a dink (or like fireball tool) and make yourself and your business look like shit but the owners pride stays in tact.

What do you mean by this? I thought he seemed like a decent dude from his youtube channel.

 

[SomeGuy]

What do you mean by this? I thought he seemed like a decent dude from his youtube channel.

There's a lot of controversy around the guy...he tends to get really defensive when anyone criticizes his designs, but also he pulled a bait and switch on the big vises, originally making them seem USA made for pre-orders and then actually saying, nope that's the Taiwan price, USA is more than double. Same as taking all his content off youtube to his own site and disabling commenting on videos and such.

On the surface he looks good and a lot of his tools are pretty unique, but he's a slimeball under the surface.

 

[Wisconsinite]

There's a lot of controversy around the guy...he tends to get really defensive when anyone criticizes his designs, but also he pulled a bait and switch on the big vises, originally making them seem USA made for pre-orders and then actually saying, nope that's the Taiwan price, USA is more than double. Same as taking all his content off youtube to his own site and disabling commenting on videos and such.

On the surface he looks good and a lot of his tools are pretty unique, but he's a slimeball under the surface.

No shit huh? That is too bad, He makes some cool stuff and seemed to be decent.

 

[SomeGuy]

No shit huh? That is too bad, He makes some cool stuff and seemed to be decent.

Not saying you shouldn't buy his stuff, overall it is well made (better be for the price lol)...just the guy himself and his business practices are a whole lot of meh.

 

[SomeGuyFromOlympia]

Not saying you shouldn't buy his stuff, overall it is well made (better be for the price lol)...just the guy himself and his business practices are a whole lot of meh.

I was actually watching one of his videos the other night
he seems like a alright guy, but he was showing how his fab table was going to take you to the next level of awesome
his spec was +-(1/8) and I was thinking that he was going to flip the two worse ones over to each other and have them 1/4 off from each other, they are just simply going opposite directions then he did it
well that is what he specified and it is in tolerance

 

[Chris775]

I have a growing number of Swag and Fireball tools, luckily haven't had to deal with either of them on the customer service side. Only mild complaints were the portaband table and the air/hydro kit for my bender, 3-4 star for sure.