Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

After purchasing, company sent "we'll give you a free X if you review our product on amazon" = skewed reviews. It works fine I guess. You have to kick it, wait for it to autocalibrate before using. edit: After posting this comment the next morning received a message on my answering machine discouraging me for making THIS REVIEW. Apparently the 3 sentences above is a "real negative review". The message said in summary: we're a family owned business, this review is hurting us, your review is unfair, offering something in exchange for reviews is a practice they stopped awhile back and, 'we can make it right if you are upset with the product'. Basically I posted a comment and they used my personal info to give me home phone call scolding me for posting a negative comment. A simple "we want to make things right" message would have been respectable but they stated things in a very personal and intimidating way. I don't want to be worried about getting a phone call every review I make in the case the company doesn't like my views. In disclosure, I made this purchase June 23 09. I went back to review products I hadn't reviewed that I had for awhile. On June 27 it shipped and on July 6 I received an email. subject: Amazon.com Review Request - **FREE Book Offer** EatSmart Customer, Thanks again for ordering the EatSmart Bathroom Scale through Amazon.com! We hope you are happy with your purchase and making smarter food choices for a healthier lifestyle. For a limited time, if you place your review on Amazon we will send you a CalorieKing Food and Exercise Journal completely free of charge (see details below). The Offer: For a limited time receive a FREE CalorieKing 2009 Food & Exercise Journal for submitting your review of the EatSmart Bathroom Scale. This book is the perfect way to hold yourself accountable to a diet or exercise plan! Step 1: Write your review of the product here. Simply click on "Create your own review" button and follow the instruction. This is your assessment of the overall quality of the product and comments for the Amazon community. Please remember once feedback is submitted it cannot be changed. Step 2: Email X with your mailing address and we will get the book in the mail to you right away! Thanks for your patronage! I believe this to be a deceptive practice because: after only a few days of having the product the consumer is encouraged to make a review, words like "for a limited time" add to the sense of urgency and it offers something in exchange for the review, well targeted to the demographic, intentionally creating a bias. I buy things based on the reviews usually and after purchasing I realize why this product had so many rave reviews. Had it not I would have more carefully shopped around. At the time of receiving their review-for-free-stuff email there were about 450+ reviews. If they did stop this practice it doesn't change my review because I find the practice, and its residual effects deceptive and unfair. I'm sure there's a lot of family owned business and one of them could be competing with eatsmart in the search results without this unfair advantage. In all honesty the scale woks fine, it's definitely a scale, and I wouldn't have written so much about a relatively normal priced normal scale if they wouldn't have personally called me. I take strong offense knowing that my reviews are NOT anonymous and the manufacturer has all my contact information, and can specifically associate it to the negative reviews, despite having purchased this long ago. That is amazon's fault to be fair however it is a wakeup call. To have my personal information used to strongly encourage me to remove my comment is more than a little upsetting. If the answering machine message was just something like, "If you are unhappy with our product please let us know and we'll try to make things right" it would have been more respectable. However they added to that, in effect, "your comment is hurting us, especially in christmas time, we're family owned" leaves a disgusting feeling. You can't guilt trip customers for their reviews. This encourages users that purchased directly from amazon to be intimidated next time they want to review honestly. This left me very uncomfortable and upset. If by 'hurting' this company I let consumers know that the quantity of reviews and high ratings for this product are misleading and may not indicate this is the best scale on amazon, then I am accomplishing something positive, consumer protection, which is what reviewing is all about.