UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion

I just received a 3 star review for Famous Animals: Volume 1. Fair enough, if that's what he thought. But his review consists entirely of my blurb and a paragraph copied from another review on Goodreads. Where does one go to complain about plagiarised reviews around here?

Directly to Amazon, I'd have thought. I've heard about plagiarised reviews in the last day or two. the thing is, most people will realise if they've read others.

No, this is on Goodreads, Kath. And mine's not the only one. I've just looked at his other reviews and he's directly copied reviews from Amazon onto Goodreads.

Is that what the flag button is for?

There's a Goodreads author feedback group where people talk about this sort of thing. There's also the "flag" option at the bottom right of reviews.

Before you go and do either of those, I'd advise you take a step back and a deep breath. It is tempting as an author to want to do something about reviews that you don't like, whether this is what you see as an unfair review or one that has been plagiarised.

But there are risks. Readers can get annoyed if authors get too heavy handed in how they deal with reviews. It is sometimes known in the trade as "The Author's Big Mistake". Usually the best advice is to ignore the review and not try to respond to it.

You might get away with flagging the review. You might not. Is it worth the risk?

You're probably right, Will. It's just really annoying to see other people's work being used to make him look as if he's reading lots of books and writing lots about them. I know the lady whose work he's plagiarised. Maybe I'll just leave it to her to decide if she wants to complain. Or maybe one of the other authors/reviewers will complain.

I'd flag it, though, and let the site managers decide. If it's against their guidelines (and surely it is) they can make the decision.

Do they know who's flagged it though? Will they see it as an intrusive author? Or should I go and flag the others instead?

Ask Patti to flag it? oh, she's on hols. We really need more than one active mod here!
I've looked but I can see there's a 3* rating in the stats - but I can't see the rating or the review.

No, it's very new. I had to click the 'newest' button to make it come up.

I've just looked into the flagging system. Even though the reviewing info says 'plagiarised reviews will be deleted', there's no option for saying 'this review is plagiarised' in the flagging options! There's an 'explanation' box, but that seems to be for explaining why you chose the button you did. :(

What gets me is that the review he's plagiarised on mine is on Goodreads as well as on Amazon, so it's obviously been copied!

Kath wrote: "I've looked but I can see there's a 3* rating in the stats - but I can't see the rating or the review."



If you go onto filter you can see all the different star reviews

It happens, I'm afraid. I recently had a three star rating (but no review) from one reader. When I idly clicked on their profile I found that they had reviewed over 400 books all on the same day. That seems to be the sum total of their activity on GR. Join, instantly rate 400+ books and then nothing.

Elsewhere on GR I've seen chats where reviewers have been copying other reviews - presumably to bump up the number of reviews on their profile.

Why do they do it? I haven't a clue. Is there some benefit to readers to have lots of ratings in their profile?

Okay, I've flagged it with the explanation that the review consists of the author's product description followed by a paragraph from someone else's review. Plagiarism!
Let's see what happens!

Thanks, Kath. Like Will, I have no idea why anyone wants to have lots of reviews to their name, but...

On Am you get a ranking with a badge, which some people vie for to the extent of voting other reviewers down. As if it matters! But I see no advantage to having a lot of reviews here.

Kath wrote: "Ask Patti to flag it? oh, she's on hols. We really need more than one active mod here!
I've looked but I can see there's a 3* rating in the stats - but I can't see the rating or the review."

I'm here, Kath.

I'm of the opinion that once you've released your book into the wild, you better grow a thick skin about ratings and reviews and remain stoically silent.

Having said that, plagarised reviews aren't on. My flag doesn't hold any more weight than anyone else's, mind.

I just meant that you'd know if plagiarism was on the no-no list. Seems it is. So I flagged.

I don't care about the 3, Patti, just the fact that he's put a review that means absolutely nothing, took no effort on his part and makes him look like a prolific reviewer.

It's also unfair in the genuine reviewer.

Kath wrote: "I just meant that you'd know if plagiarism was on the no-no list. Seems it is. So I flagged."

I would have had to check but I'd assume it is.

Kath wrote: "It's also unfair in the genuine reviewer."

Yes, very.

It's gone. The genuine reviewer also left a message after the 'review'. Good for Goodreads!

Oh, hooray. Yes, good for Goodreads. His other plagiarised reviews are still there, but I guess someone else will report him eventually. What a strange thing to do.

Thanks for your help, Kath.

Good!

people are strange are they not?

I have a review, a 2 star review mind, with the single line: Not Read, wasn't well.

Whatever is anyone supposed to make of that?

Your books make people ill? ;)
But seriously, that is bonkers

I once saw a Tripadvisor review for a hotel which said something like this: "Had a dreadful holiday here. It rained every day."

theres a trip advisor review for a tattoo and piercing place in camden that i saw when i was looking for a place to get my metal out for my MRI that was all about how the shop was so dingy and it was attached to a gift shop and how tacky was that.

obviously the person hasnt even been in the place or they would know that the tattoo place is in the basement and like many of the shops in camden, completely separate from any other shop in the same building......some people. and for the record the shop was actually wonderfully clean inside and the hygiene levels were well above industry standard

Hotel in Wales or the Lakes, was it Will? I've seen similar too. Most people ignore those of course. Hopefully.

Will wrote: "people are strange are they not?

I have a review, a 2 star review mind, with the single line: Not Read, wasn't well.

Whatever is anyone supposed to make of that?"

I just pressed the 'smiley like' button. Why doesn't someone compile the most hilarious or outlandish reviews and publish them?

Pete wrote: "Why doesn't someone compile the most hilarious or outlandish reviews and publish them?"

Because the writers of the reviews own the copyright to them - and you'd have to secure their permission! They may not want to be mocked. With search engines these days it wouldn't be hard for someone to track down the original poster.

Or bowdlerize them enough so they were unrecognizable (always a possibility), but then you're really inventing them.

Unbelievable! Within hours of my review being removed, the same guy posted a 'review' of someone else's book, consisting of their blurb and sections of two other reviews from Amazon! He's incorrigible.

Flag it Katie.

Katie - there must be a reason for this sort of behaviour as I'm seeing it elsewhere. But I have no idea what the explanation is.

Other than liking the idea of being number one at something (top reviewer) the only other thing I can think of is that they are thinking they may be able to use it as a way of tempting gullible authors into paying them for reviews.

I think it's the idea of being a 'top reviewer', and then charging for reviews, that drives this idiocy.

Even without charging, the amount of stuff some people get to review is unreal. A friend of mine gave three sleeping bags to our local homeless shelter, he'd got them to review. He's had tablets and all sorts of computer kit

Ah, now I suddenly see the incentive.

Patti (baconater) wrote: "Flag it Katie."

Done it, Patti. There's about three more of his I know I could flag as well, but we'll see if Goodreads notices the pattern.

Will wrote: "Ah, now I suddenly see the incentive."

He gets serious amounts of stuff, a lot of it he reviews and sells on ebay
Books are an irrelevance to be honest, the gravy train is when you get into the consumer goods and similar!

My sister used to write software reviews for the local (state) newspaper. She got all sorts of programmes and games sent to her. She did write proper reviews, though - not filched from other sources.

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. I knew there had to be a scam in there somewhere...

I know it isn't the case here, but a reader friend on Goodreads has asked me to point out that they use a different name on Amazon to the one they use on Goodreads, and was concerned that they could look like plagiarised reviews.

I think we're all aware, however, that many people use alternative names on the various sites.

David wrote: "I know it isn't the case here, but a reader friend on Goodreads has asked me to point out that they use a different name on Amazon to the one they use on Goodreads, and was concerned that they coul..."

Good point. If this reviewer's reviews were direct copies of ones on Amazon with a different name, then I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, but his reviews are a cut-and-pasted collection of blurbs and sections of other reviews. Definitely not a pen name.

Will wrote: "Ah, that makes a lot of sense. I knew there had to be a scam in there somewhere..."

The other part of the scam is that companies that send this 'reviewer' stuff should be reading his/her prior reviews - after all, it costs them money to send stuff, and they are idiots if they are providing these people stuff to sell on ebay.

Due diligence all around.

My flag hasn't had any effect yet, but I guess Good Friday might be the reason.

I just received an email from a major shoe designer asking me to review the football boots my son received. I can get a ten percent discount on my next purchase if I do the review. The only problem is that the shoes haven't arrived yet! My son's birthday has been and gone and he doesn't have his present. They were sent by priority courier ten days ago...overnight express. They reached the city ok from across the country, but from there they went AWOL. Apparently, we were not available to receive them...meaning we have an address they don't deliver to. But the depot has our phone number and the phone number was on our parcel. Shall I write them a snotty review, citing their choice of courier? There doesn't seem to be any other way to contact them about not having received them. I'm really tempted, but then I get very annoyed at people giving one star reviews on books because they're displeased with Amazon. This 'undeliverable' thing is common with us...I waited months for my last box of books to be delivered.

Sigh. Sorry, I've strayed off-topic a bit, but hey, it's my thread! :D

This isn't going to end well.

I'm reading a book at the moment where an economist is arguing that most business ventures will eventually "regress to the mean". One company finds a way to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals, but this advantage doesn't last forever. Sooner or later the rivals will copy them and their competitive advantage will be nullified.

You shoe designer is banking on making money by asking its customers to write a review of the shoes. If this works, then all shoe manufacturers will copy the same trick. We will get to the point where every product that we buy has hundreds of good reviews.

And that then makes the reviews useless. If everything has good reviews how will we be able to tell them apart?

It's the same with the people scamming Amazon, whether it's by faking reviews for their own books or by spoofing lots of reviews in order to become a top reviewer. These tricks might work in the short term but they will stop working if too many people do it.

Or if the customer gets totally fed up with the dishonesty and starts ignoring all reviews on principle.

Will wrote: "Or if the customer gets totally fed up with the dishonesty and starts ignoring all reviews on principle. ..."

I think that's what happens and it's part of a cyclical process. Reviews are waste of time and somebody will come up with another mechanism. over time companies will migrate to that and eventually it'll be full, so they'll migrate to something else.
Twenty years later, reviews will be the 'big thing' again :-)

One good thing that may happen is that the 'system' forces people to put their real name on their reviews, and separates out 'people whose reviews are not worth the electrons they're written with' from 'reliable consumers.'

I don't know how - that's not my part of the problem. My part is to demand that these reviews come from Real People (TM). I'm tired of people scamming the system. If their own identity as Real People (TM) were tied up with them writing civilized reviews of products they've actually bought and used, I'd read their reviews and ignore the scammers. Sort of like Verified Purchase means I can trust that the person writing the review is a little more real than those who haven't bought the item in question.

End rant.

Booking.com is good as you can't review on the site unless you've actually stayed in hotel.