Remove Links from Signatures

This thread is neither good for DCT nor for Gearbest.
It's gone from a purchase experience to entirely different issue that has made DCT a complaint board rather than a review board.
@DashCamMan
I suggest threads like this where a buyer complains or praises about vendor (feedback threads) should have posts only by those two parties for a resolution.
Leaving open like this has become a mess and freeloaders just load things that come to their mind whether it relates to the issue or not.

Also, I suggest not to disable links in signatures for all as a lot of us have links to review and diy tricks but rather limit that to retailers/mfrs or have a talk with them to keep it clean instead.
 
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This thread is neither good for DCT nor for Gearbest.
It's gone from a purchase experience to entirely different issue that has made DCT a complaint board rather than a review board.
@DashCamMan
I suggest threads like this where a buyer complains about vendor should have posts only by those two parties for a resolution.
Leaving open like this has become a mess and freeloaders just load things that come to their mind whether it relates to the issue or not.
Also, I suggest not to disable links in signatures for all as a lot of us have links to review and diy tricks but rather limit that to retailers/mfrs or have a talk with them to keep it clean instead.

It is most amusing that you are the ONLY one here who is unhappy and whining about the direction this thread has taken and you are the ONLY one in this thread who keeps trying to defend and deflect all these issues and complaints about your patron and sponsor Gearbest from whom you accept thousands of dollars worth of free merchandise for your ongoing participation in their for profit promotional schemes. Readers should reach their own conclusions.
 
I suggest threads like this where a buyer complains or praises about vendor should have posts only by those two parties for a resolution..

not sure the forum software could do that, would be better, effectively it's just like a private conversation

that would keep the board cleaner, the challenge with private conversations in some cases is the service levels sometimes are not quite as good as when the issue is made public
 
FWIW, DashCamTalk has developed a long and honored tradition of veering wildly off topic in any given discussion, although I do still maintain that this thread is still on the money.
 
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It is most amusing that you are the ONLY one here who is unhappy and whining about the direction this thread has taken and you are the ONLY one in this thread who keeps trying to defend and deflect all these issues and complaints about your patron and sponsor Gearbest from whom you accept thousands of dollars worth of free merchandise for your ongoing participation in their for profit promotional schemes. Readers should reach their own conclusions.
It's the other way around it seems.
Only you and few have issue with it.
Readers should reach conclusions but it's heavily biased by the likes of you who just know to pour acid everywhere.
This thread should have been restricted to the involved parties so no one would have to read your negative content and jealousy about me getting dashcams.
Grow up. Why do you have to mention that each time you answer my post?
You can't find any other logic?
Why does it bother you if I get free dashcams?
You getting paid less because of that?
 
It's the other way around it seems.
Only you and few have issue with it.
Readers should reach conclusions but it's heavily biased by the likes of you who just know to pour acid everywhere.
This thread should have been restricted to the involved parties.

You call it acid, I call it truth. Again, as always from you, name calling, juvenile insults and fundamentally superficial, self serving replies seeking only to avoid answering the salient questions at hand.
 
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You may think its a choice to joun Gearbest and make fake reviews but this will destroy this forums.
I wont join this forums or any forums if i think all lies are in these forums.
Fake Reviews (?) Lies (?)
Hmmmm , interesting perspective ....
Been here before ( deja vu ) , only it was with flashlights and batteries .... ( Regarding reviews )
 
Fake Reviews (?) Lies (?)
Hmmmm , interesting perspective ....
Been here before ( deja vu ) , only it was with flashlights and batteries .... ( Regarding reviews )

Ah, a CPFer not doubt! :p I think I remember you!
 
It is most amusing that you are the ONLY one here who is unhappy and whining about the direction this thread has taken and you are the ONLY one in this thread who keeps trying to defend and deflect all these issues and complaints about your patron and sponsor Gearbest from whom you accept thousands of dollars worth of free merchandise for your ongoing participation in their for profit promotional schemes. Readers should reach their own conclusions.
Hehehehehehe , actually ......
 
Legal? No. This kind of thing is all up to @DashCamMan, the owner of this site.

I believe @DashCamMan has an ethical dilemma here as he benefits handsomely from the Gearbest affiliate links people click on when they visit Dash Cam Talk Forums, so I believe he has a certain motivation to be more tolerant of what we are witnessing than he might otherwise be. He is one of the parties who benefits from the Gearbest profit programs mentioned above. I don't suppose I will endear myself to him by bringing this fact up but as a three year member here who has been around from the very beginning and who has contributed a lot to this site and it's creation (the What Should I Buy? sub forum was my suggestion, for example) I am hopeful that DashCamTalk forums will continue to be the honest and unbiased kind of place that the increasing numbers of visitors and new members hope to encounter when they come to this place. Let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with a site operator making money from affiliate links, the question here is ethics and who one is dealing with and what they will allow when they moderate their forums.

I don't think Gearbest should necessarily be booted from this forum, but considering the growing negative groundswell, perhaps they should be put on notice to clean up their act.

View attachment 24422

Don't think I have an ethical dilemma. Treat all vendors equally and the rules are applied across the board. Unlike most forums, dashcamtalk has no vendor sponsors. I don't care if you purchase from Amazon, eBay, Aliexpress, Gearbest, Foxoffer or any other affiliate or non-affiliate site. I don't believe the non-affiliated vendors are treated worse on this site, in fact they benefit the most via free advertising without contributing anything monetarily to the site.

While the site generates money, it is a small fraction of my day job and I won't be quitting my day job any time soon. Out of that, Gearbest affiliate links account for only a small amount of funds generated so if they left or are banned, no big deal on my end.

Seems like people have 3 problems with Gearbest:

1) Spam links in signature (this applies to most other retailers on this site as well). The fairest solution is to prevent all links in signatures.
2) 1-post members raving about gearbest (I think this makes them look worse, but all those members were banned and the thread has been locked)
3) Multiple threads in the China forum (i consolidate them to 1 thread every once in a while)

Had to implement a rule of not allowing retailers to post links to their own site. Seemed to work well. Will prevent links in signatures.

If Gearbest or any other vendor is breaking a rule, report it and they will be warned / banned as necessary.
 
Fake Reviews (?) Lies (?)
Hmmmm , interesting perspective ....
Been here before ( deja vu ) , only it was with flashlights and batteries .... ( Regarding reviews )
Fake reviews/lies is another off topic issue from the original topic here but it's a derailed thread now and serves no purpose than venting after having fight with your spouse ;).
Dashcams are few things where reviews can't be fake due to the fact that what's posted is what they do, ie video.
One can see whether video/audio is good or bad from the samples.
 
Fake reviews/lies is another off topic issue from the original topic here but it's a derailed thread now and serves no purpose than venting after having fight with your spouse ;).
Dashcams are few things where reviews can't be fake due to the fact that what's posted is what they do, ie video.
One can see whether video/audio is good or bad from the samples.

actually there have been reviews posted here where the sample videos of comparison footage have been manipulated to show different cameras as having some distinct advantage (not by yourself, different reviewer)
 
Don't think I have an ethical dilemma. Treat all vendors equally and the rules are applied across the board. Unlike most forums, dashcamtalk has no vendor sponsors. I don't care if you purchase from Amazon, eBay, Aliexpress, Gearbest, Foxoffer or any other affiliate or non-affiliate site. I don't believe the non-affiliated vendors are treated worse on this site, in fact they benefit the most via free advertising without contributing anything to the site.

While the site generates money, it is a small fraction of my day job and I won't be quitting my day job any time soon. Out of that, Gearbest affiliate links account for only a small amount of funds generated so if they left or are banned, no big deal on my end.

Seems like people have 3 problems with Gearbest:

1) Spam links in signature (this applies to most other retailers on this site as well). The fairest solution is to prevent all links in signatures.
2) 1-post members raving about gearbest (I think this makes them look worse, but all those members were banned and the thread has been locked)
3) Multiple threads in the China forum (i consolidate them to 1 thread every once in a while)

Had to implement a rule of not allowing retailers to post links to their own site. Seemed to work well. Will prevent links in signatures.

If Gearbest or any other vendor is breaking a rule, report it and they will be warned / banned as necessary.
Also think about restricting feedback threads to concerned parties only.
We have a trend of many users jumping on feedback threads when they have nothing to do with the vendors and never did any business with.
For example, someone says "This vendor is great" and there will be 20 posts saying yes that vendor is great but most of them never bought anything.
Similarly, someone complains about a vendor and there will be 100's posts like in this thread where most users never bought anything with that vendor.
They just follow the flow.
Not only that, there will be one angry buyer posting the same thing over and over and over and over and over again everywhere that vendor is mentioned basically making all those threads useless.
 
actually there have been reviews posted here where the sample videos of comparison footage have been manipulated to show different cameras as having some distinct advantage (not by yourself, different reviewer)
That I'd consider cheating to other users.
 
Don't think I have an ethical dilemma. Treat all vendors equally and the rules are applied across the board. Unlike most forums, dashcamtalk has no vendor sponsors. I don't care if you purchase from Amazon, eBay, Aliexpress, Gearbest, Foxoffer or any other affiliate or non-affiliate site. I don't believe the non-affiliated vendors are treated worse on this site, in fact they benefit the most via free advertising without contributing anything to the site.

While the site generates money, it is a small fraction of my day job and I won't be quitting my day job any time soon. Out of that, Gearbest affiliate links account for only a small amount of funds generated so if they left or are banned, no big deal on my end.

Seems like people have 3 problems with Gearbest:

1) Spam links in signature (this applies to most other retailers on this site as well). The fairest solution is to prevent all links in signatures.
2) 1-post members raving about gearbest (I think this makes them look worse, but all those members were banned and the thread has been locked)
3) Multiple threads in the China forum (i consolidate them to 1 thread every once in a while)

Had to implement a rule of not allowing retailers to post links to their own site. Seemed to work well. Will prevent links in signatures.

If Gearbest or any other vendor is breaking a rule, report it and they will be warned / banned as necessary.

Fair enough. I think that one of the main issues people are having with Gearbest is how they do business and treat their customers and this is all somehow related to the spamming and customer service stuff. Like the example of the guy who was shipped an almost empty sealed package and told the item got lost in the mail and then offered a fraction of his purchase price to remedy the problem. I mean, all your reviews here on DCT talk about trusted/recommended vendors but then there's Gearbest being so prominent here on the forums and all. Just sayin'. People come here looking for trust and integrity I think.
 
I think the one of the main issuse people are having with Gearbest is how they do business and treat their customers and this is all somehow related to the spamming and customer service stuff. .

I get why this is an issue, they promote heavily, directly or indirectly but when there's problems they fail miserably far too often

if you recommend something to someone (which is what is happening by association) then you want that to be a good experience all over, not something where the wheels fall off as soon as there's a problem, their partial refund to wallet, pay again for another, send it back at your cost for refund etc scenarios are very poor after sales service, they run a business on ridiculous margins and have referral and affiliate deals on top of that so I guess that's a side effect of the business model, there's no profit to cover the cost of service
 
I get why this is an issue, they promote heavily, directly or indirectly but when there's problems they fail miserably far too often

if you recommend something to someone (which is what is happening by association) then you want that to be a good experience all over, not something where the wheels fall off as soon as there's a problem, their partial refund to wallet, pay again for another, send it back at your cost for refund etc scenarios are very poor after sales service, they run a business on ridiculous margins and have referral and affiliate deals on top of that so I guess that's a side effect of the business model, there's no profit to cover the cost of service
Yes, customer service is not as from other vendors and no one is denying that nor defending but each has its place.
If someone comes here and complains about a different vendor, how does that relate to forum ethics and rules.
DCT admin should be concerned if anyone goes against forum rules, not because someone complains about customer service.
Different topics should be handled separately.
 
Fair enough. I think the one of the main issues people are having with Gearbest is how they do business and treat their customers and this is all somehow related to the spamming and customer service stuff. Like the example of the guy who was shipped an almost empty sealed package and told the item got lost in the mail and then offered a fraction of his purchase price to remedy the problem. I mean, all your reviews here on DCT talk about trusted/recommended vendors but then there's Gearbest being so prominent here on the forums and all. Just sayin'. People come here looking for trust and integrity I think.

I think there are really 2 kinds of customers. Ones that want top notch service and ones that want the lowest price. For top notch service, buy from a local retailer, Costco, Best Buy or if you want online Amazon. Price is higher though. For rock bottom prices buy from China (eBay, Aliexpress, Gearbest, etc) and cross your fingers that the product is fine and wait for it to arrive. If you receive the product problem free, you are happy. If not, unfortunately that is a risk you are taking for rock bottom prices. Could happen with any of the Chinese vendors not just Gearbest. It is the nature of the low-cost, buy from China market. The one positive thing is that Gearbest sells legitimate products as opposed to some of the Chinese marketplaces which is loaded with fakes / knock-offs.

Problem is people want top notch service at rock bottom prices.
 
I get why this is an issue, they promote heavily, directly or indirectly but when there's problems they fail miserably far too often

if you recommend something to someone (which is what is happening by association) then you want that to be a good experience all over, not something where the wheels fall off as soon as there's a problem, their partial refund to wallet, pay again for another, send it back at your cost for refund etc scenarios are very poor after sales service, they run a business on ridiculous margins and have referral and affiliate deals on top of that so I guess that's a side effect of the business model, there's no profit to cover the cost of service

I keep wondering how a business model that works on such thin margins can afford to give out thousands and thousands of dollars worth of free products across the web for promotional review. The only plausible answer must be huge volume.
 
I have moved the last set of posts to forum rules since it was getting off-topic.

Essentially all links (and colors / bolding /italics) in signatures are prevented on the forum. To implement this all existing signatures had to be removed.
 
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