Thursday, September 13, 2012
Are the rules different for Fraud Hattie?
This is something that I’ve wanted to discuss for some time now. We now have a new group of great posters here so I thought I'd throw these questions out here for some other opinions?
In the previous discussion on the deleted comments thread, it was pointed out that Hattie can post just about anything she wants to while others have their reviews rejected. My question is, are the rules for posting in reviews different for Hattie than anyone else? Opinions?
The other thing that’s been bugging me for a long time now is Hattie Fan Voting. Here’s a little history of what I’ve noticed:
Long after I became a neg fan of Hattie’s and could no longer vote, she puked out 60 or so fake reviews and when I went in to hack them apart, I noticed that almost all of them had a pozzie? These fake reviews could not have been out there for more than an hour or 2 so I thought they would go away as whoever put them out there was the same person and would become a fan. Not, they all stuck. So, having witnessed that, I thought that I would try a neg or 2 and see if they stuck, they did not. I tried this again after about 6 months and after hitting the refresh key, it looked like the votes counted. But, I looked back a few minutes later and they were gone. So, I waited again, a few months, tried again, only this time, I accidentally hit the helpful button, BAD BAD BUCK! And when I hit refresh, the vote was still there. For some reason, the pozzie stuck and it would not let me take it back by voting unhelpful (I think that there was one other person that mentioned this same thing a few weeks ago?). So, like a dummy, trying to see if I voted on a few more I would become a positive fan and they would all disappear? NOT, they all stuck and they are still there (it irks me to no end that I might have pushed up her ranking with the pozzies). So, theorizing that if you become a neg fan, you can still give pozzies? I picked a reviewer that I didn’t like much and voted unhelpful enough to become a negative fan. The next day, all of my negs were gone. I tried to vote pozzie and they did not take. Theory shot down. That got me to thinking again, if I become a pozzie fan, can I still vote neg? Not! I tried the reverse on a different reviewer and I still could not post neg or pozzie.
So, here’s my question, are the rules different for Hattie, can anyone vote pozzie all they want on Hattie's fake reviews without becoming a fan? Or, if you become a neg Hattie fan, you can become a turncoat and vote pozzie till the end of time on Hattie’s fake reviews?
It sure looks to me that there are special rules just for Hattie and her fake shill reviews. Opinions?
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13 comments:
No, once you're a fan, you're a fan. Doesn't matter what kind of fan it is, your votes are ignored from that point on.
Also, as far as not being counted: sometimes they look like they're doing some work on their site and counting stops, like they freeze it temporarily. This can last several days. So, if you're being ignored, it's not necessarily because of your fandom but may be 'cause they're doing something and temporarily froze the site. In the latter case, the votes do show up eventually.
Buck,
Excellent post.
Yes, Amazon clearly has two different sets of standards. One for Harriet and one for the rest of the world.
Case in point is our discussion on Harriet's use of inappropriate, offensive, and obscene language. It's against Amazon's reviewer guidelines, which prohibit "objectionable material, obscene or distasteful content". Harriet violates this all the time; I report her; Amazon does nothing.
On the flip side, when I use the same words, my comments are axed faster than we can blink. Yes, even when I'm only repeating exactly what Harriet has said.
The next problem is all those comments to Harriet's reviews that go missing on Tuesday mornings, right after she dumps her huge loads of reviews on publication day. Large numbers of my comments have gone missing with no trace, as have numerous others. I've discovered the pattern and it always occurs on Tuesdays after Harriet has posted lots of reviews and I've posted more than one comment in response.
The third is the "Report Abuse" button. No matter how many times people report abuse, Amazon doesn't do anything about it.
Having said all of that, I have a new word for you to include in your tracking. "Tup". Harriet used it in a review on September 4. I decided to look it up before characterizing it as a cut and paste typo. And what did I find? It's British slang for the "f" bomb.
She is nothing if not resourceful.
Buck,
Back to the fan voter thing.
Amazon failed to take into account the power of the positive vote. I'm a fan voter and have been locked out of voting on Harriet's reviews, too.
We haven't been locked out of voting on other people's reviews, though; and that's huge. By voting on the other reviews of a book that Harriet has reviewed, it lowers Harriet's effectiveness rating. It also moves Harriet down on the review page; and it frequently moves her to the back pages. Getting her off that first page keeps most readers from seeing her reviews ever again and, thus, keeps her from duping any more customers and advancing her numbers. The more votes the other reviewers get, the fewer votes Harriet gets.
It may actually be every bit as effective as being able to vote "not helpful" on Harriet's reviews.
So, Amazon may have created the bar that would prevent us from voting on Harriet's reviews, but we can still use our votes in a different to create the result that's needed.
There is the risk that you'll run across the same reviewer too many times and inadvertently become a fan voter of theirs, but, oh well. Not a lot of sleep lost over that.
Drinking my morning coffee and voting 'helpful' on the other reviews posted for Harriet's latest unread book:
http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Ship-Liaden-Universe-Sharon/product-reviews/1451637985/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_4?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addFourStar&showViewpoints=0
The way she is currently dribbling them out one or two at a time must be hitting her in the pocketbook and reducing her income stream.
I wonder if she is changing it up because of our comments or Amazon has ask her to modify her behavior because of our comments. It's a win/win either way.
Beachmama,
Clearly, the comments are having their desired effect!
The only problem is that she needs to be gone for good. She'll never stop. Even if her ranking sinks to 2,897,472, she'll just be waiting until all the furor dies down, then start it up again. It's true that she could always start posting reviews under a different name, but then that would cause her some identity problems in terms of her other economic enterprises and she'd have to cough that information somewhere.
Still, we're making inroads. She dropped another 2 numbers last night in the rankings.
Friends, don't concentrate on exterminating Klarriet for she is not a unique phenomenon, she's only the most in your face of them on Amazon. But they have hordes of fake reviewers, to the point where I now believe that the overwhelming majority, most of positive reviews on that site are fake. They're not all by Klausner. I now start reading from negative reviews, and in many cases it's all I need. And I also google the net, looking for reviews on other sites (not that they cannot be fake too; after all, Harriet posts her crap not only on Amazon, but in a million other places, including her blogs). Anyone with a "top reviewer" badge is suspicious to me; anyone with "Vine Voice" is too - although, strangely, "viners" are less obnoxious, and frequently post negative reviews - which, imo., proves that having been forced to deal in the open, people are more apprehensive to commit fraud. In that respect, I'm still waiting for our Goddess to start disclosing the fact that she reviews freebies (I can't imagine her actually buying all this stuff, and even if I could, her reviews are almost never stamped with "verified purchase" label).
Malleus,
You've said "don't concentrate on exterminating Klarriet for she is not a unique phenomenon".
Yes, you're so, right, Harriet's not unique. But, for the sake of discussion (and I'm a firm believer in approaching all discussions with the philosophy of "agreeing to disagree"), what, if, she got exterminated? What if she were fined by the FTC for her failure to disclose?
It's not likely to happen, but it could. Wouldn't that send a powerful message to other fraudulent reviewers? Wouldn't that empower and validate those few real and honest reviewers?
I've learned to set my bar high because anything achieved is really a boon. If I set it too low, I usually end up regretting it.
So, if I go for extermination, but achieve hog-tied, that's a great result. If I go for hogtied, but get exposure, that's a pretty good result, too. But, if I go for exposure and get nothing as a result, then it seems like all of the effort is like puffing in the wind.
Just some thoughts. I truly don't mean to be argumentative. You've been at this years longer than I and you have a lot more insight. Your observations are greatly valued and I'd love to know what you've learned over that time. (It could cut my learning curve a little shorter.)
I also see negative reviews from Viners, but it's usually for stupid reasons. As in, they requested the third book in a series and then didn't understand it because they hadn't read the first two.
And Viners can totally commit fraud. I'll point you to a post on my blog. The post isn't all that inspired, as these things go, but the first two comments are from someone who is quite passionate about the issue and who has done a lot of research into a couple of particular Vine program members:
http://sneakyburrito.blogspot.com/2012/01/more-about-online-reviews.html
Embee wrote:
> What if she were fined by the FTC for her failure
> to disclose?
Oh, wait, if it's the FTC you're talking about then I'm all for it. But the FTC has been ignoring the issue for the last fifteen years and only in 2008 deemed it necessary to issue some guidelines, which are generic and toothless. I'm unaware of them ever applying them in practice either. But, if the FTC somehow got involved it'd be great of course. As it is, we're barking at Amazon, and Amazon doesn't give a hoot about our barking, and the conmeisters of the Klausner's kind know that and continue with their stuff. The only positive we could achieve, imo, is to educate the public. These days, if you type into the google page "Harriet Klausner" you'll get this blog on the first page. But it only started in 2007. So, we need to do what buck210 is doing, which is gather and publish information. Hoping that with enough commentary Amazon will deal with Harriet is somewhat childish - because (a) Amazon will not, they know what they're doing, (b) there's no evidence that they would (we've been at it since 2006 at least, with the only effect that most initial posters got banned by Amazon and their commentary wiped out). We need to keep talking I think but the goal should not be to get Klausner removed from Amazon: first, it won't happen, and second, even if it did, they have a bazillion others who do the same thing there. Don't waste efforts fighting windmills, concentrate on what's feasible, and that (imo) is to educate the public, so that they know that Harriet is a con artist, and that there's a horde of them on Amazon (and elsewhere, of course), and that they should not be gullible when they see a pile of five-star shit; they should be suspicious, analytical, and they should research if they want info on their future purchases.
As far as your being argumentative, you're not, don't worry. :-) You're a fine participant so quit apologizing; you're good.
Sneaky Burrito wrote:
>I also see negative reviews from Viners, but it's
> usually for stupid reasons. As in, they requested the
> third book in a series and then didn't understand it
> because they hadn't read the first two.
Well, it can happen of course, but I wouldn't say it prevalent. Now, most "viners" don't really want to review their allocations, so they get a book (or whatever) out of necessity, to stay in the program, and then post some crap about it, obviously w/o reading the book. But some do review, and - and that was my point - even though with viners you'd suspect the worst, 'cause they're openly writing "to order", they are not as bad as you'd expect. I ascribe it to the fact that even though they're hired bastards, everyone knows that they're hired bastards, and this gives them motivation to not act like hired bastards. Amazing but true. I have far less reservations about viners' reviews than the fake crap that comes from "Top Whatever" characters like Boudville, or John Matlock, or a million of others.
>And Viners can totally commit fraud.
Oh sure, I didn't say they can't. What I said was that they commit less fraud that one would expect, them being definitely on-demand, rather than "natural" reviewers.
Thaks for the link to your blog.
Hello all,
I'm bored tonight, so I've been going back through HK's reviews and reading all of your comments. In one of the comments, someone posted a link to her Wikipedia entry.
Per the discussion that's going on here, if the goal is educating the public, it seems like editing the Wikipedia entry is one way to do that. It's pretty short right now, actually. You could even cite this blog as a source! (And, Amazon doesn't control Wikipedia so there's less of a chance of getting things deleted, maybe?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Klausner
Embee said:
"Yes, you're so, right, Harriet's not unique. But, for the sake of discussion (and I'm a firm believer in approaching all discussions with the philosophy of "agreeing to disagree"), what, if, she got exterminated? What if she were fined by the FTC for her failure to disclose?
It's not likely to happen, but it could. Wouldn't that send a powerful message to other fraudulent reviewers? Wouldn't that empower and validate those few real and honest reviewers?
I've learned to set my bar high because anything achieved is really a boon. If I set it too low, I usually end up regretting it.
So, if I go for extermination, but achieve hog-tied, that's a great result. If I go for hogtied, but get exposure, that's a pretty good result, too. But, if I go for exposure and get nothing as a result, then it seems like all of the effort is like puffing in the wind."
I'm with you and I guess that makes me a blood thirsty wench. But, for me, it's not just about Hattie, it's also about Amazon and their amoral, dishonest business practices.
My goal is to see the entire scam exposed and Harriet's unbelievable numbers make her the most obvious example of what's rotten in Amazonland.
What I'm working on is getting someone like Nightline to expose the nasty underworld of paid for, fake reviews. Especially those written by shills who can't be bothered to crack their free books open or follow the rules and state how they manage to get their hands on books not yet released. The fact that this issue recent hit the NY Times gives it some additional gravitas.
Yes, Harriet is lining her pockets on someone's dime and in the process she is misleading readers into buying books based on her bogus four/five star reviews -- but Amazon is enabling her as surely as the neighborhood pusher does a crack addict. She is the out front and center example that may be the key to the castle. There is more information and outrage out there about her than any other reviewer who shills for Amazon. Do I want to see her stopped? Yes. Do I want to see Amazon embarrassed? YES. I’m not sure that this can be done; but I’m willing to take a shot at it. In the meantime, I believe we are making Hattie nervous; she has changed up her normal routine in almost every way. Now I wonder what this is translating to behind the scene at the world’s biggest on line retailer. Are the rats wondering if someone significant is going to shine a light down the hole and discover their dirty secret?
BTW, there is some interesting information here on the legal ramification of shilling:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill
Scroll down to the ‘Internet’ section and see what New York’s Attorney General had to say.
Sorry this is such a long response. I guess Harriet isn’t posting often enough to keep me busy!
Sneaky Burrito said:
"I'm bored tonight, so I've been going back through HK's reviews and reading all of your comments. In one of the comments, someone posted a link to her Wikipedia entry."
LOL, I think that was me. Great idea!! You're right, I believe anyone can edit the content on Wikipedia and it is something we ought to think about doing.
Some stats would be a nice start. Also a link to some of the websites discussing Hattie, including this one of course, and perhaps to the NY Times' article.
Double standards:
Yes, I too have had comments deleted even when I just quoted HK's review and then added the words ."and still she gives it four stars"
Not offensive in any way I could see.
I then reposted practically the same thing, and its has stayed there.
I love the way there is so little actual content in HK's reviews , one or two words (or none) could be changed and it would make just as much sense to give the book one or two stars.
Of course, then no more free books!
Has anyone kept numbers on which publishers are most involved?
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