BRIDE|STORE|INFO
Reviews & Testimonials
LEARN FROM THE "PROS"
AND AVOID THE "CONS"
"The online reviews were great so it must be a good store". If you believe that, you probably still believe in the tooth fairy so the aim of this page is to give an insight and some practical advice about reviews and testimonials. When buying in-store, if you don't like what you see, you can walk out but if buy wedding dress online it's different. Very different! For that reason, reviews and testimonials are an essential aid to shopping online. But it's even more important that the reviews are genuine.
ABOUT INDEPENDENT REVIEW SITES
You can NOT believe reviews on a vendor's own site.
They control the reviews and can choose to publish them or not. They can alter reviews and in many cases, they write them. We suggest to reply only on independent review sites like Site Jabber, Trust Pilot and Pissed Consumer and sites like ScamAdviser who offer a "technical" appraisal regarding trust and location.
This is a great starting point when buying online. You won't find product reviews but what you will find is some very useful "background" information like where the site is really located and whether it is safe to use or is a risk. Just enter the name of the site you want to check. Simple as that!
The name says it all. Not easy to find some consumer reports but still useful. Elsewhere on our site we mentioned that we couldn't find any reviews on Trust Pilot for David's Bridal. We mention this because David's Bridal has hundreds of outlets as well as online so we think it strange that we can't find a lot of reviews. However, on Pissed Consumer we found over 280 reports with over $74,000 claimed losses. So just because one review site comes up clean, don't take it for granted that it will be the same result everywhere. It pays to check around!
Always worth spending a few minutes on Site Jabber where you will find plenty of reviews. SJ site allows companies to respond to reviews which we think is fair but with the fake or scam sites, the replies are usually the same garbage and they spend so much time apologizing that we are amazed they even bother. So many 1 Star reviews can't be wrong. Please read our warning on the right side of this page about fake 5 Star reviews.
Always good site with plenty of reviews. But be careful. Some of the main scam and fake sites invest a lot of time in posting fake reviews. Please read our warning on the right side of this page about fake 5 Star reviews, how to spot them and not be fooled.
The Review Centre is a UK based site so most of the reviews are European based but still well worth checking. For the sake of a few minutes checking, you could save yourself a ton of trouble not to mention a lot of dollars.
SPOTTING THE FAKE REVIEWS
Independent review sites are not perfect but they tell a lot and are a great help in getting at the truth. On Site Jabber and Trust Pilot you might be surprised to see scam sites receive 5 Star reviews. How could this be? It's possible that some are real but most likely, they are fake.
How do you spot the fakes?
Language
Many of the scam sites are slick and professional sites and some of the reviews are written in excellent English or other languages. But some are so bad that it's obvious they were written using Google Translate or similar.
Solo Reviews
Many of the 5 stars are awarded by people who only have posted just one review. While some people only ever post a single review, it is unusual and suspicious.
Multiple Reviews
Some fakers know that to look genuine they need to post multiple reviews. So they post a 5 Star review for the scam site and then one of two for other "random" sites. They hope this will make them difficult to spot. Many of the scammers have multiple sites so they will post 5 Star reviews for a number of their sites. If you check you might find that the reviewer "purchased" a number of dresses from different sites. In some cases, multiple wedding dresses.
Male Reviewers
Some reviewers have male names but are reviewing dress purchases. Of course a man can buy dresses but a male giving a 5 Star review to a scam site? Suspicious.
IT Companies and Promos
We mentioned elsewhere on this site that many of these sites are owned by IT companies. They understand all about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and how the internet works so in many cases, they will have staff doing nothing else but promoting the site. This includes writing reviews many of which will repeat the scam site name a number of times in an attempt to fool search engines into giving them a higher Google ranking.
In many of the reviews, they will not so much "review" as promote the "great offers" available or the great range of beautiful dresses etc. that are available. Basically they try to promote the site as a positive experience.
Conclusion
