Subscribe by EmailCDW Employee Astroturfs [GAS] with Fake Comments
January 30, 2009 by Geeks are Sexy | 16 comments
Yesterday, I wrote a post about how dissatisfied I was on how Dell has been handling my latest order. The post has became fairly popular, and has been viewed around 10000 times in the last 24 hours, with many visitors leaving comments about how they too had experienced similar problems with Dell in the past.
But today, around 1:25 EST, the post started receiving comments from people endorsing CDW as a great company that truly cares about its customers. Since I’ve never really dealt with them, I cannot judge if their business practices are all that good, but it seemed that these visitors really thought that CDW was THE COMPANY to do business with.
Strangely, all the comments came one after another, with around 10 minutes of interval between each… and all from the same IP address… and all resolving to CDW.com. Here they are, including typos, for your viewing pleasure.
Comment by John
IP: 12.32.90.56 – 12-32-90-56.cdw.com
That is one reason I always use CDW for my companies needs, my rep there is magnificent. He always answers my e-mails and phone calls, even if its bad news.Comment by Matt
IP: 12.32.90.56 – 12-32-90-56.cdw.com
I need to piggy-back on John’s comment above – I have had the BEST experience with CDW. My corporate account manager is the GREATEST!!!!! And Yes, I am shouting, because finally IT Managers like myself are excited to finally be working with a partner that cares.Comment by Chris
IP: 12.32.90.56 – 12-32-90-56.cdw.com
I too made the switch from Dell to CDW years ago. Dull builds half ass machines with half assed parts.. but that’s what you get when you buy from a company who sells price over value. To top it off Dull will outsource your support calls to India.
There is one thing that I really, really hate. Dishonest people. “Mr. Johnmattchris” could at least have used a proxy to hide his originating address and spare a measure of shame to his company. If you’re going to treat people with disrespect, at least have the decency to give us credit for being able to do basic IP address lookups. (I mean, it’s “Geeks Are Sexy.” Right there in the title. Shoulda been the first clue…)
But you know what’s even easier than doing an IP address lookup? Doing a Google search. That’s right – the guy who left these comments left his real gmail address in the first one. All I had to do was to google it, and this brought me to a guestbook where he signed his real name. Then, using his name and CDW, I was able to trace him to his page on Facebook, Myspace, and even his flickr stream.
You see, I learned that “John” is a corporate account manager for CDW.
CDW, I’m not sure if this is a common business practice among your employees, but it’s just WRONG. Being dishonest never pays. If someone took the time to do this here, I wouldn’t be surprised to find this on other sites.
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This really sucks and that you did the right thing by denouncing them. I’m guessing thos CDW dorks are reading right now and I want them to know that I’m not going to take my business to them at all.
You should get in touch with them and denounce what their “managers” did. Make them realize that you are no retard and that they are not dealing with “normal users” here, we are all geeks.
LMAO. Great job searching these guys out. D-Link was just accused of the same thing. Employees were leaving positive feedback on their crappy devices.
I would like to mention that I do like CDW account reps. Their prices are on the expensive side so I use them for my business needs and newegg for my personal needs.
When I worked for Akai/Alesis/Numark they required us to leave positive comments on Harmony Central, MPC Forum and others about their products. I am so glad i don’t work for those jerks anymore
POUAAAHAHAHAHAHA! I just laughed my ass off. Too funny!!
Great expose’, Kiltak.
If CDW wants to advertise, they can sponsor adspace or run a freakin’ superbowl commercial.
Nice catch! GAS 0wned “CDW John”!
I got emailed this by a friend of mine. I used to work for CDW, I wont lie and it is an awesome company. Honestly.
One thing the company doesnt promote is loggin on a website like this to hype it up. what that individual account manager did was really dumb and would probably result in bg trouble for them.
CDW had ads during the monday night football and is a pga sponsor. they need a semi-crazy guerilla marketing tactic.
i wont go crazy in my defense for the company but i do know that action is not encourage by the company and is probably some new employee that thinks its “cool” to do that.
just be fair in your post…one person is not the company.
Well, I thought I was pretty fair.. the title is “CDW Employee Astroturfs [GAS] with Fake Comments”… I don’t put the blame on the company, I just say it happened through one of their employees, and that this practice should be frowned upon.
I also say: “There is one thing that I really, really hate. Dishonest people. “Mr. Johnmattchris” could at least have used a proxy to hide his originating address and spare a measure of shame to his company.”
Once again, I pass the message that CDW may be innocent in this.
Great work, Kiltak. That’s a shame, because I do like CDW as a source — they have decent prices and I can get Net/30 terms, so if I need something now I can get it and figure out how to pay for it later, without loading up any credit cards. Shame on JohnMattChris. What a stupid jerk.
I have no ax to grind against CDW. I use them for price benchmarking because I can usually beat their price from one or more of the sites listed above.
Disclaimer aside, that right there is funny and I don’t care who you are. Good Job!
owned
Oh SNAP!
Comment spam is never an appropriate business practice.
Doh! Awesome. Yeah, meat puppets should be ground to a pulp.
And BTW, CDW screwed up my corporate Adobe order so many times I was ready to pull my hair out. So there.
I don’t think it’s cost effective ( for CDW ) to have an ( so-called ) accounts manager turfing/hyping to inflate their online presence. Seems as though it had the op. effect this time.
Next time they want to start blowing smoke up people ass,
go to some “work at home” forums and offer something like
$.25-$.50 per post to let folks know how WONDERFUL this Co. really is. Either way it’s still SPAM.
I’ve used CDW for years and like them alot. I doubt the company would condone this, as you and others have said. If you can overlook this incident, its a good company to do business with and you could do much worse. Another company I’ve recently had a positive experience with is ChicagoMicro. Company was founded by former CDW exec, and many of the staff are ex-CDW people as well.
You basically owned him :-)
gratz