fake reviews

Amazon Has an Absurdly Inconsistent Review Policy

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This post by Nate Hoffelder originally appeared on The Digital Reader on November 2, 2015.

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Amazon won’t allow paid book reviews, and they won’t let you review your friend’s books, but as the Seattle Times tells us, anything else goes.

Jay Greene brings us the sad tale of conspiracy nuts running rampant in the review sections at Amazon.com.

Most book authors know they need to endure critics, even comments that may be malicious and personal.

But the venom that runs through more than three dozen reviews on Amazon.com of Scarlett Lewis’ latest book are particularly scathing.

 “This Scarlet Lewis person is a real sick human being,” writes one reviewer named Kevin. “Scarlett Lewis is a fraud and a sellout to all of humanity,” writes another, anonymously. “Scarlett Lewis is a lying traitor,” writes a reviewer named David Weiss.Those reviews might suggest that Lewis is a polemic politician, treasonous spy or scurrilous financier. She’s none of these. Lewis is the mother of Jesse Lewis, a 6-year-old boy who was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School three years ago.

She wrote “Nurturing Healing Love: A Mother’s Journey of Hope and Forgiveness” to describe her journey after the massacre and help others choose love and forgiveness instead of anger and resentment in their darkest moments.

The reviewers cited above were inspired to post bogus reviews by their belief that Sandy Hook was a hoax, but not all review spammers share that motivation nor is this problem unique to Amazon.

Read the full post on The Digital Reader.

Amazon Sues Over 1,000 Freelancers For Writing Fake Reviews

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This article by Mari Jo Valero originally appeared on the Fox23.com site on 10/18/15.

Amazon.com is fighting fake reviewers with a lawsuit against more than 1,000 people.

The lawsuit, filed Friday, targets freelancers working for Fiverr, an online website that offers services like video editing and graphic design for cheap.

As for the name of the defendants? Well, Amazon doesn’t really know. They’re all listed as John Does in the suit.

And instead of cheap services, Amazon claims these John Does are deceptively selling online reviews for as little as $5.

The company says it’s suing the individuals for “tarnishing Amazon’s brand for their own profit and the profit of a handful of dishonest sellers and manufacturers.”

 

Read the full article on Fox23.com.

Amazon Sues To Block Fake Reviews On Its Site

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This article by Jay Greene originally appeared on The Seattle Times on 4/8/15.

Amazon.com sued three websites it accuses of purveying fake reviews, demanding that they stop the practice.

The suit alleges that the glowing product evaluations they provide deceive consumers and harm the sellers on Amazon’s site who don’t game the system.

The suit, filed Wednesday in King County Superior Court, accuses Jay Gentile of California and websites that operate as buyamazonreviews.com and buyazonreviews.com, among others, of trademark infringement, false advertising and violations of the Anticyber­squatting Consumer Protection Act and the Washington Consumer Protection Act.

“While small in number, these reviews threaten to undermine the trust that customers, and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers, place in Amazon, thereby tarnishing Amazon’s brand,” according to the suit.

The site buyazonreviews.com, which the suit claims is run by Gentile, didn’t respond to a request for comment. But Mark Collins, the owner of buyamazonreviews.com, denied Amazon’s claims.

 

Read the full article on The Seattle Times.

 

Prose and Cons: A Plagiarist Faces the Judge

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This post by John Doppler originally appeared on The John Doppler Effect on 9/2/14.

To an author, there are few crimes more heinous than plagiarism. Every author knows the agony of the untold story, the grueling birth of a novel, the joy of finally bringing that creation into the world and holding it up for all to see.

Having that joy stolen from you is an unspeakable cruelty.

That’s why Rachel Ann Nunes’ plight has struck a chord with so many authors. Rachel’s novel, A Bid for Love, was stolen, mutilated, and repackaged as a sloppy knock-off titled The Auction Deal.

Rachel’s work has already hit #1 on the Amazon bestseller lists for Christian fiction, but the plagiarist believed she could improve it by injecting explicit sex scenes into the work. She then offered the book for sale under her pen name, Sam Taylor Mullens, and pretended that it was her own, original creation.

The plagiarist tried to take credit for Rachel’s inventiveness, hard work, and perseverance. It was a cowardly act, but it paled in comparison to what followed.

 

An impersonal crime becomes personal

It’s said that character is what you do when nobody is looking. Mullens felt invisible and untouchable behind her pseudonym, and her true character was quickly revealed.

First, she attempted to deflect criticism by offering a bewildering series of lies: that she had permission to use the work; that the work had been given to her by a mysterious, nameless man who later died in a car crash; that she was the niece of the CEO of Rachel’s publisher; and that she had collaborated with Rachel to write the book.

When those flimsy lies failed to stand up to scrutiny, she turned to a campaign of harassment and vicious libel against Rachel.

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes more details on how the plagiarist was caught, what charges she’s facing, and how other authors can help the case, on The John Doppler Effect.