A bit of a rant about Which? magazine
As we’re renovating our house and need to buy quite a few new household appliances, etc I decided to take up Which? magazine‘s offer of trial membership so I could get access to their online reviews and test results. As far as I remember, Which? always had a pretty good reputation and it seems like the smart thing to do, to research stuff before you buy. But I’ve been unimpressed, and a little bit surprised, by the service.
Here are the things I found within the first few hours of using the service:
- The website itself is littered with usability problems. For example, after I successfully log in and go to look at a review, I still see a large box in the middle of the page asking me to sign up or log in! When I go to add a comment to a review, it asks me to create a new identity, then drops me somewhere else completely and I have to hunt for the comment thread again in order to write the review I wanted to write in the first place. Basic stuff.
- The website has security issues. I was dismayed to see that the password I entered was promptly emailed to me. Standard best-practice is to never email out passwords, but only to allow the user to reset them if required.
- The content on the website can be a bit patchy in places. When looking at the review for one item I noticed that the photo didn’t match what it said in the ‘specs’ section. Got the impression it had been automatically pulled in from some database and no-one had checked it.
- But far more serious than all that is that I don’t really believe they are giving a balanced judgement about what to buy. They highlight a series of scientific-type tests that give measurable results, and these are easy to communicate and look good. But they often seem to completely ignore other important considerations like quality of construction, how long things might last, and aesthetic appeal. So for instance a £700 range cooker might get a score of 66% based on tests like how long the oven takes to heat up, how easy it is to clean, and so on. This implies it is better overall than another, premium cooker costing £3000 that gets a score of 65%. Yes, oven performance and ease of use are important, but they don’t mention that the cheaper cooker might have cheap-looking plastic dials, for example, and be much less rugged in construction.
It probably is useful to look at resources like Which? when researching expensive items, but I wouldn’t take their ratings as definitive, and definitely go and see stuff yourself before you buy. And don’t use a valuable password if you register for their website!
Yes agree with all the previous negative comment on http://www.which.co.uk and would add that most of the time crucial reviews are way out of date ie beware as you will find that a very high proportion of technology product reviews are on products that are no longer current and often not even available to buy.
The information is available on the internet free most of the time you just have to look for it.
Yes use their data as a guide but don’t spend hours only looking at Which to come up with a short list of say TV’s because I can guarantee that you will find most of them are last years models possibly still available if you want last years models but often obsolete and not available any more.
Additionally Which make it very difficult for us consumers to be able to tell how old a report is from the headline – Often there are no dates and sometimes they change a couple of words and then put today’s date on it as though the whole thing was written today – Misleading at the very least!!!!!!!!!
Very annoying.
David Phillips at 4:55 pm on 28 Mar 12
My issue with the subscription to Which is that the free membership is a scam.
When you sign up you agree that the next months fee will be taken if you do not end the account.
Ending the account is not easy.
If you try to look under “my Account” them you can only find your login details not your account details so no way of knowing how long you have left on the free account.
Then when you try to end your account you cannot do it online which lets face it is not rocket science tech these days is it.
To find out how to end your account you have to go into the help files and look up FAQ which tells you that you have to send an email to them.
After you have sent the email you get a message saying we aim to answer your email within three days.
So if you are not internet savvy or you are forgetful you could be charged the fees for the next month.
At this point in time I am waiting for a reply to my email.
It seems to me that this is all designed to make it difficult to end the account and grab from those who fail to do so
jane manby at 10:23 am on 5 Jun 12
I was just signing up for the £1 trial, and I reached the payment part and decided to pay by direct debit. I input my details and my bank’s sort code as required…but the bank address that showed up was in a different town altogether. Ok there was probably an error in the database they were using, but there was no way I could correct it or inform them without coming out of the page. I lost confidence and did not finish the sign up.
Glyn Carr at 3:32 pm on 21 Jun 12
Which? is purely a profit making organisation- a publisher. It hides behind a pro bono publico image but actually uses sharp practice. Try running some of their items through a plagiarism checker to see how much effort goes in to writing them.
Philip at 11:07 pm on 8 Jul 12
I agree.
I was surprised to discover they do not take into account cost or value for money.
This means a tendency towards expensive equipment which may not be good value for money, which is what I am interested in.
It is a magazine for those who do not need to take cost into account.
Value for money is included in the scores for my computer magazine products.
I cancelled my subscription to Which?
Robert Good at 5:30 pm on 16 Jul 12
Subscribed to Which for years and thought they were OKish until I had a problem with an airline [wife had been denied boarding in South Africa by Air France] and I needed advice in order to sue the sods in Paris. Hopeless. Daft girl in the Which legal office had no idea. I had to dig out the legislation/codes of practice for her to pronounce an opinion. She advised that it might be best to just get over it as airlines were always doing stuff like that.Unbelievably amateurish and spineless bunch.
Gordon Davison at 12:00 am on 1 Aug 12
Sadly, have to agree with all of the comments above. I was a member for years, a long time ago (got the habit from my parents) but have come to the conclusion that their reviews are next to useless and, as I work in IT and have tech bug, almost always incomplete, inaccurate and out-of-date.
You still have to email them to cancel the account. I had delivery error messages as well. Eventually used the contact form to ensure they got the message. Received acknowledgement of cancellation, so will not be going beyond trial (will watch transactions carefully).
Also, mentioned on twitter that I had stopped, and they asked for feedback, so I gave them some. One was the problem mentioned above of not being able to work out the currency of a review. I also found it really annoying that you can buy and download PDF copies of the magazines, but cannot get them free as a member on the grounds that all the content is accessible on the site anyway. Shame it is practically impossible to get to it in the same structured way as the magazine presents it.
Stuart Moore at 1:34 pm on 4 Sep 12
Which? Magazine Review
Pros: Good at accepting your money and not providing the product in the correct way (correct address) even when it’s a gift and discussed at length with the sales agent.
Cons: Inability to subscribe to magazine online/Having to use antiquated phone order. Inability to easily refund money taken by credit card but refunded by written cheque hence causing me an inconvenience to go to the bank and deposit. Use of Royal mail for refunds which causes further out of pocket delays.
Overall recommendation is to stay away from Which? and use other consumer reports or ask around for product suggestions from actual users.
J Gomes at 1:10 pm on 19 Sep 12
My husband was a subscriber to Which? many years ago and I have learnt a lot on consumer rights reading Which? It was at that time fairly unbiased. But now, I feel it is not so. Goods have labels on them which say that they are recommended by Which? If I am not mistaken they even had some sort of a credit card. I may be wrong.
Reading the above comments, I have now realised that they are no better than the products and services they judge and review. I was especially amused reading how unfriendly their website is and how the call centre person is no less stupid than the rest we come in contact with all the time… I can imagine how fed up Mr Davison must have been.
I would have loved to resume subscribtion if I knew that Which? was its old neutral self.
S. Shearer at 5:14 pm on 1 Oct 12
…make that ‘subscription’ please. I must admit that I owe all my consumer rights knowledge to Which?
S. Shearer at 5:20 pm on 1 Oct 12
Are the above in competition with Which? I feel the views are unbalanced and show misunderstandings. Try to get value from this organisation which is independent and uses consumers’ reported experiences as well as their own tests. I do not know of any other way to get independent advice. Add to the comments if you can get it and let us all have the benefit.
sencit at 5:31 pm on 19 Nov 12
I bought a pentax X5 camera, which all reviews on the interent gave very good reviews. WHICH? decided to award it 57% and commented that it did not excel in any area. Which magazine is in my oppinion rubbish. The best review is the one coming from YOU.
Jeremy Newman at 10:00 pm on 10 Jan 13
Thanks , I’ve recently been looking for information about this topic for a while and yours is the best I have found out so far. But, what concerning the bottom line? Are you positive concerning the supply?|What i do not understood is in reality how you’re not actually much more smartly-liked than you might be right now. You’re so intelligent.
pass a drug test at 2:01 pm on 21 Jan 13
Was going to sign up for the £1 trial,but,after reading the posts above I think I’ll stick to on-line user reviews
towbar at 9:06 pm on 26 Jan 13
The reviews are a bit ‘ either/or ‘ to be honest. With the exception of the ‘ do not buy ‘ pointers there’s a lot of ‘ fence sitting ‘. That said they do generally explain the different type of product available, eg, heat only/combigas boilers.
I didn’t think the cancellation process was too bad. Just a phone call and my memb was cancelled straightaway. I never had to e-mail anyone.
Maybe I was just lucky ?
Graham Last at 9:16 pm on 20 Mar 13
Like some other contributors above, my parents were long-time subscribers and continued to be until their deaths. They even featured in a lead article in one edition as being amongst their oldest members. Years ago I had a subscription with them and it certainly came across as unbiased and scientific in its approach. I let it lapse for many years because I wasn’t buying much stuff – wasn’t really a major consumer of things. And if I did need information from Which?, I could always read the copies held by the subscription library I belonged to. Or borrow my Dad’s copies.
But in recent yearsI’ve found their conclusions and recommendations around specialist items such as MP3 players, cameras and cars have been very much at odds with the reviews in the specialist publications/web sites. And the things I have bought following their recommendations (microwave oven, vacuum cleaner) I have been very disappointed with. Furtrhermore, friends and family have had similar experiences.
Frankly, I don’t trust Which? anymore and treat everything I read with a pinch of salt. At the risk of mixing my metaphores, their quasi-scientific/populist approach doesn’t cut the ice with me. I much rather trust the online forums where I can read real user experiences and draw my own conclusions. Sad. But true. Well, sad for Which?
C Smithers at 6:35 pm on 30 Mar 13
I’m not sure where you’re getting your info, however good topic.
I needs to spend some time learning more or working
out more. Thanks for wonderful info I used to be in search
of this info for my mission.
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info product killer review at 5:02 am on 10 Apr 13
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Making Money at 11:48 pm on 10 Apr 13
I guess you wrote this article in early-2012, and its now mid-2013 but the scammy (scam me?) practices of which magazine still continue to exist without challenge…
Thanks for stopping me wasting money and TIME on the tricky “Which MUGazine”
Regards,
The Real Mr. Consumer
Mr. Consumer (no, really!) at 5:02 pm on 29 May 13
…then I lol at my own comment \o/
…does anyone else do that???
Mr. Consumer (no, really!) at 5:04 pm on 29 May 13
Disappointed – especially in these straightened times – that the selections are invariably the most expensive models of the products they are testing. I can cite examples of long lasting cheaper versions they never mention. Once did participate in one of their surveys and found it really nit-picking which shook my confidence in their system. Think basically they do provide a service but their test results have become more and more complex and generally I find the organisation rather distastefully smug
Ordinary consumer at 10:32 pm on 16 Jun 13