Monday, May 31, 2010

Klausner Defense Shield is ON again.

Helen says:
Interesting. My yes 'votes' counted on the other reviews but since this review was confusing I voted no and my no 'vote' didn't register???
Again, I thought I'd test this (again, I remind the reader here that I can't possibly qualify as Harriet's "fan" since I never vote on her reviews, other than for testing -- which is like once a year maybe). Well, I voted, and my vote did not show up. The Bozos Schield is up again? No wonder our dear Harriet bubbled up in rank up to No. 652 (a couple of months ago she was what? 705 or something?).


Btw, there's a delightfully indignant new poster who apparently has just discovered the Klausner scam: "The Butler". For example,
The Butler says:
Does this synopsis writer get paid by the word?
Yes, Butler, I bet she does! Now, how long till Amazon blows The Butler away for making critical comments about their poster-girl Harriet? Faites vos jeux... I say, by tomorrow morning everything he's posted will be obliterated by Amazon and he himself will be banned from the site. If past is any lesson, Amazon will not tolerate public discussion of their top con-artist Harriet Klausner whose lifetime average (since Nov 1999) is six reviews a day, near all of them five stars (a handful four stars, and never really anything less than that).
Bingo! The Butler's gone. 07/12/2010

5 comments:

The Butler Did It said...

It's already happening. HK's fans trashed my Listmania Lists.
I've written to Amazon's Customer Service to complain about 70 hits in the last 30 days that dropped my 100% Helpful on my 4 lists to 27%. They say they will investigate, but I'm not holding my breath.

Malleus said...

They sometimes did in the past, so I wouldn't be too pessimistic. But, that aside, they own the site, so you should be prepared to "take the heat" as it were. I've suspected for a very long time that Amazon set up this reviewing system purely in order to give publisher shills a venue for posting their five-star lies and then perhaps obfuscate this fact a bit by also letting the public post whatever they might bother writing. Most of Amazonian "regulars" are shills: it simply cannot be otherwise, check out how much stuff they post, and how it's always five stars. The best is probably Midwest Book Review: this outfit posts literally like a hundred reviews a day, always one paragraph of hype looking like literally lifted from the dustjacket, always five stars, no exceptions. There's a ton of them there; they've been active since the beginning, so it's impossible to believe that Amazon is somehow "abused" by them -- after all, a lot of these "abuses" would be very easy to stop, but this just never happens, so one has to assume Amazon likes it this way. And it stands to reason: publishers want to sell their junk, and Amazon makes money every time something does get sold, so why would they not like shills? They'd rather keep guys like you quiet (which they do, but first they let the shills attack you in whatever ways they can; if this doesn't work, they'd blow you off the site at some point).

Btw, don't call them "fans" -- those aren't fans, those are an organised group of shills working together, helping together, and so on. These are not fans, these are themselves.

The Butler Did It said...

Amazon said they support customer's yes-no votes and found nothing wrong with the trashing my list took -- if 100 negs in one day isn't inappropriate voting I don't know what it.
I've taken my lists down1 It was just too painful to watch my hard work being treated so badly without any support from Amazon.
Amazon doesn't value MY nos on HK reviews so what they told me was a lie.

Malleus said...

This is nothing new. First, what they probably checked was that the negs were left by different valid accounts (if that much). There's no reason why the Klausner Protection Squad couldn't comprise a hundred people... just look at how many "top reviewers" there are (I suspect they all can be members of the said squad, since the majority of them look like paid-up shills -- just look at their all-five-stars history and the numbers of reviews they post).

Btw, what actually happened to you? You've been wiped out the way I've never seen before: so far, the usual wipeout consisted in all messages "deleted by Amazon", but in your case, your very name and account seem to be "disappeared". How did they achieve this great success? :-)

The Butler Did It said...

I took myself out. I told them to delete my account. It was the only way to clear my good name.
I think about setting up a new account sometimes, but for now I'm content with giving "Not Helpful" votes on B&N to her reviews.
The latest outrage is the reviews that are geographically inaccurate, e.g. The Memphis BBQ mystery that HK claims gives readers a real feel for life in Nashville and "A Slice of Murder" which she thinks is in Virginia instead of North Carolina. SOMEONE GET THIS WOMAN AN ATLAS! Clearly she's not even bothering to read the book jackets/covers.