Saturday, July 6, 2013

Fake One Star Reviews? (Part 5 of 5 Posts)

For the first post in this blog series, click here.

60shward seemed to disappear from the KDP form for the rest of 2012, yet he crawled out from under his rock and reemerged there in 2013, making a few posts. He even republished his book, yet gave it a new name.

Then in March of 2013 I received a scathing two-star review from a Loraine on The Senator’s Secret. I didn’t immediately discount what she had said. After all, I feel writers should learn from reviews. 

But once I started looking closer at this reviewer – checking out her other reviews so I could get familiar with her tastes – something look oddly familiar. And then I saw it, the tag left on my Sallie Holt book. This was the same account as the malicious tagger from 2012 – just with a new name and a new profile pic. I even posted about it on my other forum.I suspect that profile picture is actually of some poor unsuspecting lady sitting at a restaurant, that 60shward captured with his cellphone camera.

Miraculously the nasty review disappeared a day or so later. I wasn’t sure why, but I was glad to have it gone. But then it reappeared again in June – this time with one star and slightly different verbiage,  yet with the same date as the first review. Not really sure what was going on between March and June.

Obviously 60shward must have some obsession with me to leave a fake review over six months after our incident – and then to return several months later and give me a second fake review.

So folks, don’t just take those five star reviews with a lump of salt - those one star reviews might also be fakes. Lots of nutjobs out there.

Since all of this happened, I am fairly certain I have the guy's real name. And so does Amazon. Which actually makes me more annoyed with Amazon, than with the malicious reviewer, because they've allowed this to nonsense to continue. The moment we informed them of the tags, they should have removed them, as they do reviews they suspect are family members just because the reviewer's surname is the same as the authors.
  

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for doing all the digging on this guy. You are right. If you go to his first book you'll see that he thanked a reviewer as Lorraine. I started leaving comments on some of his torpedo reviews, addressing him as Stephen. He's since deleted about twenty of his reviews, including the one he left on my book. Thanks again.
    Adam Moon

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  2. I just peeked at my Amazon reviews, and I see he removed his one star from my book. Of course, that happened the first round, and then he put it back. I am curious - did he remove them, or did Amazon? Hopefully he will find another - more constructive hobby, than leaving fake reviews. Good luck with your writing, Adam!

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  3. I think he took them down. I tested the waters about a week ago by responding to two reviews. He took those down so then I did the same to about a dozen other books, including yours. Those are all gone now. I think he gets a perverse pleasure from the reviews but you turned the tables when you outed him. Thank you for that.

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  4. Sorry I missed what you said on my book! When he deleted his comment, yours went with it.

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