Comments on: Do Yahoo Personal Finance Questions and Answers Give Good Advice? (Example – Credit Card Debt)

By: July Bucks

July Bucks — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:46:13 +0000

That’s true. The thing is, such situation seems to be okay in categories like entertainment where people reveal their thoughts and ideas, but not in business and finance.
Anyway the idea of the service is great, sometimes it really helps finding quick answers which don’t need any proofs

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:56:52 +0000

July Bucks,

I agree. It’s unfortunate, because sometimes the answers can not only be incorrect, but they may also give harmful advice. The “community is supposed to police this, but I don’t think enough people stick around long enough to do that. So the answer that “sounds the best” gets voted up, whether or not it is the most correct answer.

By: July Bucks

July Bucks — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:41:39 +0000

Well, I must confess that I don’t like Yahoo Personal Finance Q&A much. Mostly the answers are not moderated the way they should be. Yahoo Q&A seem to be really quick and easy but I guess, people who don’t know much about this or that financial issue can be easily confused with such answers.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:33:15 +0000

Traciatim, great comment!

Unfortunately, Yahoo rotates these Q&As so it will be hard to find the original Q&A and the other answers. Some of the responses were much worse.

I agree, the term ‘banker’ lends credibility to the response. (Notice the person did not refer to their personal financial advisor, who would have recommended not carrying a balance!)

By: Traciatim

Traciatim — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:12:53 +0000

It’s kind of funny that you should post on this. As I was going through a couple of the “Yahoo Financial Experts” I saw an Ad that included the exact same question. I was almost disgusted that their banker (pronounced: sales rep) would recommend such a thing. It makes the answer look almost acceptable that the ‘banker’ recommended this.

I didn’t find the original question to read all the answers, but shouldn’t the ‘banker’ be looking out for the person and be recommending not carrying a balance?

I suppose that would be against bank policy, we don’t want just every Dick and Jane walking around financially stable, that would not be profitable.