Blended Ratings

I was about to leave a one-star review on apartments.com for an apartment complex that ripped me off, and I was not alone as someone beat me to it, yet somehow the final rating is 4.9 out of 5, even though the average review rating is 1.0 (and would have been reinforced if my review submission hadn’t errored out).

Supposedly, they have a “blended” rating system that incorporates other aspects of the property.

Like maybe having doors gets you an automatic two stars at least? I suspect one of those unlisted aspects is some kind of kickback from the property (similar to how some restaurant owners have told me Yelp will call up to push their business membership and hint “nice reviews you got there, shame if something would happen to them”).

It also reminds me of how LinkedIn recruiter spam was accompanied by five-star ratings, which if you dug into the fine print, just indicated that some people replied to that spam.

I’m guessing my review submission didn’t error out due to technical problems.