Mid October Stats Update on Fraud Hattie

This can also be found on her latest fake review

Mid Month Update:

On Jan 31st, Hattie's ranking was 873, today, it's 1335. She dropped in rank 462 places. Here's a month by month breakdown (please note the new "relish" and "Fans" columns):

Date-Relish-Fans-Up/Down-Rank-Up/Down-Total
1/31/2012 25 2555 0 873
2/29/2012 16 2555 0 1053 180 180
3/31/2012 17 2555 0 1069 16 196
4/30/2012 15 2555 0 1077 8 204
5/31/2012 17 2555 0 1075 -2 202
6/30/2012 20 2555 0 1069 -6 196
7/31/2012 22 2555 0 1106 37 233
8/31/2012 12 2555 0 1200 94 327
9/30/2012 9 2592 37 1266 66 393
10/16/2012 12 2599 7 1335 69 462

She went down 94 places 2 months ago, 66 places last month and 69 places already this month. Are recent votes having an effect on Frau Hattie's ranking? Here are some voting stats: Hattie's overall votes are helpful 74% and 26% unhelpful. So far in October, Hattie received 573 votes, 342 (60%) helpful and 231 (40%) unhelpful. Votes so far for all the fake reviews she posted just in October (148 fake reviews), she received 139 helpful (46%) and 160 unhelpful (54%). That comes to only 24% of all the helpful votes cast for fake reviews just in October and 76% of all the unhelpful votes were cast on fake reviews just in October.

The question still remains (or, as Hattie would word it, still the question remains); are all the recent comments on Fraud Hattie's fake reviews making a difference?

She Works Hard for the Money

If you are reading this post, you've likely encountered one of Harriet Klausner's 28,000+ Amazon reviews.  You may have seen statistics about how many books a day she'd have to be reading, to post that many reviews, or maybe you've tried to crunch the numbers yourself.  You may also have noticed a number of Hattie's reviews appearing on, or even BEFORE the books' release dates.  No one is convinced that Hattie has actually read all of the books she's supposedly reviewing.  And many people have speculated that she receives free advance review copies from publishers.

But have you ever wondered what she DOES with all those books after she "reviews" them?  I have maybe 750 books in my condo, and they take up six full-size bookcases and one half-size bookcase.  28,000 books is more than 37 times the number of books I own.  And if one of her books takes up about the same amount of space as one of mine does, that's over 240 bookcases.  (And that's not counting the books she says she doesn't review because she can't give them four or five stars!)  She doesn't keep the books.  She sells them.

I'm not the first person to have said that.  But I wanted to dig a little deeper.  I wanted proof.  And I found it.

Right now, we're going to take a little detour into Hattie's personal life.  Why?  Because her fraud is so brazen that it took me less than fifteen minutes to figure out where she's selling a lot of the books she's receiving free from publishers.  The trail really grew warm when I started piecing together details she's shared about herself online.  Hattie has always been open about the fact that she currently resides in Georgia.  She's also mentioned her husband Stan and that she has a son in her profiles on some of the umpteen-million review sites she frequents.  Well, just look at any free people search site and you can find her address.  You actually find three people with the same address and the last name "Klausner."  We know Stan, and we know Hattie, so the Eric who also shows up must be her son.  On a few review websites she participates in, she mentions that her son was born the same day the Three Mile Island meltdown started.  That allows us to pinpoint an exact birth date for him: March 28, 1979.

Now, think for a moment about how people choose usernames online.  Often they involve first names, initials, birth years, etc.  So imagine my utter shock and surprise (that's supposed to be sarcastic, folks) to find a half.com user in Georgia (Atlanta area) called eric_k1979, who was selling lots and lots of books.  Who has over 7,500 eBay feedback ratings.  (Edit July 2015: Harriet's half.com account has changed usernames to eric_k1948.)  I could go on, but you get the idea.  But I wanted to investigate further.  So I started checking the titles eric_k1979 had for sale against Hattie's reviews on Amazon.  Here's a table compiled from the listings as of October 4, 2012:

Title	Author	HK Amazon Review Date	Release Date
The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose	Albert, Susan Wittig	9/4/12	9/4/12
The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets	Alcott, Kathleen	9/11/12	9/11/12
Fall from Grace	Arthurson, Wayne	none	8/7/12
How a Lady Weds a Rogue	Ashe, Katharine	none	9/25/12
Desire the Night	Ashley, Amanda	9/4/12	9/1/12
Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause : A Mystery	Ballard, Mignon F.	11/22/11	11/22/11
The Fireman Who Loved Me	Bernard, Jennifer	4/24/12	4/24/12
Bloodline	Billingham, Mark	7/11/12	7/14/11
Hearts of Darkness	Brady, Kira	8/7/12	8/7/12
Past Continuous	Breese, K. Ryer	11/8/11	11/8/11
Perilous Pleasures No. 3	Brown, Jenny	3/27/12	3/27/12
The Zurich Conspiracy	Calonego, Bernadette	6/19/12	6/19/12
Termination Orders	Camargo, Caio	none	10/2/12
Gustav Gloom and the People Taker	Castro, Adam-Troy	8/16/12	8/16/12
The Tyrant	Chessex, Jacques	4/9/12	4/10/12
An Autobiography	Christie, Agatha	11/22/11	11/22/11
Have You Seen Marie?	Cisneros, Sandra	10/2/12	10/2/12
Heaven Should Fall	Coleman, Rebecca	9/25/12	9/25/12
When the Night	Comencini, Cristina	4/24/12	4/24/12
Micro	Crichton, Michael	9/25/12	9/25/12
Other Eyes	D'Amato, Barbara	1/22/11	1/18/11
Close Enough to Touch	Dahl, Victoria	8/28/12	8/28/12
Falling Together : A Novel	De Los Santos, Marisa	10/5/11	10/4/11
The Mirrored World : A Novel	Dean, Debra	9/20/12	8/28/12
First, Best and Only	Delinsky, Barbara	none	3/1/12
Me, You	DeLuca, Erri	11/8/11	11/1/11
Where the Trail Ends : American Tapestries	Dobson, Melanie	9/21/12	10/1/12
Loose Cannon : The Tom Kelly Novels	Drake, David	7/1/11	7/5/11
In for a Ruble No. 2	Duffy, David	9/14/12	7/17/12
Spycatcher	Dunn, Matthew	8/9/11	8/9/11
Sentinels: Tiger Bound 142	Durgin, Doranna	7/24/12	7/24/12
The King's Damsel	Emerson, Kate	8/7/12	8/7/12
The Devil Delivered and Other Tales	Erikson, Steven	6/19/12	6/19/12
Homesick	Fernando, Roshi	7/17/12	7/17/12
Darkwater	Fisher, Catherine	9/27/12	9/27/12
Saving Ruth	Fishman, Zoe	5/1/12	5/1/12
Can't Stop Loving You	Ford, Bette	1/31/12	1/31/12
Ranchero	Gavin, Rick	10/2/12	10/2/12
Hideout	George, Kathleen	6/19/12	6/19/12
The Vampire Dimitri	Gleason, Colleen	4/18/11	4/19/11
The Vampire Narcise	Gleason, Colleen	5/27/11	5/24/11
A Cold Day in Paradise : An Alex Mcknight Novel No. 1	Hamilton, Steve	5/22/12	5/22/12
Finding Mercy	Harper, Karen	*	10/16/12
Speechless	Harrington, Hannah	8/28/12	8/28/12
Dead by Midnight	Hart, Carolyn G.	4/1/11	3/29/11
Rest for the Wicked No. 20	Hart, Ellen	10/2/12	10/2/12
Forever Werewolf/Moon Kissed	Hauf, Michele	9/18/12	9/18/12
Vacation with a Vampire : Stay Vivi and the Vampire Island Vacation 139	Hauf, Michele	6/18/12	6/19/12
Queen of Kings	Headley, Maria Dahvana	5/10/12	5/1/12
A Long Way from You	Heasley, Gwendolyn	6/5/12	6/5/12
The Dark Earl	Henley, Virginia	9/8/11	9/6/11
The Last Four Things	Hoffman, Paul	none	8/4/11
Autumn Winds	Hubbard, Charlotte	9/5/12	9/4/12
My Lord Vampire	Ivy, Alexandra	2/28/12	3/1/12
Practically Wicked	Johnson, Alissa	10/2/12	10/2/12
Detroit Breakdown	Johnson, D.E.	9/4/12	9/4/12
Shifting Plains	Johnson, Jean	11/7/09	11/3/09
Measure of Darkness	Jordan, Chris	11/15/11	11/15/11
Invisible Murder	Kaaberbol, Lene	10/2/12	10/2/12
The Investigation of Ariel Warning	Kalich, Robert	4/27/12	4/19/12
Fire Kissed	Kellison, Erin	none	7/3/12
Countdown: H Hour	Kratman, Tom	none	7/31/12
Earthblood and Other Stories	Laumer, Keith	none	1/31/12
Imperium	Laumer, Keith	none	7/31/12
The Lost Artist	Lukasik, Gail	9/23/12	6/6/12
Dragon's Curse 140	Lynn, Denise	6/19/12	6/19/12
The Vampire Combat Manual : A Guide to Fighting the Bloodthirsty Undead	Ma, Roger	none	10/2/12
Lifting the Wheel of Karma : A Tormented Boy Embarks on a Profound Journey of Extraordinary Healling and Enlightenment	Magid, Paul H.	9/14/12	9/23/12
The Mermaid Collector	Marks, Erika	10/2/12	10/2/12
Paradise City : A Joe Gunther Novel	Mayor, Archer	10/2/12	10/2/12
The Formula for Murder	McCleary, Carol	7/17/12	7/17/12
Goodnight Tweetheart	Medeiros, Teresa	12/16/10	12/14/10
The Slayer	Meyers, Theresa	4/1/12	4/3/12
The Messenger	Miller, Stephen	7/31/12	7/31/12
Om Love	Minot, George	8/14/12	8/14/12
Merge / Disciple : Two Short Novels from Crosstown to Oblivion	Mosley, Walter	10/2/12	10/2/12
The Book of the Night No. 3 of 3	North, Pearl	9/4/12	9/4/12
Ice and Shadow	Norton, Andre	8/7/12	8/7/12
The Lincoln Conspiracy : A Novel	O'Brien, Timothy L.	9/18/12	9/18/12
Sacrifice Fly	O'Mara, Tim	none	10/16/12
Strange Flesh	Olson, Michael	4/3/12	4/3/12
Silent House	Pamuk, Orhan	10/8/12	10/9/12
Dark Shadows : Angelique's Descent	Parker, Lara	5/16/12	4/10/12
Dark Shadows : The Salem Branch	Parker, Lara	7/12/06	7/11/06
Supernatural: Rite of Passage	Passarella, John	8/14/12	8/14/12
Melt into You	Plumley, Lisa	5/1/12	5/1/12
Hellbox	Pronzini, Bill	7/10/12	7/3/12
The Wreckage : A Thriller	Robotham, Michael	6/18/11	6/16/11
Season for Surrender	Romain, Theresa	10/2/12	10/2/12
A Woman's Heart	Ross, JoAnn	none	9/25/12
Triple Crossing	Rotella, Sebastian	8/8/11	8/10/11
Confessions of an Angry Girl	Rozett, Louise	9/12/12	8/28/12
A Kingdom Divided : Empire of the Moghul 2	Rutherford, Alex	7/9/11	7/5/11
Nerve	Ryan, Jeanne	9/27/12	9/13/12
Upgunned	Schow, David J.	2/14/12	2/14/12
Sidney Sheldon's Angel of the Dark	Sheldon, Sidney	4/3/12	4/3/12
Suzy's Case : A Novel	Siegel, Andy	none	7/10/12
Downward to the Earth	Silverberg, Robert	none	8/7/12
Games Traitors Play	Stock, Jon	3/27/12	3/27/12
Death on Telegraph Hill : A Sarah Woolson Mystery No. 5	Tallman, Shirley	*	10/16/12
Darkest Desire	Taylor, Tawny	9/8/12	8/28/12
Sweet Laurel Falls	Thayne, RaeAnne	9/25/12	9/25/12
Queen of the Waves : American Tapestries	Thompson, Janice	10/1/12	10/1/12
Rain Falls Like Mercy	Todd, Jack	11/8/11	11/8/11
Exiled: Clan of the Claw	Turtledove, Harry	none	6/26/12
Golden Reflections	Turtledove, Harry	none	12/27/11
The Covert Wolf 141	Vanak, Bonnie	7/25/12	7/24/12
A Sweethaven Homecoming	Walsh, Courtney	8/1/12	8/1/12
The Wolf Princess/One Eye Open	Whiddon, Karen	9/18/12	9/18/12
The News from Spain : Seven Variations on a Love Story	Wickersham, Joan	*	10/9/12
Hostage	Wiesel, Elie	8/21/12	8/21/12
Table for Five	Wiggs, Susan	3/30/05	4/1/05
The Anatomy of Death	Young, Felicity	5/1/12	5/1/12

* indicates a title went on sale on Half.com at least five days before its release date.  For volumes with multiple authors, only the first author's name is given.

I know not all of the titles on this list have been reviewed by Hattie on Amazon.com.  The data in the above table for review dates is accurate as of October 5, 2012.  Embee has found that at least one of the books lacking an Amazon review was reviewed on another site.  But a quick count reveals that 93 out of 113 of these do have HK reviews on Amazon.  That's 82.3%.  Pay particular attention to the following titles:

• Finding Mercy by Karen Harper (eric_k1979 $2.00, MSRP $14.95, Amazon $10.17)
• Silent House by Orhan Pamuk (eric_k1979 $10.00, MSRP $26.95, Amazon $15.84)
• Death on Telegraph Hill by Shirley Tallman (eric_k1979 $9.00, MSRP $24.99, Amazon $13.88)
• The News from Spain by Joan Wickersham (eric_k1979 $7.00, MSRP $24.95, Amazon $14.01)

Why?  Half.com user eric_k1979 had these books for sale BEFORE THEY WERE EVEN RELEASED.  Finding Mercy didn't even have a release date yet, when I started compiling this data (however, a release date has since been set at October 16, 2012).  From time to time, I have been in a bookstore the weekend before a book was due to be released, and seen that book on a shelf.  But never more than 3 or 4 days before the release was due.

Consider this, as well: our friend Hattie cannot have bought these four books from Amazon, because they weren't out yet at the time of listing on Half.com, which means IF she did not receive them free from publishers, she would've plunked down $91.84 plus tax at bookstores that JUST HAPPENED to have put these out accidentally a minimum of 5 days, and possibly up to 12 days, before their release dates.  And if she manages to sell them all at the prices listed above, she'd be getting a maximum of $28 back.  That's a loss of $63.84, if they'd been bought at the MSRP.  And that's just four books. Considering the sheer volume of books listed by this user, and the volume of books "reviewed" by HK, she'd be losing thousands -- even tens of thousands -- of dollars a year.  Unless, as many people suspect, she's not paying for these books in the first place.  In which case she'd be turning a tidy profit from re-selling her advance review copies.

But wait, you say.  All I have to go on is a user name that happens to match her son's first name, a last initial, and a birth date.  "Eric" is a common name, there are plenty of last names that start with "K," and there are plenty of people in the Atlanta area who were born in 1979.  Couldn't this all be a big coincidence (even allowing for the fact that HK reviewed 82.3% of the books eric_k1979 had for sale on October 4)?

So I took it a step further.  I actually purchased two books from eric_k1979.

Here is the return address label from the box they arrived in; the street address, which I have blacked out, matches EXACTLY the address in the White Pages for Hattie, husband Stan, and son Eric.  And the sender's last name, you can see for yourself.



The books did not look as if they had been read, although Hattie did post reviews for them on Amazon.  But perhaps even more damning is the publicity material folded up and stuffed between the pages of one of the books.  I have NEVER seen such material except in the context of an advance review copy of a book I received, free of charge, from a publisher, in exchange for writing a review.  You don't just find this type of material stuffed in books you pick up at Barnes and Noble.  Below are scans of a couple of pages of this (note, this particular book is not my type of reading material...):




So, we have evidence that our friend Hattie receives advance review copies of books from publishers, and that she sells them after posting reviews.  Except for a small number of books Hattie has received through the Amazon Vine program, her reviews NEVER include disclosure that she has received free copies of the books in exchange for writing reviews.  And THIS is a violation of Federal Trade Commission Guidelines, as described in the CFR, or Code of Federal Regulations.  Example 8 from 16 CFR section 255.0 says:

"A consumer who regularly purchases a particular brand of dog food decides one day to purchase a new, more expensive brand made by the same manufacturer. She writes in her personal blog that the change in diet has made her dog's fur noticeably softer and shinier, and that in her opinion, the new food definitely is worth the extra money. This posting would not be deemed an endorsement under the Guides.

Assume that rather than purchase the dog food with her own money, the consumer gets it for free because the store routinely tracks her purchases and its computer has generated a coupon for a free trial bag of this new brand. Again, her posting would not be deemed an endorsement under the Guides.

Assume now that the consumer joins a network marketing program under which she periodically receives various products about which she can write reviews if she wants to do so. If she receives a free bag of the new dog food through this program, her positive review would be considered an endorsement under the Guides."

Clearly, HK falls into the third category.  So her positive reviews of the books she receives for free constitute endorsements.  And what else does the US government have to say about endorsements?

From 16 CFR section 255.5:

"When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement ( i.e. , the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed."

And Example 7, from the same section:

"A college student who has earned a reputation as a video game expert maintains a personal weblog or “blog” where he posts entries about his gaming experiences. Readers of his blog frequently seek his opinions about video game hardware and software. As it has done in the past, the manufacturer of a newly released video game system sends the student a free copy of the system and asks him to write about it on his blog. He tests the new gaming system and writes a favorable review. Because his review is disseminated via a form of consumer-generated media in which his relationship to the advertiser is not inherently obvious, readers are unlikely to know that he has received the video game system free of charge in exchange for his review of the product, and given the value of the video game system, this fact likely would materially affect the credibility they attach to his endorsement. Accordingly, the blogger should clearly and conspicuously disclose that he received the gaming system free of charge. The manufacturer should advise him at the time it provides the gaming system that this connection should be disclosed, and it should have procedures in place to try to monitor his postings for compliance."

Now, our friend Hattie has certainly earned a reputation for "reviewing" books.  28,083 as of this writing, and that's just the ones posted on Amazon.com.  Below are screen shots for Hattie's reviews of the books I purchased from eric_k1979.





I don't see any disclosure (I've purposefully cropped the images to show content above and below, so I can't be accused of cropping out said disclosure).  And I sure as hell don't believe that Amazon (or any publisher) has procedures in place to monitor HK's postings for compliance.

So there you have it:

1. HK receives advance review copies of books from publishers
2. HK posts "reviews" on Amazon (and other websites)
3. HK puts books up for sale on Half.com under her son's name (or else gives them to her son to post there), sometimes well in advance of the release dates of the books
4. HK violates FTC disclosure rules by failing to mention that she received free copies of these books in exchange for an endorsement (and 99.7% 4- and 5-star reviews certainly implies endorsement)

Amazon hides reviewers' records now?

Am I missing something or Amazon did remove the "See all my reviews" from the books' pages? Every review used to have this link next to the reviewer's byline, whereby you could quickly skip to the reviewer's reviews page (and potentially see signs of trouble, like no record at all, except for one book — the so-called "one-review wonder"). I do not see this link anymore — am I blind or did it truly get removed? If so, why would they remove it? (Other than making it harder to tell shills from normal reviewers, of course.)

The Ties that Bind Klausner (Financial Ties to the Publishing Industry

TheWall Street Journal (WSJ) Magazine reports that Harriet Klausner receives compensation from her “book reviews for periodicals like Affaire de Coeur, I Love a Mystery, the online 'zine Baryon, and from her work as an advance reader for the Doubleday Book Club.”  The article did not mention that Harriet is paid by Porthole Cruise Magazine.

Klausner is also employed as a staffer for the Washington Times, where each one of her reviews is followed by this notice:

This article is the copyrighted property of the writer and Communities @ WashingtonTimes.com. Written permission must be obtained before reprint in online or print media.  REPRINTING TWTC CONTENT WITHOUT PERMISSION AND/OR PAYMENT IS THEFT AND PUNISHABLE BY LAW.

When this blog entry was first posted published on October 4, 2012, the webpages for WillowTree Press (a small, independent publishing house)  contained syndicated Harriet Klausner reviews on its website and provided direct links to BookReview.com which is well known for its “pay to play” policies.  Additional links on the Willow Tree site redirected the reader to syndicated Harriet reviews on harstan.wordpress.com and merrygenregoroundreviews.wordpress.com.  It appears in that in one day, Willow Tree Press has gone out of business and has taken most of its website down.  The credits to BookReview.com, Harstan.wordpress.com, and merrygenregoround reviews.wordpress.com are no longer available.  However,  BookReview.com still contains the book reviews with Harriet's name on them.

Publishers like MacMillan, Vinspire Publishing, Robert D. Reed Publishers, and a host of authors use Klausner reviews from bookreview.com.  Juno Books, a subsidiary of Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, and Bardsong Press feature Harriet Klausner reviews on many of their webpages.  A number of writers credit Mainstreamfiction.blogspot.com and booksnbytes for the use of Klausner’s reviews.

There are several definitions for the word “syndicate”, but the definition that fits is “a business concern that sells materials for publication in a number of newspapers or periodicals simultaneously”.  Klausner has syndicated herself under the names “Harstan”, the owner of her wordpress blogs (click on the "syndicated revewer" link by Harriet's name and it redirects to merrygenregoround.com through Harstan.wordpress.blog), and Harriet's Book Reviews.  These three sites are owned by the Klausners.  In light of the tens of thousands of uncopyrighted and unsyndicated reviews on Amazon, there is absolutely no reason to syndicate Harriet’s reviews other than to be able to charge for them.  If bookreview.com charges fees for those reviews (which it does), Klausner obviously receives payment for them. 

On bookreview.com, first-time authors are required to fill out an application form and submit a $35.00 fee.  This fee is characterized as a “membership” fee.  If authors want expedited reviews they can pay a fee of $175.  A bulk review schedule shows prices ranging from $110 through $150 per book, depending on the numbers submitted.  This is the information that is available to the public.  It is not known how existing authors work once they become members, because those pages, if they exist, are not public pages.  Willow Tree Press's former webpages demonstrated that they used bookreview.com to obtain book reviews from Harriet Klausner.  This is an author's webpage with  a review from Harriet Klausner at BookReview.com.  Klausner is not listed on the webpages for bookreview.com’s reviewer webpages, but she reviews countless books on their website.  Harriet is far too savvy a businesswoman to give away the rights to her reviews so that someone else can be paid for them.

Harriet’s activities with epinions.com a known paid review business, went dormant in 2000 after she had posted more than 300 reviews. 

Klausner and her husband Stanley own and operate a minimum of seven reviewing websites and Harriet herself is affiliated with at least 35 other online reviewing sites.

Hattie’s dishonesty has been proven time and time again.  No reason has been stated for Harriet’s vastly different profiles and many different business names under which her reviews are posted and websites are owned.  There are several reasons why this could happen, but the top two are:  (1) to avoid liability; and (2) to hide the business trail.

The question of the day is whether or not Amazon has paid Harriet for any of the 28,076 reviews she has posted to date. A clear connection can’t be made.  Amazon allowed, at one time, advertisements on its website that solicited people to write Amazon book reviews for $10 apiece.  While the ads are no longer allowed on Amazon's pages, the advertisements can be found all over the internet.  No direct connection between the advertisers and Amazon can be proved.  The problem is that Klausner hasn’t shown any reluctance to pass up an economic gain (as indicated above), especially if it can be hidden.  Paid reviews would highly incentivize someone like Harriet who can, and frequently does, post more than 200 reviews per month.  This could be one explanation for the hastily posted, poorly disguised, rewritten dustjacket language in her reviews.  It could also explain why Amazon protects Klausner in spite of her blatant violations of its review policies and in spite of countless complaints about the violations.  Rather than fix the Harriet problem, Amazon has limited voting capability on the helpfulness of her reviews, deleted comments, and banished some people from commenting at all.  Whether right or wrong, this only adds to the suspicion of a tidy little business arrangement between Amazon and Klausner.

In the final analysis, Harriet is employed for her services by none less than one publisher and six magazines.  A minimum of another five publishers each feature many of her reviews on their websites.  She additionally receives payment for her syndicated reviews through bookreview.com, harstan.wordpress.blog, merrygenregoroundreviews.com, Harriet Klausner Reviews.  Klausner has syndicated her reviews on websites that she and her husband own.  She has been a prior member of at least one other pay-for-review entity.  She resells free early review copies of books that she receives from the publishers.  It can’t be proven that she receives income from her position as a print editor at PaintedRock.com or from Mainstreamfiction.blogspot.com and booksnbytes.com, two blogs that authors credit with allowing them to use Harriet's reviews.  It’s not clear whether the other websites that Klausner owns generate any income.  The relationship between Klausner and Amazon is inconclusive.  Many of these relationships raise serious questions, nonetheless, because there is plenty of room for financial dealings within the murkiness.

*  Unfortunately, within 24 hours of first posting this article, Willow Tree took down almost all of its webpages, leaving only 2 Klausner reviews with the notations of "syndicated reviewer." The Klausner connection to Willow Tree through BookReview.com is still evident on BookReview.com.

Sources:

Wired Magazine Time Magazine WSJ Magazine The Washington Times Dayton Daily News NY Times Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Magazine Washington Times Dayton Daily News I Love a Mystery.Com Books N Bytes.com BiblioTravel.com pnr.thebestreviews.com www.eclectica.org amazon.com barnes and noble.com genregoround.reviews themysterygazette.blogspot.com sfreview.com www.allreaders.com www.reviewcentre.com bookcrossing.com boatlinks.com Harstan CreateABlog.com harrietklausner.wwi.com alternateworlds.com paintedrock.com Garreau.com

harstan.bookpress.com blether: the book review site bestsellersworld.com worldsofwonder.blogspot.com bookreview.com ferashare.wordpress.com thebaryon.blogspot.com mainstream fiction.com FMAM.com FollowtheClue.wordpress.com www.openbdb.com sfrevu www.sfsite.com www.sffmeta.com junobooks.com theromanticposts.blogspot.com thebestparanormalromance.com www.aaaamonmouthchapter.org bookbrowser.com midwestbookreview.com Reader’s Robot The World of Romance

The Lies that Bind Klausner

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Fraud Hattie Stats September 2012

These are also posted on her most recent fake review link

Time for another monthy (yes, that was spelled wrong on purpose, just look at Hattie’s profile and you will see the same misspelling) recap, I checked in with the GTG Institute for Tracking the Antics of our Favorite Fraud, Harriet Klausner, here is what was found. 

 

200 fake reviews posted by Fraud Hattie last month. 9 had “relish”, 4 had “over the top of”, 12 had “years old” incorrectly, only 1 porn reference, 2 had armchairs, 23 times “still” was used incorrectly, 50 of them were “fast-paced” (1 was “frantically-paced” and 1 slow-paced), 13 “never slowed down” 8 of them were “cozy”, only 1 “faster than Ricky Henderson stole bases” was found.

Here’s what I know you’ve all been waiting for, vote stats:

Fans: 2592, up 37 this month.

Rank: 1266, down 66 from last month and 393 since January.

Overall votes: 74% helpful stayed the same as last month.

Votes cast in September, 65% (69% last month) helpful, 35% (31% last month) unhelpful

Votes cast on the Sept. fake reviews only: 53% (same as last month) helpful, 47% unhelpful.

 

Here’s the last almost 4 years of Fraud Hattie History:

256	fake reviews in	Jan	2009	8.26	per day	8.26	YTD	5.45	Overall	18304	Reviews to date
215	fake reviews in	Feb	2009	7.68	per day	7.97	YTD	5.46	Overall	18519	Reviews to date
262	fake reviews in	Mar	2009	8.45	per day	8.13	YTD	5.50	Overall	18781	Reviews to date
186	fake reviews in	Apr	2009	6.20	per day	7.65	YTD	5.50	Overall	18967	Reviews to date
288	fake reviews in	May	2009	9.29	per day	7.98	YTD	5.54	Overall	19255	Reviews to date
197	fake reviews in	Jun	2009	6.57	per day	7.74	YTD	5.54	Overall	19452	Reviews to date
203	fake reviews in	Jul	2009	6.55	per day	7.57	YTD	5.55	Overall	19655	Reviews to date
275	fake reviews in	Aug	2009	8.87	per day	7.73	YTD	5.58	Overall	19930	Reviews to date
242	fake reviews in	Sep	2009	8.07	per day	7.77	YTD	5.60	Overall	20172	Reviews to date
307	fake reviews in	Oct	2009	9.90	per day	7.98	YTD	5.64	Overall	20479	Reviews to date
215	fake reviews in	Nov	2009	7.17	per day	7.91	YTD	5.65	Overall	20694	Reviews to date
175	fake reviews in	Dec	2009	5.65	per day	7.72	YTD	5.65	Overall	20869	Reviews to date
228	fake reviews in	Jan	2010	7.35	per day	7.35	YTD	5.67	Overall	21097	Reviews to date
214	fake reviews in	Feb	2010	7.64	per day	7.50	YTD	5.68	Overall	21311	Reviews to date
203	fake reviews in	Mar	2010	6.55	per day	7.18	YTD	5.69	Overall	21514	Reviews to date
314	fake reviews in	Apr	2010	10.47	per day	8.00	YTD	5.72	Overall	21828	Reviews to date
219	fake reviews in	May	2010	7.06	per day	7.82	YTD	5.74	Overall	22047	Reviews to date
210	fake reviews in	Jun	2010	7.00	per day	7.68	YTD	5.75	Overall	22257	Reviews to date
183	fake reviews in	Jul	2010	5.90	per day	7.43	YTD	5.75	Overall	22440	Reviews to date
150	fake reviews in	Aug	2010	4.84	per day	7.10	YTD	5.74	Overall	22590	Reviews to date
228	fake reviews in	Sep	2010	7.60	per day	7.16	YTD	5.75	Overall	22818	Reviews to date
296	fake reviews in	Oct	2010	9.55	per day	7.40	YTD	5.78	Overall	23114	Reviews to date
187	fake reviews in	Nov	2010	6.23	per day	7.29	YTD	5.79	Overall	23301	Reviews to date
192	fake reviews in	Dec	2010	6.19	per day	7.20	YTD	5.79	Overall	23493	Reviews to date
185	fake reviews in	Jan	2011	5.97	per day	5.97	YTD	5.79	Overall	23678	Reviews to date
229	fake reviews in	Feb	2011	8.18	per day	7.07	YTD	5.81	Overall	23907	Reviews to date
204	fake reviews in	Mar	2011	6.58	per day	6.91	YTD	5.81	Overall	24111	Reviews to date
306	fake reviews in	Apr	2011	10.20	per day	7.73	YTD	5.84	Overall	24417	Reviews to date
171	fake reviews in	May	2011	5.52	per day	7.29	YTD	5.84	Overall	24588	Reviews to date
219	fake reviews in	Jun	2011	7.30	per day	7.29	YTD	5.85	Overall	24807	Reviews to date
218	fake reviews in	Jul	2011	7.03	per day	7.25	YTD	5.86	Overall	25025	Reviews to date
289	fake reviews in	Aug	2011	9.32	per day	7.51	YTD	5.89	Overall	25314	Reviews to date
230	fake reviews in	Sep	2011	7.67	per day	7.53	YTD	5.90	Overall	25544	Reviews to date
210	fake reviews in	Oct	2011	6.77	per day	7.45	YTD	5.90	Overall	25754	Reviews to date
215	fake reviews in	Nov	2011	7.17	per day	7.43	YTD	5.91	Overall	25969	Reviews to date
157	fake reviews in	Dec	2011	5.06	per day	7.23	YTD	5.91	Overall	26126	Reviews to date
214	fake reviews in	Jan	2012	6.90	per day	6.90	YTD	5.91	Overall	26340	Reviews to date
203	fake reviews in	Feb	2012	7.25	per day	7.08	YTD	5.92	Overall	26543	Reviews to date
219	fake reviews in	Mar	2012	7.06	per day	7.07	YTD	5.93	Overall	26762	Reviews to date
195	fake reviews in	Apr	2012	6.50	per day	6.93	YTD	5.93	Overall	26957	Reviews to date
214	fake reviews in	May	2012	6.90	per day	6.92	YTD	5.94	Overall	27171	Reviews to date
189	fake reviews in	Jun	2012	6.30	per day	6.82	YTD	5.94	Overall	27360	Reviews to date
215	fake reviews in	Jul	2012	6.94	per day	6.84	YTD	5.95	Overall	27575	Reviews to date
213	fake reviews in	Aug	2012	6.87	per day	6.84	YTD	5.96	Overall	27788	Reviews to date
200	fake reviews in	Sep	2012	6.67	per day	6.82	YTD	5.96	Overall	27988	Reviews to date