NetGalley Addicts Support Group discussion

Hi

Has anyone else had this situation or solved it?

I have quite happily reviewed books etc on Amazon UK for many years & haven't had a problem until the last 3 months. In Aug I received an email saying I had broken Community Guidelines & my reviewing privilege was blocked & all my reviews deleted. Years' worth of reviewing just gone!

I appealed by email & received a reply saying that the review didn't break guidelines & it was eventually sorted. The same thing has happened again in Oct & I've hit a brick wall.

I emailed again & again received a reply saying that the review was fine & didn't violate community standards but they are not budging on reinstating my reviewing capability. I have evidence in their own replies that I have done nothing wrong but I received a very dismissive reply saying that I had violated Community standards twice (I haven't by their own words) & I was blocked for good.

I can't contact them by phone as I have severe hyperacusis so email is the only option open to me. I've even cc'd Jeff Bezos in but heard nothing. I can't post new reviews & all my old ones are gone. I'm alternating between being gutted & being absolutely furious. I guess this is me done with NetGalley if I can't review on Amazon.

Gayle wrote: "Hi

Has anyone else had this situation or solved it?

I have quite happily reviewed books etc on Amazon UK for many years & haven't had a problem until the last 3 months. In Aug I received an email..."

Amazon is a giant pain the a$$. I haven't been able to post reviews on there for a couple years now because I don't spend the minimum 50 dollars a year to qualify to post reviews. On the bright side, I still get plenty of ARCs and haven't had an issue yet. I simply post my review in a bunch of other places.

Gayle wrote: "Hi

Has anyone else had this situation or solved it?

I have quite happily reviewed books etc on Amazon UK for many years & haven't had a problem until the last 3 months. In Aug I received an email..."

Yes, same thing happened to me. Years ago, it happened and Jeff Bezos' staff quickly restored by reviews and review "privileges". This year, the same thing happened and 3000+ reviews were deleted and so was my ability to post reviews, including Vine reviews. Emails to "Communities" only resulted in emails back where the reps totally did not understand the matter! A phone call to Amazon Help reps did nothing, so don't worry that a phone call might change things, Gayle. Letters to new CEO Andy Jassy only resulted in telling me that I broke guidelines and they hoped to "see me again soon". Obviously a worthless form letter.

Either their fraud software gets innocent reviewers bounced, or those who make decisions about the breaking of community guidelines are incompetent, or don't understand English very well. It's probably just a software issue. Whatever it is, Amazon obviously could not care less if they victimize reviewers who are guilty of nothing.

Gayle, you can still post reviews at Goodreads and Barnes & Noble. Other commenters here can probably tell you of additional places. I still get NetGalley books to review, even though I clearly state in my profile I cannot review at Amazon any longer . . . and I clearly state why, having no concern of exposing Amazon's false accusations against honest reviewers.

If you do a search online, you will discover we ceratinly aren't the only innocent reviewers who have been banned from reviewing at Amazon. The only solution to the problem some found was filing a complaint with the U.S. BBB (Better Business Bureau). I'm not going through the trouble of that. You may have an equivalent organization in the UK, though, you can contact.

The Sassy Bookworm wrote: "Gayle wrote: "Hi

Has anyone else had this situation or solved it?

I have quite happily reviewed books etc on Amazon UK for many years & haven't had a problem until the last 3 months. In Aug I rec..."

I was spending thousands of dollars at Amazon each year when they revoked my reviewing privileges and deleted my reviews. They have millions of reviewers and make hundreds of billions of dollars a year, so they can deny or eliminate whoever they want for whatever reason they want, without a care in the world.

The Sassy Bookworm wrote: "Gayle wrote: "Hi

Has anyone else had this situation or solved it?

I have quite happily reviewed books etc on Amazon UK for many years & haven't had a problem until the last 3 months. In Aug I rec..."

That is reassuring that you still get ARCs. I post on Goodreads, Litsy, The StoryGraph, & Waterstones. Not sure where else to try. Thanks for your reply.

SundayAtDusk wrote: "Gayle wrote: "Hi

Has anyone else had this situation or solved it?

I have quite happily reviewed books etc on Amazon UK for many years & haven't had a problem until the last 3 months. In Aug I rec..."

Wow your story is almost identical to mine. So frustrating. It's just so darn unjust to be banned for no good reason. I've been hanging fire on telling NetGalley I can't review on Amazon as I've been hoping to get it sorted. I think if I get another refusal from my latest communication, I'll have to.

Glad to hear you are still getting ARCs though. Thank you for your reply.

SundayAtDusk wrote: "The Sassy Bookworm wrote: "Gayle wrote: "Hi

Has anyone else had this situation or solved it?

I have quite happily reviewed books etc on Amazon UK for many years & haven't had a problem until the ..."

Yes I buy lots of Kindle books from them & just bought an updated Paperwhite recently. Hopefully I don't get locked out from my purchases too.

Gayle wrote: "The Sassy Bookworm wrote: "Gayle wrote: "Hi

Has anyone else had this situation or solved it?

I have quite happily reviewed books etc on Amazon UK for many years & haven't had a problem until the ..."

I also post on BookBub (https://www.bookbub.com) if you are looking for an additional place!

Gayle wrote: "SundayAtDusk wrote: "The Sassy Bookworm wrote: "Gayle wrote: "Hi

Has anyone else had this situation or solved it?

I have quite happily reviewed books etc on Amazon UK for many years & haven't had..."

Oh, Amazon would never dare stop you from spending money there! That's all they really care about. Back in Jeff Bezos' days, I think they did care about book reviewers, at least to a point, but don't any longer.

It sounds like you post reviews at a lot of places, so I doubt the absence of Amazon on your profile will make a difference. Of course, I don't know that for certain. I don't think it has affected my book requests. I still get some and are rejected for others. :)

Also, some people have posted online that they suddenly were able to review again at Amazon. They just happened to notice it one day. I don't have my hopes up for that, however.

The Sassy Bookworm wrote: "Gayle wrote: "The Sassy Bookworm wrote: "Gayle wrote: "Hi

Has anyone else had this situation or solved it?

I have quite happily reviewed books etc on Amazon UK for many years & haven't had a prob..."

I buy a lot of books from BookBub! Actually, I'm buying them at Amazon from the daily BookBub email. Does BookBub get a percentage of the sales or what? I have at least 50 on my FireHD that I haven't read yet, and I keep buying books whenever I see interesting ones. I think I reviewed there once at someone's request. Maybe I should go back and check that out.

If anyone is interested the ‘offending’ review was for The Patient by Jasper DeWitt & the review is on here as well. Interested to see if anyone can see which guidelines I supposedly violated.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Oh, you have a specific review that got you booted! I might have a documentary review that got me booted, but I'm not sure that was it, since Amazon doesn't tell you why they banned you from reviewing. I'd like to read your book review, but there are so many for that book, I can't find yours right off. What was your review date? I can easily find it that way.

SundayAtDusk wrote: "Oh, you have a specific review that got you booted! I might have a documentary review that got me booted, but I'm not sure that was it, since Amazon doesn't tell you why they banned you from review..."

Link to review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I don’t really see what the problem with the review could’ve been, but, knowing Amazon, it could’ve been any number of things or no reason at all. Have you tried reposting the review?

Sherri wrote: "I don’t really see what the problem with the review could’ve been, but, knowing Amazon, it could’ve been any number of things or no reason at all. Have you tried reposting the review?"

I know, I can't figure out the issue with it for the life of me. I can't repost as I am completely blocked from leaving reviews.

Gayle wrote: "SundayAtDusk wrote: "Oh, you have a specific review that got you booted! I might have a documentary review that got me booted, but I'm not sure that was it, since Amazon doesn't tell you why they b..."

There is no way that review broke any guidelines! It had to be something else . . . or nothing at all. Did you post a lot of reviews that week? I know that is what got me booted the first time. I posted 10 reviews in one weekend, and it had to have set off the fraud bot. This time I posted quite a few reviews, but also resubmitted three times a doc review that kept getting deleted. I read somewhere . . . I think here at GR . . . that resubmitting a review like that can make the fraud bot think you are spamming.

P.S. Maybe it was actually your trigger warnings at the end of the review! You mentioned too may controversial topics for the fraud bot. It's too bad no one can make Amazon respond to situations like this one. Someone needs to do an op-ed in a well known newspaper, or get a reporter in such a paper to do an article. Bad publicity might make Amazon change its ways of allowing a fraud bot to ban innocent reviewers.

It was definitely the TW's. Those words set off alarms for sure. I'm apart of the Amazon Vine reviewer program and certain words set off bells. I would in the future not include them and maybe just have a blanket statement to check trigger warnings if those are something you care about.

It's kinda along the same lines that amazon doesn't like when your reviews say "Thank you NetGalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review." the word "exchange" seems to be a no no. I use "I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily." for amazon reviews or just leave out that info altogether.

Jeff wrote: "It was definitely the TW's. Those words set off alarms for sure. I'm apart of the Amazon Vine reviewer program and certain words set off bells. I would in the future not include them and maybe just..."

She sadly has no future at Amazon right now. And why should anyone have to exclude non-obscene words to keep a fraud bot from unfairly getting them banned from reviewing at Amazon?

Yea just meant if she ever gets the ability back... Also, I agree its not right but until amazon changes... 🤷🏻‍♂️

SundayAtDusk wrote: "Gayle wrote: "SundayAtDusk wrote: "Oh, you have a specific review that got you booted! I might have a documentary review that got me booted, but I'm not sure that was it, since Amazon doesn't tell ..."

Definitely that review. I received an email saying it couldn't be posted so I went on to amend it & got the message saying my account was blocked.

Jeff wrote: "It was definitely the TW's. Those words set off alarms for sure. I'm apart of the Amazon Vine reviewer program and certain words set off bells. I would in the future not include them and maybe just..."

I can sort of see what you mean but it's all a bit silly to ban someone for TWs.

My main argument with Amazon has been: "ok the algorithm says I violated standards but I've had 2 emails from people in your department saying the review was fine so why won't you reconsider?" Just seems odd to basically say "We agree the review was fine but you're still banned."

amazon wouldn't let me post a review for a book that had the word Fuck in it...the book title was Mindfuck...2 months of back and forth and i just said nope

Dee wrote: "amazon wouldn't let me post a review for a book that had the word Fuck in it...the book title was Mindfuck...2 months of back and forth and i just said nope"

They wouldn't let you post due to the title?! Their algorithm definitely needs tweaking so people who are obviously not deliberately breaking guidelines aren't thrown under the bus with those who are.

Gayle wrote: "Jeff wrote: "It was definitely the TW's. Those words set off alarms for sure. I'm apart of the Amazon Vine reviewer program and certain words set off bells. I would in the future not include them a..."

That really would be infuriating to have two reps tell you nothing was wrong with your review, but you still end up banned. It's Amazon zealously trying to prove they do all they can to stop fake and abusive reviews, and it's too bad if innocent, real reviewers get booted. I even posted a comment in a UK Amazon forum not to long ago, where someone was saying we all need to accept non-guilty reviewers get banned at times. It's just a fact of life. Yeah, sure, I bet that reviewer would have a bloody fit if he got banned and had all his reviews deleted!

P.S. It's interesting that you still have Amazon forums in the UK. We don't in the U.S. any longer. Probably another way to cut costs where reviewers are concerned. No reps are needed to moderate or investigate abusive comment claims. You know, like reps who can read and understand English.

Get this--there is a comment at reddit in the r/AmazonVine group where the commenter said he persistently contacted "review-appeals" at Amazon, after his reviewing rights were suspended. Nothing worked until the day he included a pornographic picture of himself in his email. He then received the following email:

" Hello [NAME REDACTED],

Thank you for contacting us about your reviews we certainly took note of your email and it's contents. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

After reviewing the account once again, we have restored this account's previously contributed reviews and the ability to contribute reviews, comments, customer questions and answers, and other content. It may take up to 24 hours for reviews to reappear.

Amazon Review Moderation team"

Here is the reddit link, if GR allows links:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/c...

I cannot speak to Amazon UK, and have never had anything go wrong on the scale that you describe, but I have noticed that they have tightened up the terms that can trip the computer's censor in the US market. I had a review not posted this week for using the sentence I've been using, including on Amazon, for ten years, as part of my disclosure of having a review copy. "This book is for sale now."

I don't really even need to say that on Amazon since they won't post my review until the book has been released; it's just easier to leave it in the review, because it goes on my blog, here at GR, and a variety of other places where it's relevant. So now I have to remember to zap that sentence when I post to Amazon. (Price and availability are no-nos now.)

To be fair, Amazon has been dealing with massive amounts of fraudulent reviews, and that hurts their business. Many of us shop there largely because we can make a more intelligent choice by reading reviews before we purchase something. No other site in the US market has such a wide, diverse collection of product reviews. But if it all turns to spam, there goes their edge. So I think there's a good reason behind it, but it does make it harder for those of us that are legitimately attempting to leave a thoughtful, thorough review.

It's understandable that Amazon is trying to stop fraud, but that's no excuse to ignore innocent reviewers are victimized by their fraud bot or incompetent reps. They know it's happening and only correct their false accusations some of the time. That would be like a law enforcement agency cracking down on crime in a way that innocent individuals are arrested, found guilty and punished; and they know that's happening and expect everyone to accept it. If you are victimizing innocent individuals and doing nothing to correct the situation, you are as guilty as those who intentionally victimize them.

Also, what if they have reps who are into pornography or pedophilia and decide that a review that condems such things is "hateful" and breaks reviewing guidelines? What if there was a rep who reinstated the reviewing privileges of the guy who posted at reddit, because he sent a pornographic picture in his email? That's exactly the type of picture those who prey on teenagers online want to see. I tend to believe that reddit post was legit because the poster wrote an intelligent post that described exactly the type of reponses one gets from Communities. That final message, too, was obviously not written by an incompetent low ranking rep who doesn't know English very well.

Moreover, why should you a veteran reviewer, or any other reviewer for that matter, have to walk on eggshells now, being incredibly cautious of what you say, for fear of setting off the fraud bot? Why should there even be more and more rules about what one can and cannot mention in a review? Price, for example, is a very important thing when it comes to buying products. It's not some trivial matter to those of us not as rich as those who run Amazon.

You are correct that no other site offers so many reviews on so many products. No other website has given a voice to the masses the way Amazon has done, either. Amazon started as a book selling and reviewing site, where those who didn't write for mags or newspapers or TV stations could express their opinions for all to read. Their opinions were as important as anyone else's opinion. That's why it's so sad to see how it has become such an uncaring company, where everyone is supposed to accept responses from reps make no sense whatsoever, if emails are even responded to in the first place. But then according to news stories, Amazon doesn't care about its employees, either. So, maybe it's all a lost cause when a company gets so big and rich and powerful . . . .

I literally just started posting my reviews to Amazon and this has me nervous! Is this still an issue?

Katt, don't worry about it. If you are falsely accused of breaking guidelines and your reviewing privileges are revoked, there is little you can do about it anyway. Go ahead and post reviews.

Katt wrote: "I literally just started posting my reviews to Amazon and this has me nervous! Is this still an issue?"

I've been at it for just a little over ten years, and whereas these things are certainly irritating and sometimes alarming, they are exceptions, rather than rules. If your reviews are being posted, then you're doing it right. Rest easy.

SundayAtDusk wrote: "Moreover, why should you a veteran reviewer, or any other reviewer for that matter, have to walk on eggshells now, being incredibly cautious of what you say, for fear of setting off the fraud bot?"

Absolutely. Personally I think reviews flagged by a bot should be reviewed by a person before they decide to ban you & delete all your previous reviews. It would save a lot of these issues from even occurring. With the amount of money they make they could afford it.

Katt wrote: "I literally just started posting my reviews to Amazon and this has me nervous! Is this still an issue?"

Well it literally just happened to me recently after over 16 years of spotless reviewing history. All you can do is post & hope for the best. You'll probably be fine.

(Sorry I may be just a little bit salty towards that company still).

Gayle wrote: "Katt wrote: "I literally just started posting my reviews to Amazon and this has me nervous! Is this still an issue?"

Well it literally just happened to me recently after over 16 years of spotless ..."

Yes, isn't it amazing you were a good reviewer for over 16 years and suddenly you were labeled a bad one?

Thank you all for your comments. Gayle I was horrified at what happened. All that work. You have every right to be salty!

SundayAtDusk wrote: "Gayle wrote: "Katt wrote: "I literally just started posting my reviews to Amazon and this has me nervous! Is this still an issue?"

Well it literally just happened to me recently after over 16 year..."

That's what's so galling! I emailed them & said, please look at my extensive reviewing history & feedback from others & you'll see this issue is a simple mix-up.

I see that you were a Vine member before they banned you, so supposedly a trusted reviewer. That must have been even more infuriating.

Katt wrote: "Thank you all for your comments. Gayle I was horrified at what happened. All that work. You have every right to be salty!"

Thank you Katt. I don't understand their rationale of removing all previous reviews too seeing as they had been accepted as okay to publish on their site months or years before. Seems like a 'sledgehammer to crack a nut' kind of thing. Oh well.

Gayle wrote: "SundayAtDusk wrote: "Gayle wrote: "Katt wrote: "I literally just started posting my reviews to Amazon and this has me nervous! Is this still an issue?"

Well it literally just happened to me recent..."

Gayle, it happened once before years ago and Jeff Bezos' office fixed the matter quickly. So, when It happened again, I thought it was not going to be a big deal to get it corrected. Not this time, though. Andy Jassy doesn't care. He just gets a low ranking rep to send an idiot form letter, ending in "hope to see you soon".

I had over 3,000 reviews, started reviewing in 2005, and had been a top 1000 reviewer for a few years. What bothers me most is I still had lots of Vine reviews to do, and can still see what I need to review. But if Communities bans you, you also can't do Vine reviews.

I think they should at least let me write those reviews. Writing a lot of Vine reviews one weekend is what got me banned the first time, though. There was nothing wrong with the reviews, but the number of them in three days apparently set off the fraud bot. Thus, I'm thinking even if they "unban" me and I try to catch up on my Vine reviews, the bot will probably quickly get me banned again! Sunday