WRONG RATINGS AND FLAWS IN REPORTS:

When consumer reports sent me mail on December 2006 to rate the laptop I bought (Sony Vaio FGN 830W), It asked me following questions (my feedback in brackets) :

1) where you bought ? ( CompUSA)

2) How you paid? (debit card)

3) Are you satisfied with the waiting time before the sales person met you? ( 5 star)

4) was the sales person knowlegeable? ( 5 star )

5) was the sales person polite and friendly? ( 5 star)

6) Were you overall happy with transaction/purchase ? ( 5 star )

THE SHOCK CAME TO ME WHEN :

When I was hoping that atleast the next question would be about sony laptop, it suddenly displayed ‘Thanks for rating 5 stars on Sony VAIO FG 830′.

I mailed support, manager of CR explaining I DO NOT RATE 5 stars, it was wrong, they did not care getting back to me till now. However they sent mails for subscription.

Let us see their recommendations :

1) I bought the above said sony laptop ( Vaio FGN FS830W ) follwoing consumer reports recommendation. Unfortunately It was too slow (even after I upgraded to 1 GB RAM), never completed backup of installed system ( Sony did not provide system DVD!! and support asked me to buy from them for $34.99 , which eventually I did). The CD player broke in 3 months and battery lasts hardly 25 minutes. AND FOR THIS LAPTOP CONSUMER REPORTS FORCED( OR assumed my rating OR decieved) ME TO GIVE 5 STAR RATING!!!

2) THEY SUGGESTED ‘LEAST FAILURES’ ON A TV THAT HAD I HAD TO RETURN TWICE AFTER OF FAILURES:

I purchased Sanyo TV twice after consumer reports recommended ‘Least failures’ and most reliable (along with Sony TVs). I returned both because both had gaussing problems and created green patches in the screen.

3) Acura TL my friend purchased after reading highest rating ever done on any car by CR, broke and got repairs within 17 months (though one car need not represent quality of all Acura TLs ). This kind of incidents proves the fact the CR just does a test drive, but rates a car for reliability scaling over 5-10 years. If CR claims that it took feed back of customers, then there is no reason to believe them; This is because, just like it happened in my laptop case, they might have asked irrelevant question (are you happy with the dealership? who gave you loan?) and took that feedback as rating for the cars.

Rating: 1 / 5

I followed the packaged directions to a T. The wall was cleaned with rubbing alcohol and allowed to dry. The strips were put on each hanger correctly. Each hanger was pressed firmly on the wall for 30 seconds and I waited an hour to allow the adhesive to set before hanging the picture. Yet, after all this, not even an hour later the whole picture came crashing down. I’ll be attempting to try it again since it came with two extra adhesive strips, but so far I’m extremely disappointed.

Update: So since there were two more strips in the package I thought I’d give them a whirl. Followed the directions yet again – and both failed me. I even question if these would work on my textured plaster walls, but I wont waste my money trying.
Rating: 1 / 5