I Am So Disappointed with Ciao!!!!!!!
@wondericequeen (7876)
Hong Kong
December 5, 2008 9:00pm CST
So the 0.25 per review is gone? I logged in today only to find the below message:
"We’ve been slowly changing over to a new, better money-earning system on Ciao, and we’re almost done! We have now completely replaced the earning-per-review plan, and we have launched our Premium Fund as well as increased the payout for our Current Issue section. It now includes a $10 first place and $5 second place prize. We will be introducing more incentives later, and we will keep you up-to-date with these changes.
Although the $0.25 per review incentive is gone, we think you’ll be very happy to learn about one of the new features, our Premium Fund. We’ll be distributing $2,000 USD to the writers of the best reviews on Ciao each month – about 800 reviews will be considered. Only opinions written in the previous month will be eligible. The first batch of reviews to be considered will be from this past November. The five best reviews will receive $20 each, and a diamond symbol will appear next to the review title.
We hope you enjoy our new system, and we hope to see more of your reviews in our community!"
I have to admit that I am disappointed, I am not sure how the new system works but it sounds like to me that it seems to be a competition of some sort. So even if you work hard, you don't get paid $0.25 per review anymore?
4 people like this
18 responses
@mariefe18 (663)
• Philippines
6 Dec 08
i just opened my laptop and opened ciao and mylot, i saw all of the posts regarding ciao and i immediately went to the members center... great... i'm really frustrated also yesterday i have more than $5 then when they updated the stats it went down to $4 and I was wonderiung why and now i have read that the 25 cents per review is gone and the minimum payout is $10... i don't think i'll be writing more reviews there, i'll try my luck on other review sites like review streams since i was able to submit 2 reviews there.
i am also a member of dooyoo, unfortunately i'm not from the UK so i'm just entitled for an amazon gift card, it would be better if they would also pay international members. as for sponsored reviews i am still new to the site and i think it requires that your reviews get voted to be able to be a part of the revenue sharing...
1 person likes this
@wondericequeen (7876)
• Hong Kong
7 Dec 08
Oh so the minimum payout is now $10? I am having a heart attack! *laughs* I feel bad since I really enjoyed that site too! Hopefully they could rethink the system.
@mariefe18 (663)
• Philippines
6 Dec 08
thanks avinash but i relly feel bad. remember you're my downline there? i introduced you to ciao hoping that we all can earn a little bucks from there but sad to say they changed the payment plan in just a few days. its very unlucky of us and i know you're disappointed too. isn't it?
1 person likes this
@owelm0408 (1011)
• Philippines
6 Dec 08
i guess this is due to some abuses of ciao members themselves.Some are just posting and posting the specs of the product and not the experience, thinking that they will earn more. I'm a member at ciao also, but for now, i can't conclude yet. I have to see my earnings update later. I guess this is a bad news for abusers.
@wondericequeen (7876)
• Hong Kong
6 Dec 08
I saw those too but I think they should have other rules. It's hard to rate on personal experience to be the "best" review, that's rather subjective.
1 person likes this
@owelm0408 (1011)
• Philippines
6 Dec 08
yah i understand your point.anyway, we can't do anything with the policy I think.Its ciao's policy.All we need is to comply that is if we still interested...But for now, let's wait and see.
1 person likes this
@aseretdd (13730)
• Philippines
6 Dec 08
I just read the message... and was quite shocked because i was also enjoying that .25 cents... and was really taking my time in reviewing products... i did not go on a review spree because i really wanted to write quality ones... but now that they removed the incentive... i don't know how else to earn without that competing with other members...
Well, my policy as of now is wait and see... i will still write reviews... and try to get to the next community level...
1 person likes this
@writermom8 (913)
• Philippines
6 Dec 08
Yeah, it's quite shocking to find out about this today. I guess Ciao did that to weed out the bad reviewers. There have been too many members lately who simply copy products features from other sites then add a sentence or two at the end why they like it. Some even have the audacity to copy verbatim customers' reviews from official product sites! I've seen that happen and it's so disappointing.
These people, who were just out to make a quick buck, are the ones who made Ciao up its standards :( It's not fair for the honest members but at least the copycats might be discouraged to spend time plagiarizing other people's works if they won't be compensated for them anymore.
I still can't say if this is a good thing or not. But being one of those who do my reviews honestly and based on my personal experiences, I just hope that one of my reviews will be considered good enough for that premium fund. Although it's kinda vague how they are going to find the "best" ones. If they're gonna base it on ratings, gosh, that won't be fair. Some people don't even read reviews but rate them high as long as the reviewer gave them a good rating earlier. Sucks :(
@wondericequeen (7876)
• Hong Kong
7 Dec 08
That's right, the new system is kind of vague and I am not sure how they would choose the "good reviews" for the Premium fund.
@Purtle (274)
• United States
6 Dec 08
I don't like this at all. It will be nearly impossible to get money from this system. Which is why Ciao probably did it.
I'm hoping i'll reach payout by the end of the month, after that unless they change it I probably won't do anymore reviews. I'm at like 4.75$ So i only needed one more review. Now I'm going to be stuck there!
1 person likes this
@gogetakame (48)
• United States
6 Dec 08
Wow... I have been a member of Ciao for about two days. I joined when the $0.25 per review was going on. I didn't even know that they had just changed it to this. That would explain why I wasn't credited for any of my reviews. Yeah, I'm guessing that you don't get paid $0.25 per review anymore which really sucks. The only way to make money now is to have the best review which is definitely going to be hard for a lot of us. That sucks...
1 person likes this
@wondericequeen (7876)
• Hong Kong
6 Dec 08
That's simply frustrating. I joined that 1 week ago and was having fun with the 0.25 per review!
@youless (112108)
• Guangzhou, China
6 Dec 08
What a bad news! Actually I felt quite confused to the earning rules of Ciao. Although it lists how much you earn for each items. Perhaps I have written about 56 reviews now, the earning is OK but I calculated that it's not USD0.25 for per review. In fact this Ciao message is confusing. I hope it can write clearly. If there is no USD0.25 for per review, just say so. But it seems that the FAQ still lists USD0.25 for per review? It's so confusing. Today I will check my earning update of Ciao. I think it's not fair that only the best reviews can be paid. As some topics will have more comments whereas some don't even have an attention. Besides, who knows whether someone already arranged the winner and nobody knows it. And it's also not fair to the new members as they have no more friends and therefore no more people to support their reviews. This is an unreasonable change.
I love China
@wondericequeen (7876)
• Hong Kong
7 Dec 08
True, that was an unreasonable change and I was disappointed yesterday. I immediately cashout out my $7.15 earnings yesterday when I read the new system. Just now I went in and I still have an account balance of $2.18, so now I don't really understand it, does that $2.xx come from people reading and rating my reviews? I am totally confused right now but I guess I will check into the site once in awhile to check things out, I really enjoyed it there!
@drannhh (15219)
• United States
6 Dec 08
Oh, no, that is really awful. I would feel so cheated even if I had just started there. Yes it is just like Helium then, waiting until we get almost to our first payout and then changing the rules. I sure hope Triond and AC stay honest. They are still my favorites with Triond at the top of the list.
1 person likes this
@wondericequeen (7876)
• Hong Kong
6 Dec 08
What's worst is I started to love the ciao site and was waiting to get on everyday. Now I feel like I am breaking up with the site *laughs*.
@katemeow (847)
• Singapore
6 Dec 08
hmm, this is interesting! but when you look at it you'll have a chance of actually earning more than the usual 0.25 :) i guess people will be more competitive now with their reviews to get the premium fund reward. good luck to you and hope you get it :)
@chiaeugene (2225)
• China
6 Dec 08
that is not a good idea as we know competition is very stiff in CIAO and also there are so many products to write about and pp write for different products. how are they going to select the winner or 800 reviews. whether a review is good or excellent is subjective and depends on the person who rated them so i dun think that it would be a fair person and i think it will only discourages a lot of members from being active there. i dun think i would too since i never know if my reviews would be selected. every min, there are few reviews being written and post and in each month there are hundred of thousands or millions of review being posted so how are they going to select the 800 which is extremely difficult and how are they going to ensure transparency, this is another problem
1 person likes this
@wondericequeen (7876)
• Hong Kong
6 Dec 08
That's exactly what I am thinking about! A review is very subjective, how could one says it's the best? Well, anyway. I am disappointed with the new system which is definitely not better!
1 person likes this
@mokbul (616)
• Singapore
6 Dec 08
Seem that Ciao is making lots changes to improve the quality of the review, it is likely one of the steps. Many witting over 20 reviews in one day may likely be badly hurt by these rules but for those writing one or two in a day may not be affected very much, if the postings are not bad enough
Probably administrate taking this stem to mark up quality of reviews and rewards to good writers for encouragement
1 person likes this
@wondericequeen (7876)
• Hong Kong
6 Dec 08
But then real consumers who don't write professionally don't get to be rewarded. *sighs* I understand their changes but I can't help being disappointed.
@rberon1985 (5359)
• Philippines
6 Dec 08
I also read the policy about it and i was really disappointed. With in this case, they will lose a lot of members, they will just based the payment if you have been chosen as teh best reviewer. what if you are not been chosen, what will happen to your review. its just like you write for nothing.
@wondericequeen (7876)
• Hong Kong
6 Dec 08
I know and how ridiculous would that be, writing to contribute to someone's else earnings!
@alyssakenzie (462)
• United States
6 Dec 08
Hopefully the new premium fund will be good but I guess we will have to wait and see. Otherwise you won't make much unless you can get a lot of rates from other members which here lately their hasn't been as much rating going on as there used to be. I guess we can only wait and see how it all goes.
1 person likes this
@wondericequeen (7876)
• Hong Kong
6 Dec 08
I guess I will keep an eye on other mylotters' comments on the site before I am active there again. I think many ciao members will disappear.
@theembittered (1025)
• United States
6 Dec 08
wow really? Recently I joined ciao because people spoke of the many good gains leaving but it is a pity that I could only earn $ 0.53 cents in two days of knowing it would have put many messages lol! Yesterday I put five messages and only win $ 0.23 cents which left me thinking wow what I did wrong! but I see that they changed their forms of payment, was so bad because i was think this a good place to earn some money! Well have a nice day and hope you will have a very good week ;) see you soon and bye bye.
1 person likes this
@wondericequeen (7876)
• Hong Kong
6 Dec 08
Right I thought it was a very good place to earn some money too, and now that's gone as well.
@unusualsuspect (2602)
• United States
6 Dec 08
It looks as if Ciao has taken a lesson from the retail world--make it sound as if they're offering you something bigger and better, while they're making the box smaller and charging more. Basically, they're going to try to be more profitable by cutting out the weak writers. They keep them hanging on, hoping to compete for the big payouts, but most writers will really be giving their content away. They have $2,000. to distribute, and are going to consider only the top 800 reviews. So how many are really going to get paid anything at all? Darned few. This is a sucker punch, and anyone who falls for it is just wasting their time. If you know that youe work always rates high, it might be worth staying on, but newbies and anyone with lower ratings might just as well quit now, which is exactly what Ciao wants.
@alyssakenzie (462)
• United States
6 Dec 08
Hopefully this new premium fund will be good for us in the long run. If you get a lot of member ratings then you can still make a decent amount of money but lately a lot of people have not been rating near as much as they used to. I guess we will all just have to wait and see but I am sure it will all work out.
1 person likes this
