I’m with you. I look for the total ratings (of course many reviews give me more comfort) and the number of 5 star ratings compared to low ratings. I will often read many of the ratings; especially, the low ratings. Often, I see that their expectations were unreasonable or something similar.
Have had to become wary of "star ratings" on some sites. Learned that some are created by internet "bots" to either pump up a product, or down grade a product. Some by competitors and some by the selling company.
Roger,
It’s getting harder and harder to find honest companies with legitimate raters. I’ve taken to only using major companies like Amazon that have proven to have a good return policy. Also, buying direct from big name manufacturers is a good idea. I don’t generally buy from any source that comes seeking my business instead of me seeking them. I haven’t been stung yet and hope to keep it that way.
I like to read a lot of the individual reviews. I am very wary of the reviewers who didn’t follow instructions or had unreasonable expectations or give a one because it happened to get broken in shipping. Let’s face it, there are a lot of stupid people out there. I look for a high percentage of 5s. One of the issues I have is when they lump together a bunch of similar items to the one I’m looking at. I don’t really want to know if all the different iterations of a product are good or bad, just the specific one I’m interested in. I could go on and on. Never been a time when caveat emptor better applied.