ReviewStream

I have heard some people around me complaining about this site, so I decided to join it and see for myself.

Firstly, I must say that the layout is really bad and messy and the "highlight or showcased" reviews at the top of the main page is full of outdated products and badly taken photos. Navigation is very confusing and user unfriendly. The icon to the member's page is not on all pages so you must navigate around before landing on the page with the icon to lead to the member's page.

Writing for them is never like they stated. You can't write about anything you want because the admins are editor-wannabes that micro manager their users and control what and how they could write to even what photos could be used. What they didn't care or realize is that, there are readers who commented that the images posted not relevant or helpful to what is written in the reviews.

Reviewstream promises to pay very high price per review ($8-10 for a text review and much more for others), however, they hardly pay at this rate because they'll only accept most reviews at bulk rate (one fifth of the normal amount). The rate the author receive also depends on the trust rating of the author, however, this can easily be modified by the admin.

When reviews are rejected, reasons given are ambiguous and not helpful to the writers at all. Contacting them for more details, only end up in disappointment because replies are as unhelpful and sometimes very rude.

What I really don't like about the site is that they still keep rejected reviews in their databases and there is no way the author could removed them from the database, which I find it rather unfair for the authors.

I didn't stay long enough with the site to experience the constant rejection and I don't intend to waste time writing reviews for them and end up not getting paid.

However, I've heard users experiencing both the constant rejections and the site decreasing their trust score to the point they could only get about slightly more than a dollar for a review at bulk rate, making it impossible to get paid because the minimum payout is so high.

I won't trust this site.

If you ever go through the reviews on the site, you'll realize how biased and not helpful they are. Most reviews just go round and round about one or two aspects of the product, film or person and focus on describing what is shown in the photos already.

Quite a number of the reviews have lousy quality images that doesn't help in showing the product clearly.

Little information are given about products and the experience using it. Reviews just focus on bashing or praising the product which make it seem more like an advertising site than review site.

Reviewers doesn't reply readers' questions and delete comments that doesn't sing praises, which just make the site more suspicious as an advertising site.

I wonder why I can't grade this site a ZERO!

They're so ridiculous I feel ashamed having joined them. Having joined and using them for more than a year, I still can't get pay!

At first they say they don't like entertaining and helpful but not unique reviews.

Then they say they don't like too descriptive reviews. Eventually they say you can't just state your likes and dislikes!

So tell me, what is left to be written in the review? I can't say why I like or dislike something, I can't describe the item or be helpful.

The point is that if they don't want to pay you, they come up with stupid excuses to reject them.

The site is messy and navigation is confusing, they never give ambiguous reason to why your reviews are rejected, the site is full of badly written and valueless review and that they're rude and probably doesn't pay. I guess these are pretty obvious already. My experience is very similar.

I actually setup an account with them few months back. I wasn't writing much till recently when I've a lot more free time.

When I logged back in, I realised that I have about $56 in my account and the minimum withdrawal is $110. I decided to write a few more reviews with them and hopefully will be able to withdraw the cash.

I wrote a few movie reviews, submitted them and they're quickly accepted. However when I finally reach about $70, they start to reject everything I wrote.

I remember writing 2 reviews on a movie I watched quite recently and 1 on a power bank which I have been using.

They rejected them all saying that the images of the movie reviews are of lousy quality. I find it really ridiculous because those are of HD quality and of the same quality as the ones resubmitted previously.

The power bank review got rejected because they want me to submit it with image bases template. I was a little confused but I took some pictures and resubmitted it.

I resubmitted one of the movie review with some images found online.

Waited 2 days and came back rejected again.

"Helpful and entertaining information you provided are not unique enough..." I can't remember exactly but something similar.

I find it really annoying! Why did they ask me to resubmit when they have no intention to accept my review?

It happened a few times and I decide that I should wrote in to them asking about what is it that they're looking for in reviews. They respond saying, "we don't teach people how to write reviews, we just buy them! If you don't make good reviews then skip topic!"

Look at how they write! I don't really understand what they mean but my reviews just continue getting rejected. I guess I really don't know how to "make" reviews, I only know how to write them.

I guess it takes a miracle to be able to reach minimum withdrawal and I need to be praying a lot more to achieve that.

The thing about this site is that they appear to be legit when you start with them! They accept most of your reviews and credit your account fast.

But the nightmare starts when u have been with them for a while.

I never know why a personal experience can be "not unique" (the reason they reject all your reviews). Is it because I eat with my mouth and use facial cream on my face like others do? I have to be eating with my nostrils and applying facial cream on my butt to get accepted?

It's just frustrating and a huge waste of time! I am quitting even though I'll be forfeiting my $30+ with them! (Cashing out is at $150, so get crazy people. And we don't even know if they still pays)

I've got most of my reviews accepted by the site. They prefer very straightforward reviews even if you curse and swear (ok, i am joking) meaning they like your review even if it is very one-sided and just bashing. They don't like "professional" reviews that does more description and trys to stay neutral or nice.

I am saying this from my experience, i started out writing more in a neutral way too and they don't like it.

However, all my reviews are given bulk rates. I am not saying i deserve the full rate but I can't help but feel they don't ever pay the full rate, especially not with their preference. And their payout is very high, outrageously high that you have to write more than 50 reviews to hit it.

So you'd have wasted a lot of time and efforts before knowing if you can get paid.

If you are young and ambitious, you may find yourself needing money to make ends meet with your dream and reality. But be aware that there are always going to be people who have no notion or don't give a $#*! about your dreams or aspirations. And when you are old those people see you as a walking carcass hurting your, stealing from you won't mean anything, to them. So save yourself the pain, the life, the braincells, the energy, the verve, and above all save your dreams. Do not become a victim of your dreams, or hopes. O make yourself a target by letting these vultures close in on you in your moments of weakness. HOPEFULLY, this will reach someone out there. Disregard this warning at your own peril.
Thank you.

As an online contractor of over 10 years, I guess you could say I've done it all. From writing 2,500 word product buying guides for large corporations to jotting out short 250 word blog posts, writing online has been my career. When I stumbled upon Reviewstream after searching for a side project to supplement some of my other work, I thought it seemed too good to be true. Write reviews of products I already own, put my own personal spin on it, AND get paid?! Unfortunately, I found out within a week that this site is pretty much a nightmare.

I decided to overlook the very crowded, horribly confusing interface and give it a go. The first red flag should have been that you don't sign up for anything. Your method of "signing up" is simply writing a review with your email address attached to it. With every other task I've done online, I've had to create an account with my email and password and put a W-9 on file. But I decided to just give it a shot anyways. Hey, what can I say? It was a weeknight and I had nothing better to do.

I type up a few reviews, injecting a few details into the writing, but not too much that it was just a list of tech specs or ingredients. I made sure to outline the pros, cons, and my overall feelings about the product. As someone who overanalyzes EVERYTHING, I have read my fair share of reviews, and I'm fairly certain that I know what people like myself (the "average" consumer) would like to read.

After spellchecking and giving a few final reads, I submitted the reviews. I then waited... and waited... and waited. No emails, nothing. So I decided after about three days to go back to the site and take a look. If you go into the "Write a Review" section, you can access the reviews you have written. When I accessed my information, I was a bit disappointed to see that all had been rejected.

However, even more disappointing is the horribly vague and terribly formatted "feedback" (and I laugh when I say that) that was provided. I realize that I am not a perfect writer, and I have always welcomed constructive criticism. But the fact is, I have written for hundreds of clients and I have never received feedback like this "company" provides. Here are some gems for you to enjoy:

This is too vague. It can be posted for free somewhere, but here is no information worth buying. We're interested to buy helpful information, not just bunch of words.

Helpful and entertaining information you provided is too limited or not unique enough to buy it at the rate you are asking.

So in one instance, the information is too vague, yet another is "helpful and entertaining" but not unique. Similar messages were posted for all, even after dropping to the "bulk rate" that is a laughable portion of the full rates they offer.

At this point, I questioned myself. Maybe I didn't do a great job. Maybe the years of excellent feedback from hundreds of clients on everything from product reviews and descriptions to buying guides to SEO copy was off. So I decided to check out some of the "trusted reviewers" of the site that are featured on the front page. Some more gems, for your enjoyment:

I really shouldnt blame that to Guerlain coz its my faulty mistake.

I am a recent owner of the second generation apple tv. (Multiple "apple tv" references throughout)

Biogesic is common name when it comes to paracetamol. I think everybody knows Biogesic.

Every since I was a small child, I have suffered from seasonal allergies.

Misspellings, poor grammar, not capitalized brand names. All of these are featured on the FRONT PAGE. All of these articles were accepted. All of these examples (and thousands more, just check out the site) were deemed acceptable. The fact that within two minutes, I found 10 spelling errors just with a glance is enough to see that this site buys based on quantity of words, not quality. All of these reviews were very, very, very long. However, whereas I was told they "don't just buy words," most of these reviews say nothing. Half of them have lines that have to be read two or three times before you can even understand what the writer is saying. Instead of cutting out the fluff and leaving a reader with substance, this site obviously thrives on accepting long, rambling reviews that say a whole lot of nothing. Further research seems to indicate that anything under a certain word count is automatically rejected, but nowhere on this hot mess of a site is that outlined. Instead, you get poorly written feedback from someone critiquing your writing who can't even write two sentences that make a bit of sense.

In any case, this site is one that you should not even bother to use. Read their front page reviews, and you'll see the poor quality, assuming you can navigate through the sloppy, amateur layout. Save your good reviews for using to help other users on Amazon or whatnot. Sure, you won't get paid, but at least you'll be writing for a reputable site that values quality reviews, not hundreds of words of sloppy ones.

ReviewStream.com
ReviewStream allows users to earn money by writing reviews about anything they desire, including homes appliances, toys, companies, hotels, politics, cities, stores on your street, or even your neighbor's pets. ReviewStream will pay $2.50 per accepted review. Many join ReviewStream, reasoning that as they already review for Yelp, they might as well get paid for it instead.

Well that's not quite how it works. Reviews first have to be approved, and when they are not approved users will never learn why. Instead users are directed to a page that states, in capital letters, "Your review is not valuable, we are not interested in it." After much searching on line, you'll uncover testimonials from previous users revealing that this is ReviewStream's way of refusing any reviews that fall under two hundred and fifty words. This may be the case, but nowhere on the site does ReviewStream state that reviews are subject to a minimum number of words.

Reviews may also be partially approved, in a system called "bulk reviews", whereby users get paid "the bulk rate" of one fifth of the going rate (fifty cents) for a review that is considered mediocre, but not bad enough to dump entirely. ReviewStream encourages users to include personal opinions in their reviews, but what eventually leads them to accept, partially accept or totally reject a review remains a mystery.

The cash out threshold is fifty dollars and many reviewers complain that, since most reviews are only accepted at the bulk rate of fifty cents, they may have to write up to one hundred reviews before reaching that cash out. Many users have also complained about not being paid and being met with unusually aggressive responses from staff when attempting to chase up their dues.

The other complaint is that although ReviewStream claims to respond to submissions within seventy two hours, they will more often than not take considerably longer before letting users know whether they plan to accept or reject their work.

Finally, looking at their Whois records, it appears that ReviewStream is hiding their real address by using a US proxy to register under a US address. Yet a brief email exchange with the ReviewStream staff and their poor grasp of the English language, will raise the question, where in the world is this site really based?

In conclusion, ReviewStream does not inspire trust, their business practices are questionable and user complaints are practically viral on the internet.