I frequently use a site called Seeking Alpha which is essentially a forum that allows people to write and share stock market related articles. It also has a paid subscription feature where one can buy a month or year-long subscription to read material from an individual author much in the way that one would subscribe to a stock market newsletter, with the added perk of being able to communicate with the author and other subscribers since everything is online.
I relied on an starred review system to pick who I would subscribe to and of course I picked the author with the most reviews and highest average rating. After recently writing a non-incendiary, mostly complementary, but non-3 star review of that author, I was immediately contacted by the author, who accused me of “bad mouthing him” (his words) and told that he would have the Seeking Alpha website would cancel my subscription to his newsletter. And today, the Seeking Alpha website did cancel my subscription to the author’s newsletter though I did not request it.
Before the subscription was cancelled, but after the author first contacted me, I wrote to the Seeking Alpha customer service e-mail to ask if that was allowed. No response.
The thing is, I am not the first person this has happened to. This author in particular happens to be very popular on the website, yet I have communicated with 3 other current or former subscribers who have similar stories. They dared to post a non 5-star review and the author threatened to have the Seeking Alpha website, so either they were kicked off or were coerced to modify their review (not even critical) in order to remain a subscriber. I still have communication regarding all of this.
Just thought it might be interesting because I recently read a story about online ratings and how Netflix has dumped them because they aren’t that reliable. And in the case of this author’s newsletter or Seeking Alpha, I think I know why — because he is actively attempting to manipulate his subscribers into giving 5-star reviews by threatening to or actually have Seeking Alpha pull their subscriptions. I don’t think it’s going on on a LARGE scale but it has happened.
PROOF: http://ift.tt/2o9GbIa
Submitted April 08, 2017 at 09:26AM by rlp703 http://ift.tt/2oMXLoC
