Amazon Deleting Reviews

I am not sure Einstein could figure out how Amazon operates anymore.

As to the threat to remove your book, that is the first time I have heard that one about an Amazon response. They generally have a very generic response they send out about why they do this or that...

Good luck on this...

I've noticed this too. A reader submitted a review of one of my romance novels and the review was never posted; another reader posted a review of my self-published romance short, which was there until today, when it mysteriously vanished.

I just checked my book--I now have one less review.

thothguard51 said:

I am not sure Einstein could figure out how Amazon operates anymore.

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They seem to have forgotten that customers ultimately have the last word. I'm beginning to hear stories of customers who have had their accounts closed forever for minor violations of the terms of service, which no one reads anyway.

In one case, the person lived in the UK and bought a book from the Norway version of Amazon. Her account was closed and she was told that she would never, ever be allowed to open another account. This was the same person that had their Kindle wiped clean by remote control by Amazon. There was no warning, and no refund of the cost of her books because Kindle books are 'only rented, not sold'.

dangerousbill said:

I'm beginning to hear stories of customers who have had their accounts closed forever for minor violations of the terms of service, which no one reads anyway.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/oct/22/amazon-wipes-customers-kindle-deletes-account

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

I had a nice review from a fan who told me personally that he bought his book on Amazon. The review disappeared several months after it was posted. I never figured out why.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

I'm not a big fan of Amazon.

However, I just posted a review, got the message that I would be notified when/if it was approved. Seconds later I got the approval and it's now live on the website.

Instinct tells me there could be more to the story.

That is just awful. I heard about the customer in the UK and was stunned that Amazon would do that.

dangerousbill said:

There was no warning, and no refund of the cost of her books because Kindle books are 'only rented, not sold'.

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Wow. That's nuts.

dangerousbill said:

In one case, the person lived in the UK and bought a book from the Norway version of Amazon. Her account was closed and she was told that she would never, ever be allowed to open another account. This was the same person that had their Kindle wiped clean by remote control by Amazon. There was no warning, and no refund of the cost of her books because Kindle books are 'only rented, not sold'.

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Not under EU law it isn't. If that has happened to her, she should sue. Licensing instead of buying has been explicitly banned by a recent ruling in the Court of Justice for the European Union.

The ruling was about resale of digital downloads, but the principle used in reaching the ruling's conclusion is that licensing like many American companies try to do are invalid. If you've signed a EULA to that effect, that EULA is invalid in the European Union. An EU branch of a company that try to do that would probably engage in criminal activity.

dangerousbill said:

They seem to have forgotten that customers ultimately have the last word. I'm beginning to hear stories of customers who have had their accounts closed forever for minor violations of the terms of service, which no one reads anyway.

In one case, the person lived in the UK and bought a book from the Norway version of Amazon. Her account was closed and she was told that she would never, ever be allowed to open another account. This was the same person that had their Kindle wiped clean by remote control by Amazon. There was no warning, and no refund of the cost of her books because Kindle books are 'only rented, not sold'.

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Seriously?

I just lost another book review. I'm discouraged--all my reviews are legitimate. And one of the reviews that was deleted was from a Top Amazon Reviewer.

Maxinquaye said:

Not under EU law it isn't. If that has happened to her, she should sue. Licensing instead of buying has been explicitly banned by a recent ruling in the Court of Justice for the European Union.

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Amazon is heading for an almighty smackdown with the European Court. They appear to have almost no understanding of EU competition law.

This freaked me out so I checked mine. The few reviews are still there, warts and all.

They're trying to clean up fake reviews by using computer searches and a lot of valid reviews are getting caught in the process. In particular, a lot of reviews by KDP authors are being wiped.

The entire "wiped the books off her kindle" seems to be a lot more complicated. Her account was closed because she was buying from the wrong storefront, but the Kindle wasn't wiped. Instead, she found she couldn't download existing purchases to a different device after her kindle broke and she replaced it. They fixed this. So yeah, DRM and region locking stink, but they're not entirely Amazon's choice, and they eventually fixed the problem.

Edit. I should also add, I have no idea how if its different for someone in Norway, but here in the US, you can't use the UK store. It's blocked based on IP. I somewhat suspect she may have been using some kind of proxy service to avoid region blocking.

It would have been clearer all round if the customer service person had told her what the issue was rather than playing five rounds of blather-go-round with vaguely sinister jargon.

I don't know what is going on at Amazon lately, but I've had to contact them over a couple of issues in the last few months. They responded to my first email, but not the three that I sent after that asking for clarification on a few things, seeking guidance and making a complaint.

Katie Elle said:

They're trying to clean up fake reviews by using computer searches and a lot of valid reviews are getting caught in the process. In particular, a lot of reviews by KDP authors are being wiped.

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That would explain the line 'We have removed your reviews as they are in violation of our guidelines. We will not be able to go into further detail about our research.'

If it's an automated system, which it most likely is, then it will simply search for the reviewers email address, name and the authors email and name. Then, if they come up a certain number of times together will trigger an alarm.

Which, if you are a real fan of something is going to cause all sorts of fuckery - if you are a member of a fansite or forum, if you've reviewed other books of the author in other places etc then you are likely to trigger all kinds of red bells.

That's the only reason I can see - surely no one has that much time that they can manually check every out each and every reviewer.

The entire "wiped the books off her kindle" seems to be a lot more complicated. Her account was closed because she was buying from the wrong storefront, but the Kindle wasn't wiped. Instead, she found she couldn't download existing purchases to a different device after her kindle broke and she replaced it. They fixed this. So yeah, DRM and region locking stink, but they're not entirely Amazon's choice, and they eventually fixed the problem.

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Still sounds fishy. Where I live I have to purchase from Amazon.co.uk I cannot purchase from any other Amazon site - I can see the books, but I get a message saying 'pricing information is not available' and I have no option to add to my basket etc.

Edit. I should also add, I have no idea how if its different for someone in Norway, but here in the US, you can't use the UK store. It's blocked based on IP. I somewhat suspect she may have been using some kind of proxy service to avoid region blocking.

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Which might be against Amazons T&C - I have no idea, I haven't checked.

Katie Elle said:

They're trying to clean up fake reviews by using computer searches and a lot of valid reviews are getting caught in the process. In particular, a lot of reviews by KDP authors are being wiped.

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I appreciate that Amazon is trying to remove fake reviews but it's a shame that legit comments are being swept away, too.

I only wish I had so many reviews that I wouldn't know if a few were missing....

Katie Elle said:

Edit. I should also add, I have no idea how if its different for someone in Norway, but here in the US, you can't use the UK store. It's blocked based on IP. I somewhat suspect she may have been using some kind of proxy service to avoid region blocking.

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Really? I can see it (and I'm in the US.) I just checked to see if I could still see it, and yup, it's still there.

I even bought something off of it once, years ago -- was buying a gift for a friend in the UK, and realized that rather than pay international shipping charges, I could buy it from amazon.co.uk and have it shipped to her.

Didn't realize that was a bannable offence :S


Edit: Ah, I can't see pricing information on amazon.co.uk anymore. So I guess it is blocked now. Interesting.

Really? I can see it (and I'm in the US.) I just checked to see if I could still see it, and yup, it's still there.

I even bought something off of it once, years ago -- was buying a gift for a friend in the UK, and realized that rather than pay international shipping charges, I could buy it from amazon.co.uk and have it shipped to her.

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I meant kindle books. Those will show up as

Kindle titles for your country are not available at Amazon.co.uk.
Please shop for Kindle titles at Amazon.com.

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Regular books and other things you can order. Their international ordering is actually pretty sophisticated. Our daughter has become a Poppy Cat fanatic and the books aren't available in the US (other than resellers at the $200+ range), but we can order the books from the UK store, but not the stuffed animals because they're EC approved, but not US consumer product safety commission approved.

In the past we've ordered physical books, specifically Harry Potter to get the real deal books not the US censored ones, but the kindle store isn't available.

Not sure how they decide if a review is legitimate or not. Unless a "reviewer" only gives 5 star reviews, and receives the same back ... a circle of friends giving each other reviews. I know of some circles like that. I don't review friends' books, for that very reason.

I've wondered, though, about some reviews - if it says the book was read as a Kindle format, and it doesn't say "verified purchase" - wouldn't that trigger something? Unless it's presumed that the Kindle was shared.

The fact that when the FAN complained about the review being removed, customer support allegedly threatened to de-list the BOOK indicates that it's not just the algorithm that's faultily flagging reviews as being by a potential sock-puppet -- actual humans at amazon seem to be assuming that it is highly accurate. Threatening to remove the author's book due to a fan's complaint only makes sense if they are presuming the "fan" to be a sockpuppet.

If they had an algorithm that they knew was rough and were still working out the bugs, that would be one thing. But if they have a rough and buggy algorithm that they believe unquestioningly, that's a whole other layer of trouble.

Katie Elle said:

In the past we've ordered physical books, specifically Harry Potter to get the real deal books not the US censored ones, but the kindle store isn't available.

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??? I'm not aware of any censorship taking place in the US editions of the Harry Potter books, have I missed something?