Turn it off and leave an even lower review, mentioning this BS in the review.
PetSmart won't let you leave a review if you have adblockers on
Submitted 2 weeks ago by iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/430533f7-ecf8-41dc-bc3f-8b16e311a3e6.png
Comments
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
“I was going to leave 3 stars. Product was meh. But I dropped it to 1 stars because I had to turn off my adblock just to leave this review.
Do not buy this product. They know it’s bad. That’s why they want less reviews from people who won’t turn off adblock.”
Response from our management: “We’re sorry you’re having issues. Please accept this coupon for 10% off your next purchase!”
This is how I expect their bot to respond.
VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
They would just not approve the review and delete it.
MelonYellow@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
🎯
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Leaving a review on the company website is pointless anyway.
baltakatei@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
What’s to stop any malicious merchant from pruning unfavorable reviews? I trust moderated gossip channels with no financial stake in review sentiment over curated marketing advertisements masquerading as “customer reviews”.
TisI@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Nothing and they do. I once wrote a review that the product caused me issues and it wasn’t safe to use and they didn’t publish it stating that it didn’t meet the website’s guidelines.
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I dunno, I disagree. I look at reviews and was, in fact, looking at reviews for the thing I wanted to also leave a review on.
rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I love the way companies simply refuse to not track us. You guys seen those cookie popups that are like “accept and continue” or “reject and pay” where you have to actually pay to reject cookies? I cannot believe that’s legal at all. Total scumbags.
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
It’s not.
I usually go into zapper mode on ublock to remove the pop up without agreeing, but they probably treat that as “accept and continue”.AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Much better: when this happens, I block frames and scripts from loading through ublock.
Qwel@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
They’re not allowed to collect data as long as the “yes” button hasn’t been clicked. Now, in practice, implementation correctness may vary
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I personally have never seen a pay to reject. What types of websites have you come across that do that? I’m genuinely curious.
rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
A lot of news sites! Let me see if I can find one.
I’m pretty sure I saw it on Autosport earlier today. Just opened it in Chrome (ew) – see screenshot!
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Literally baked into http is a “referrer URL” option.
None of this is new. It’s literally built into the protocols we use daily.
rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Very true, you’re right.
It’s just that the sort of “depth” and “breadth” of the tracking has evolved, as well as the ways marketers use that information.
tyler@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
They’re doing that because of the GDPR.
rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s sort of what I’m saying, though; I would have thought this would have been a violation of the consent rules in the gdpr
hperrin@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Of course. This makes perfect sense. How would you have anything relevant to say about the product if you haven’t been advertised at in the past twelve seconds?
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
They probably mostly want to improve the advertising experience .
brax@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Meh, I guess they don’t want any reviews then… Sucks to suck, sales will drop and they have nobody to blame but themselves
Pogbom@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Sadly I’m sure a company as big as PetSmart has done the math and decided they stand to make more from advertising than from a few lost reviews
flamiera@kbin.melroy.org 2 weeks ago
And that applies to generally any big company.
Like why bother asking for reviews if you're Wal-Mart or Target when the shit is still going to somehow sell and customers aren't usually the brightest when it comes to making purchasing decisions or evaluating what they have bought.
kibiz0r@midwest.social 2 weeks ago
Technically, BazaarVoice is the one preventing you from leaving a review.
This is actually an example of technology working correctly. Web sites are able to delegate parts of their functionality to other services that are able to act independently. Your browser refuses to interact with BazaarVoice, but Petsmart continues to function.
It’s also an example of markets working poorly. It’s great that companies can use a third party service to handle reviews, so we don’t have to constantly reinvent the wheel. It’s not great that companies like Petsmart are so big that they don’t have to care about who they delegate that job to. They can use a cheap-as-hell sketchy AI service that will grind their users into an algorithmic paste, and pocket the savings, with no worry that you might go elsewhere (what are you gonna do? shop at kind-hearted Bezos’ store instead?)
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Yeah… As a technology person (working IT for many years now), it’s more likely that there’s some bad interaction between the browser, Adblock and the service that does the reviews. They’ve found a way to get an image to load regardless if the review applet works.
My bet would be that the Adblock is preventing the site from loading the necessary code to show the review submission “page”. This image is up behind the review regardless of if it works, is just that if the review thing works, it covers this up.
Sounds to me that this is a courtesy message basically saying that Adblock thinks the review thing is an ad.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Which now renders their site useless … I’ll go on your site to look up basic info … then go to your store to get what I want and even visit some other store or service that could give me the same product.
It’s a disincentive to want to use their site in the future.
I’ve stopped using several store websites because of this. Then when I want an actual product … I’ll call the store and ask them to look for the product for me. If they have it great, if they don’t, I’ll look for it elsewhere or figure out some other solution for myself that doesn’t involve any of their dumb websites.
I’m regressing from the internet and use people contact more and more because of this stupidity. I’m going back to the way I did things in the 90s and early 2000s where I would just use their store flyer as a guide, call the local store to ask for something and then go look for it myself because the online services today are so intrusive and needlessly complicated that its faster and more useful to not go online.
Romkslrqusz@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Is it possible that their review form functions on some kind of script language that is commonly filtered by ad blockers?
Browsing the site on mobile / without an Ad Blocker, I’m not seeing any ads. Might just need to reduce the filtering level.
Opisek@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
No. A lot of websites deliberately disable functionality when they detect an ad-blocker to annoy you into disabling it.
CentipedeFarrier@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I wonder how many people that actually works on..
bytesonbike@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
I can’t remember what pissed me off but fuck Petsmart.
I switched to Chewy and local pet shops.
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
We have been shopping local and Canadian-first as much as possible! In this case, I wasn’t even trying to buy something from them, I was just trying to leave a review to warn other potential buyers for something I bought a long time ago.
Nikokin@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They probably use a 3rd party for reviews, so the ad blocker accidentally blocks that service
snooggums@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
Sounds kike the 3rd party site isn't trustworthy.
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
If my ad-blocker is blocking it, I’m certain there’s nothing accidental about it.
Drusas@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
I'd recommend Chewy.
thesystemisdown@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m as offended by receiving survey requests for any and everything I buy or pay online. If it weren’t disingenuous I’d be fine with it, but it’s usually the retail marketing version of a push poll. There’s no way that they would get that something is off based on the normalized survey values without reading the non-normalized text box that corporate probably doesn’t care about. Therefore, they get a consistent value of 1, (you suck) to every question. If I had a positive experience I just don’t bother unless some poor bastard went out of their way to help me.
fonix232@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
I hate what the shopping experience has become in recent years.
It used to be straightforward:
- go to website
- add products you want to basket
- go to checkout
- register, or check out with a "guest account"
- make payment
- done
today?
- go to website
- dismiss cookie notice
- provide ID to verify age (even though nothing on the site should require age verification)
- immediately be bombarded with "subscribe to our mail list" popups, at least 3, with increasing (false) promises of discounts
- be roped into subscribing anyway with a "spin the wheel" that guaranteed doesn't give you anything useful BUT will ask for all your details and the close button is conveniently blending into the background, totally by accident
- try to browse product list but can't because halfway through you're asked to fill out a "short", 30 minute questionnaire about your experience on the site
- the product detail pages are unreadable AI generated garbage
- when you do add a product to your basket, a new popup recommends a dozen completely unrelated items, with the close button again conveniently camouflaged
- finally you get around to check out, but the checkout process tries to sell three-four more products in just as many popups before you can actually buy what you need
- finally you get to checkout and you're forced to sign up to email, snail mail, text message, phone call, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, Signal, Snapchat, TikTok, and who knows what else marketing messages
- even during the payment you get bombarded with "did you forget to add this to your order?" messages
Imagine if a physical store did this. You go in and immediately three people surround you, not letting you get into the store, to ask for your ID, your details, and so on. Then throughout your shopping, there's a few employees following you, giving you recommendations, offering "better" products, or "often bought together" options and so on. This continues during checkout, every single item comes with a "you know we have a better option" or "hey this would go well with X" commentary. Then finally on your way out you're yet again assailed by people trying to grab your wallet to get your personal info....
Chozo@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
"Ad blockers prevented your review submission."
No, you prevented the review submission, by taking the time out of your day to write a dialogue box that prevents submissions.
archonet@lemy.lol 2 weeks ago
I fucking despise this kind of gaslighting. YouTube does it too, with their “experiencing interruptions?” popup that then takes you right to FAQ section telling you to disable your adblocker and that it may cause problems. no, you drooling fucking simpletons, you are causing problems deliberately, problems I will circumvent without disabling anything out of pure spite and rage.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The fun part: The delays and interruptions are still way shorter and less annoying that being forcefed two minutes of unskippable ads for some irrelevant junk or service.
zippy@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
It’s such an abuser mentatlity: “Why do you make me hurt you?”
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Yep that’s precisely why I worded the title as I did. Like, you ain’t gaslighting me… my adblocker didn’t prevent shit. I can leave reviews on every other website, I’ve never seen this before. Only on your site has it been an issue, so it sounds like a you problem, not a me problem. Ridiculous.
markz@suppo.fi 2 weeks ago
Look at what they did!