Best Buy decided to take down over a hundred reviews on the Huawei Mate 10 Pro on its website, as they confused customers because the smartphone will not be released in the United States until Feb. 18.
Huawei has not had a good year so far, and the Mate 10 Pro review fiasco just adds to its list of issues. What exactly happened, and how will it affect the upcoming smartphone and the company?
Huawei Mate 10 Pro Fake Reviews On Best Buy: How Did That Happen?
On Best Buy, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro started receiving a slew of positive reviews. The glowing reviews were not the problem, though, as the Mate 10 Pro is a very capable device. The problem was the presence of the reviews in the first place. The Huawei Mate 10 Pro will not be launched in the United States until Feb. 18, so how did these people get their hands on the smartphone and post a review on it?
It appears to be a ploy to the Mate 10 Pro's Best Buy scores with fake reviews, but according to Huawei, that is not the case. The company, on the official Huawei Mobile Facebook page, launched a "beta test recruitment" contest that required participants to reveal why they want to own the Mate 10 Pro. The answers were supposed to be posted in the review section of the Mate 10 Pro preorder page on Best Buy. In a later post, Huawei said that it has chosen nine participants to become beta testers, the details on which are unclear. It can be presumed, however, that the beta testers were given Mate 10 Pro units.
Huawei later explained that everything was a misunderstanding and that the company was not trying to exchange positive Mate 10 Pro reviews for monetary rewards. It remains unclear, however, if this was just a promotion that went awry or a shady marketing attempt that was discovered.
Best Buy, meanwhile, understandably took action with the bogus reviews. As of the time of writing, all of them have already been taken down from the Best Buy preorder page of the Mate 10 Pro.
"Reviews on our site are important to customers as they research and shop for tech, but the comments have to be trusted and legitimate," said Best Buy in a statement. "These were not, so they have been removed."
Huawei Having Trouble In The US
The fake reviews fiasco adds to the issues surrounding the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, which is unfortunate because the smartphone is a pretty decent device.
Early this year, the deal for AT&T to sell the Mate 10 Pro did not push through, prompting Huawei CEO Richard Yu to go off-script onstage at CES 2018 to slam carriers in the United States. That, however, did not deter Verizon from pulling out too in selling the Mate 10 Pro.
With the Mate 10 Pro fake reviews on Best Buy, it remains to be seen whether this will push customers even further from Huawei or if it will generate interest in the upcoming smartphone.
