Crack down on rave reviews…what about fake one stars?

CNN recently ran an article about the crackdown of fake business reviews. While I’m all for protecting the consumer, what about protecting the business from fake slam reviews written by competitors or someone with a grudge?

One of my friends recently told me about one of his friends who had to go after a customer for bounced checks. The customer retaliated by bombing the business with fake negative reviews.

Amazon has its own crackdown on suspicious five star reviews, which they remove. But what about the suspicious one stars? Some bloggers, obsessed with ridding the world of potentially false five star reviews, believe reviews by anyone the author knows is suspect.  In some ways Amazon believes that too, because they have been known to remove five star reviews if they suspect the author and reviewer have a connection.

Of course, that is not necessarily true for negative reviews left by a person who has a connection to the author. Case in point – one of my author friends belongs to a writing group and one of her “friends” from the group left a review – but not a very nice one. I suspect that reviewer a personal issue with the author, because what type of reviewer leave his friend a bad review? 

If I read a friend’s book and I don’t like it, I simply don’t review it. While I might tell the author in private what I thought the problem was with the book, I would not do it on a public forum. In my opinion, a friend does not do that. Yet, don’t misunderstand me – I would not leave a friend a fake good review.  That helps no one, and if someone happens to follow my reviews, how would he be able to trust me if handed out careless five stars.

But what do I think about authors buying reviews? Ask me that question tomorrow.

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 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)