Ciao is closing down

Well, it finally happened. After months of massive cheating, plagiarism and what-have-yous from so many dishonest members, Ciao has finally thrown in the towel. I'm glad I have stopped writing reviews for that site two months ago when they perfunctorily banned members from whole countries, the Philippines included.

What's ironic is that, from what I kept hearing from my US and UK-based friends who were still active at Ciao, the "solution" didn't work as the cheating continued. What rankles most is that we honest members were the ones who suffered most -- we who spent half of our time logged in to Ciao reporting copied or nonsense reviews!

Well, all good things do come to an end. Too bad Ciao didn't even see fit to try out the sensible suggestions of honest members on how they can improve the site before totally deciding it's over.

It Finally Happened ...

... Ciao.com looks like it has closed its doors to community members from certain countries, the Philippines included.

For two days now, I haven't been able to log in nor check my account there. And yet I still keep getting email alerts when people comment on my reviews.

I hope Ciao is just cleaning up the system of the thousands of plagiarists who have been abusing the site for months now. The sad part is that even we, honest members, were affected with the drastic measures taken.

Here's hoping Ciao could find a better system that works so that cheaters can be eliminated fast without sacrificing the hard work and genuine efforts that the honest members are putting on our reviews.

For Reviews -- I'm sticking to Ciao from now on

Okay, I THOUGHT ReviewStream was a good site. No more. I emailed them with a polite question and got a very rude reply. When I tried explaining more (since they don't seem to understand English much) I was given more rude answers that made me think I was talking to someone aged 5 or under. Goodness, my youngest son can converse better than that!!! I can now understand why there are many articles all over the internet complaining about this website. Just google "Reviewstream rude" and you'll get your references.

I don't care about the first few dollars I earned there. They can keep it for themselves. I won't spend my precious Internet time anymore trying to reach $50 just to cash out.

I'm still sticking to Ciao though. They have paid me twice and I'm expecting a third payment in 2 weeks' time. I prefer to belong somewhere that has specific rules and guidelines to follow.