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.

  

Fake One Star Reviews? (Part 4 of 5 Posts)

For the first post in this series, click here.

One great thing about the KDP forum, we can search for words and find them in old posts. I did a search for Batarang and found one where the user, an author the with the forum name 60shward was letting another writer in the forum know he’d left him a good review. (That review, by the way, seems to have been taken down.)

I’ve captured the screenshot, because our malicious tagger could easily go into his old post and delete that message, something that he hasn’t done as of July 2, 2013 – when I took the above screen shot.

At this point I now understood he was a malicious tagger – because it was 60shward who I apparently offended by my fateful post.

From that point, KDP regulars knew who the poster was – we even knew his real name, which I won’t post at this time, but might in the future if he continues to be a pain in the butt. The forum was in an uproar, considering he’d played nice on the forum with some authors, while leaving nasty tags on their books behind their backs. In a flash he “unpublished his book” and then disappeared.

But he didn’t disappear forever….more tomorrow.

Fake One Star Reviews? (Part 3 of 5 Posts)

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

At the time I asked the question about who added the tag – I didn’t realize there was a way to follow tags and find out who left it. Apparently, the malicious tagger wasn’t aware of this either.

Another writer at the KDP was more savvy than me and my nemesis, and quickly uncovered the culprit. Back then, he was using Batarang Wally for that account, not Loraine.

He’d also been pretty active – leaving malicious and nasty tags on other books by authors who frequented the forum.  One such tag was left on Marti Talbott’s book Marblestone Manson. Marti was a frequent poster at KDP.  He tagged her book: author that misuses adverbs, abortion. I happen to have read that book, and there was not an abortion in it. Marti prides herself in writing clean historical romances. The tag was obviously left with malicious intent – as were other tags, left on other books by authors who frequented the KDP forum.

So how did we figure out the author behind the Batarang Wally user name? I’ll tell you tomorrow.

Fake One Star Reviews? (Part 2 of 5 Posts)

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

As some of you know, Anna J. McIntyre is a pen name I use when writing romance and mystery. Anna is for my middle name; J is my middle initial, and McIntyre is a surname of one of my great-grandmothers.

I’ve also written a short story – American Bondage – under the pen name, Sallie Holt. Sallie Holt was my father’s paternal grandmother, who died in her early twenties after having four children, and at least two other pregnancies, with the last one resulting in her death.

American Bondage is somewhat controversial, and deals with the subject of abortion in a world where it is illegal under all circumstances. Not wanting to mix politics and controversial subject matter with my McIntyre pen name, I borrowed my great-grandmother’s name.

I mentioned this in the KDP forum, and told them to keep my secret. Obviously I was being flip, because anyone can read the forum and there are no secrets there. Shortly after publishing the story on Amazon, someone tagged it with my real name: Bobbi Holmes.

I don’t believe you will find tags on Amazon these days – it is something they phased out a while back. But it used to be that readers could tag books, to help other readers find books they wanted to read. For example, if a book was about poodles, readers could give the book the tag “poodle” – sort of like how hashmarks work.

I was a little startled to find my real name as a tag on American Bondage’s product page over on Amazon, so I asked in the forum who added it. At the time I was mildly amused, and I assumed it was someone who was just being a smart ass, and didn’t really think it was done for malicious purposes.

Boy, was I wrong.  I’ll explain more tomorrow.

Fake One Star Reviews? (Part 1 of 5 Posts)

We all hear about those fake five-star reviews, where authors write or get friends or family to write positive reviews. Readers are naturally skeptical of five star reviews, taking what they say about the book with a hefty dose of salt.

But what about nasty one star reviews? Are readers as skeptical about those? If you aren’t, you should be.  I have a nasty one star review on The Senator’s Secret. I know who wrote the review. I know he didn’t read the book. I know he is a he, in spite of the fact the review appears to be written by a woman. I also know I pissed him off in the KDP publisher forum – where he was shamefully promoting his book, aka spamming. Yes, he is another author.

I used to regularly post in Amazon’s KDP forum. It is a place to share information on self-publishing - not a place to pitch your book. Unfortunately, lots of folks troll the boards hawking their wares.

The post that got me in trouble – and earned me my one star review was:

We all understand your excitement at publishing your book. Yet, I think you have a misunderstanding of the KDP forum.  We are your fellow indies. While some of us might someday buy your book, this forum is not comprised of your customer base. This forum is a great resource for Indies – a place where we can share information, learn from others, and connect with others who self-publish. There are thousands of us. Can you imagine how useless this forum would be if everyone continually spammed threads about their books? 

I’ll tell you tomorrow a little more on how I know the writer I directed this post to is the same one who wrote the one star review.
(Click here for part 2)