Sunday, August 3, 2008
The Cleaner in hot pursuit (Chippindale update)
This guy, The Cleaner, is doing an amazing job. Take a look: it seems like an awful lot of Chippindale reviews have been crudely cribbed from somewhere else. I'm amazed at how The Cleaner digs up the originals -- that's an "amateur sleuth" (as Harriet would say) for you! Outstanding job; The Cleaner should send a bill to Amazon for doing what they should be doing.
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16 comments:
Who is The Cleaner? Doesn't matter. I lurve him. Or her. Whatever. My love of exposing fake reviews knows no bounds.
This also reminds me that I haven't been keeping up my end of exposing HK's fake/inaccurate reviews. I should get back on that. It's not as good as exposing plagarism, but it's a start.
I also hope that this Cleaner is notifying the sites from which the reviews are stolen. I would think they might have something to say to Amazon (and John Chippindale) about it!
I don't know who The Cleaner is either, no one does, I think. Just a poster who got fed up with this reviewer. Great job though. I can't imagine finding all these sites with the originals, the guy must really be pissed off :-) , I really like him.
As far as getting back to Hattie's threads, it's currently fun, there's a lot of nice posters there, more than before (more interesting to partake, and plus, I'm just glad that more and more people learn about our hero... and not just HK, but all of them!).
Don't forget that Chippendale posts his reviews at Amazon US as well -- and he's now got a top 1000 badge.
You would think that with open admissions by others using JC's account and the MULTITUDE of plagarized reviews that this account would have been silenced by now or be given a "0" ranking.
Is the cleaner JUST noting these things or is he actually forwarding this wealth of very accurate information to the customer service at Amazon UK? How about the USA reviews which are ALL duplicates of the UK ones which have been found to be plagarized?
I don't get the long delay . . .
Amazon doesn't watch these things, so someone has to report the guy in order for anything to happen. I don't recommend doing this: it's better, I think, that everything remain in place so that everyone could see what goes on. Comment, yes, "report-this", no.
I'm giving JC until sundown to get outa town. Make that Sunday to get outa Amazon. Or at least, get de-ranked.. His daughter has said that her father will do the necessary resignation thing upon returning from Hong Kong. If that hasn't happened by midnight Sunday, then the next day the arduous process will begin of reporting countless plagiarised reviews to Amazon AND notifying the source of each example. You cannot begin to imagine how long that task will take, so I hope Helen Chippindale keeps her word. If that hasn't happened by midnight Sunday, then the next day the arduous process will begin of reporting countless plagiarised reviews to Amazon AND notifying the source of each example. You cannot begin to imagine how long that task will take, so I hope Helen Chippindale keeps her word.
As J Chippindale (and Helen, and Jonathan, and Daniel) appear not be taking any of the promised steps to remove J Chippindale as a reviewer from Amazon UK and USA, I will today begin the arduous process of reporting the countless cases of plagiarism to the review monitoring department. In the meantime I would appeal to anyone reading this to go to J Chippindale's profile and run through his reviews. Please click on the (Report this) option at the end of as many reviews as possible, and then the 'Report as inappropriate' button. I'm not sure how many such votes (per review) are needed to get a deletion, but it may as few as three. So please help do the right thing. J Chippindale is a fraud and a plagiarist and is trespassing on true reviewer territory, which misleads the gullible buying public.
As J Chippindale (and Helen, and Jonathan, and Daniel) appear not be taking any of the promised steps to remove J Chippindale as a reviewer from Amazon UK and USA, I will today begin the arduous process of reporting the countless cases of plagiarism to the review monitoring department. In the meantime I would appeal to anyone reading this to go to J Chippindale's profile and run through his reviews. Please click on the (Report this) option at the end of as many reviews as possible, and then the 'Report as inappropriate' button. I'm not sure how many such votes (per review) are needed to get a deletion, but it may as few as three. So please help do the right thing. J Chippindale is a fraud and a plagiarist and is trespassing on true reviewer territory, which misleads the gullible buying public.
Last I checked JC was still posting new reviews. The latest is dated August 22nd. He has also done a massive deletion of the other reviews that were noted as plagiarized and the ones with all the comments about promising to stop, delete, or clean up the account and the admittance of wrongdoing. Unless I got the link wrong again this is what I found.
Does anyone else have an update on Cleaner's actions. I know it's a big task he's doing and results are slow with Amazon, if they come at all.
August 22! How could that be, it's still the 18th. As to deletions: did you notice whether he deleted them, or deleted and then reposted again?
I know that sounded screwy, but the review actually said posted August 22nd, but now, I just checked, that review is gone along with many other pages of his reviews. I don't know if that was a computer glitch on Amazon's part or not with the posting date. Anyhow, he only has 10 pages of reviews up now when before he had many many more before.
I feel drunk whenever I check his profile/review pages. Things are up one second and gone the next. Some gone only temporarily and reposted the next day and some are gone entirely. It's like a freakin' game with him.
I think he's really just jerking people around now. He got rid of many of his "problem" reviews, but the fact remains that he CHEATED on his way to the top with so many people using his account, posting under his name, the dummy/relative accounts voting and commenting on his reviews, and all the damn reviews copied from other sources. I think that he thinks if he just "cleans things up a bit" that life will just go on for him at ranking #18. Sorry, but "correcting" things now just doesn't make the way he climbed to the top right or fair, especially with all the promises to "quit" Amazon. Now, he's just trying to save face as the saying goes.
My guess is that he plans to lie low for a while, expecting people like us to forget about him.
No chance, Chip.
I haven't yet started the mass plagiarism report to Amazon. Sorry, but it would be a huge task and I am far from sure that they would do anything about it anyway. He's posted 2384 'reviews' on Amazon UK and I would take a wild guess that copying or adaptation from another on-line source could be proved in perhaps 500 cases. Each one has to be sent as an individual allegation (i.e. with the ISBN) to Amazon and takes on average about half-an-hour. I'll let someone else multiply half-an-hour by 500 but I already know that that's a lo-o-o-o-ng time. It's annoying because if I was an Amazon employee and I knew what I know of Chippindale, I would report him to someone with the authority to shut him down. But I'm not an employee, I'm just a meaningless customer, a crime fiction enthusiast and someone who objects to watching someone else trick his way to the top.
So I'm sorry if my pursuit isn't quite as hot as you would like, Deborah, but be assured that I haven't given up.
Cleaner, why do you want to report him? Would it not be better to leave the stuff as is, as a warning to visitors sort of thing? It's one thing to post a warning on a blog somewhere, and another -- and much better, I think -- to let the "funny" stuff remain, right there, where people browse. I mean, saying caveat emptor right under a case in point should be more effective, no? So he's No.18, who cares anyway: let people see what the real meaning of Amazon topreviewership is. Alternatively, suppose they blow him off, and then what? I'm sure there's a crowd of similar characters, doing the same thing, just haven't been noticed yet. I think it's better to make a good example of a guy who already happened to have been caught redhanded.
Well, some things have changed a bit since I last posted here on this issue. J. Chippendale is not only still around, but moved up from 18 to 16 in the rankings. In addition, Amazon has deleted ALL of SpellingBee's comments. To me, that is an admittance by Amazon that they know SB is/was JC, but instead of punishing JC for cheating (voting for his own reviews, having others write and post them, and plagiarizing others), the instead shut down his SB profile.
Why is this an "admittance"? Well, frankly, SB never posted anything obscene or abusive to warrant all his posts being deleted, so what other reason was there?
JC is supposed to have some 2,500+ reviews, but he's reduced them down to only 9 pages worth of reviews. Methinks someone is trying to hide his sins, but even what he has up still is highly questionable since he openly admitted that he lets others use his account (son? grandson? daughter? the newspaper boy? his doctor? etc.
I also noticed that on certain reviews the comment section is "locked". If you click on them, you get "Sorry, this Amazon page isn't a function page at this time." Is this some new feature on Amazon to protect their favorites from being questioned? To cover comments?
Hmmmmm . . .
I've taken the advice of most and left JC alone (as has, ahem, The Cleaner). Chippindale has not posted a review for nearly 3 months which I suppose is a good outcome; it was probably a little optimistic to expect Amazon to delete all of his dodgy or plagiarised reviews.
And I see that someone going by the name blake7 (on Amazon UK, this is) has joined the party and has found evidence of plagiarism himself - it's detailed in his comment attached to a review of Seventh Book in the Crowner John Series.
If only Harriet Klausner would lay down and die as complicitly as JC has done....
Well, I can understand leaving the guy alone if he has given up and is quiet now, but I'm just not the kind of person that likes to see cheats get away with stuff and, to me, he's gotten away with his antics by still being listed as a top reviewer and even with not posting he still recently moved up from 18 to 16 which I guess is strictly based upon new votes since he isn't posting anymore.
Again, that's just me and my take on things. I think you, OEJ, and The Cleaner did a bang up job exposing him for the fraud he is, but I'd still like to see him deleted from Amazon. I know some have suggested leaving him alone as some kind of testament to what happens to those who cheat, but in reality, even with blatant examples like his, people will still cheat the system even when they know what the risks are; therefore, I think he should go regardlessly.
I am in agreement, however, that one can only wish the HK would go just as quietly into the night. It's not like anyone is even close to toppling her from her throne.
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