Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Honesty and Amazon

On October 20 an Amazon Top 1000 Reviewer named "The Doctor" commented as follows at the foot of several Harriet Klausner and Grady Harp "reviews:"

"All Amazon customers should know the truth about Amazon's "top reviewers." They are sell outs. They mostly review books they've never even read. They are contacted by authors and their reviews are solicited. Why? It sells products, of course. It has been calculated that Amazon's #1 reviewer reviews an average of 45 books a week A WEEK! Is it possible to read 45 books a week? No, it is not. It has also recently been calculated that the reviews of another of Amazon's "top reviewers" have to have been written by at least 27 different people. Why the fraud? Why the collusion? To make money. Did you know that top reviewers receive free merchandise? That they are even sent free APPLIANCES? It's all a scam people, and most of the top reviewers "reviews" are not even legitimate. They provide positive reviews for favors in return. They also have many Amazon "friends" who get online and provide each other with positive ratings for all of their reviews. Collusion at its finest. Many of them have become a sort of half-a$% celebrity. but it's all a joke, and you shouldn't be taken in by it."

Not surprisingly, "The Doctor's" post was pretty quickly "Deleted by Amazon." Once again we owe Amazon good language for teaching us that honesty in the contemporary business world is an easily overrated virtue.

1 comment:

Malleus said...

Surprise, surprise :-) Actually, I was wondering how long his notes would last. Well, about a day... To be fair, he could have demonstrated his case better, rather than just reporting his conclusions -- but that aside, he was right on the money, so I'm just nitpicking. Indeed the situation with the reviews there is beyond sad.