Th reseller could send a prepaid credit card (or similar financial transfer) instead of the dash cam. It would have to go to an account not being used to pay for the dash cam. That would work for an incognito paypal transaction. That way an upgraded model can not be used in a fake review by an honest reviewer. Only after the dash cam is received will the seller know the reviewer has gotten it. Since this would be a paypal transaction the reviewers physical address would remain unknown unless unique problems with the dash cam show up. If the dash cam has problems it would also allow customer service to be tested incognito.
Mentioning at the top of the review that the reviewer received a free dash cam for that review should be mandatory.
A link to the site the dash cam came from makes sense. That is done (although with more sites) on the dash cam comparison page. However, no discount code should be mentioned or allowed in the review. So many fakes and alternate versions of varying quality abound in this arena that a direct link to a known seller and the dash cam is needed.
That's what they do in other product selling sites like Amazon.
There are thousands of products that have one or two line reviews with 5 star when they just launch the product.
Sending prepaid card doesn't change anything, in fact will make it worse because instead of just the product, now reviewers are literally getting paid, that's bad for unbiased reviews.
DCT is not a direct product site and regardless of what a reviewer says, the videos from that dashcam will be enough evidence of what the product does.
It's not like food items that one can say, "Oh it tastes amazing, you should try it. It's the best food ever" for something that tastes like crap.
Nope, we can't do that for dashcams.
Daschcam's are unique in the fact that what they do can be shared with all others.
Unless the reviewer processes videos with video editing software, it's pretty accurate.
I can say a dashcam is the best in the World but if the posted videos are crap, that won't make any sense.
If reviewers who get sample post thread just mentioning oh it's the best thing ever without any details, that can be tossed out and I don't think retailers will continue sending them dashcams for reviews.
Also, everything is based on price.
If I review a dashcam that costs $40 and video is pretty decent vs another dashcam that costs $200 but video is just slightly better, I mention that the $40 is better value.
Or a dashcam that has a lots of usable features such as dual channel, wifi, gps etc... but not that great video, that maybe better choice for some while some may only go after video quality.
Mentioning discount code shouldn't be a problem.
If link to product that has price is okay, then discount codes are also okay as all they do is decrease the price.
Purchasing from retailers who are active in DCT is better than going to the www and purchasing from a retailer that you have never heard of.
*******
One aspect of review is to make the product familiar out in the World.
Another is to find bugs and issues.
Haven't you seen issues uncovered here on quite a few dashcams after beta testing and even on post production unit testing?
