Dear Author » Deborah Anne MacGillivray

Reba Belle v. Amazon Update

Jane — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:19:52 +0000

We have not dropped this. Our petition is up to 644 signatures and we are still planning on sending the printed version to both Amazon and the Washington State AG’s office. We actually received a response, albeit a form one, from Amazon yesterday. While this isn’t the response that we want to hear but it is a response at this point. As we have learned from the Cassie Edwards matter, it may take time for resolution to come forth.

***

> —–Original Message—–
> From: Amazon.com Executive Customer Relations [mailto:ecr@amazon.com] > Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 2:08 PM
> To: jane@dearauthor.com
> Subject: Your E-mail to Jeff Bezos – Petition Against Amazon to Change
>
> Dear Jane Little,
>
> My name is Peg Anderson of Amazon.com?s Executive Customer
> Relations. Jeff Bezos received your e-mail and has asked me to
> reply on his behalf. I apologize for the delay in responding.
>
> We appreciate the time you’ve taken to share your feedback with us.
> We take the situation very seriously and are investigating
> thoroughly. We’ll only discuss the specifics of review moderation
> with the reviewer and we appreciate your understanding.
>
> It’s always important for us to hear how customers feel about all
> aspects of shopping at Amazon.com. Strong customer feedback like
> yours helps us continue to improve our store and the service we
> provide.
>
> Thank you for contacting Amazon.com.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Peg Anderson
> Executive Customer Relations
> Amazon.com
> http://www.amazon.com

Summary Post of Reba’s Amazon Fight

Jane — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 02:49:53 +0000

I tried to re-open the Dear Author forum, ~~but am having technical difficulties. Instead, I’ll sticky this post for a week.~~ I got the forum working but I had to start anew. I’ve had some inquiries about what people can do to in response to Amazon’s treatment of Reba Belle. The following is just a timeline followed by a list of contacts.

August 11, 2007: Reba Belle writes a three star review of In Her Bed by Deborah Anne MacGillivray in which she says “There it is, the voice of dissent. Sorry. I really wanted to like this book. I read book #1–twice.”

August 13, 2007, Deborah MacGillivray (hereinafter “DAM”) lectures Reba Bella about Reba’s opinion. DAM subsequently deletes the review, but it is viewable via Google Cache and saved by blogger, Karen Scott.

August 12-24, 2007, Reba Belle is subjected to abusive comments by DAM’s friends and fellow authors.

August 21, 2007, DAM writes to her Highland Press author group to “vote down this bitch please” and that

Well, thanks to XXXXXX our PI , we now have her name, her husband’s
name, her chidrens’ names, her grannies and great grannies name. Her
address phone number and email
lol – quite interesting.

August 21, 2007, Leanne Grant posts to the thread Read any BAD books lately on Amazon. This comment was deleted by I have it in hard copy.

I see you didn’t go ride your horse and chill. Stop attack authors,
especially the one you cannot recall or Amazon is going to shut you
down. You are dearly attacking someone whith Is against the forum N~S.
You clearly have a “problem”.
Whoa –Reba, you took down on your ‘horsa for sale ads” that have
your phone and address showing. Too late tot What next the family
tree page? You forgot the xxxx family he…XXX [Initials of Reba Belle removed]

August 2007- ? Reba Belle contacts Amazon over 50 times to report negative behavior of DAM and the constant removal of her three star review.

April 7, 2008 – Jane posts warnings about Highland Press from email tips she received. Evidence emerges that a group of authors manipulating Amazon reviews of books both by organizing campaigns of “clickies” to boost the rating of certain five-star reviews and reporting lower-star reviews as abusive. Another Highland Press author provides a copy of the previously mentioned email in which DAM allegedly brags about obtaining personal information of Reba Belle.

April __, 2008 Reba Belle responds by posting several copies of her posts on the Amazon board.

April 14, 2008 – Amazon deletes all of Reba Belle’s comments from the Amazon boards. It places her account in “bad standing.” She cannot post at Amazon nor can she upload reviews. She can, however, order products.

April 17, 2008 – Reba Belle finally receives an update from Amazon customer service indicating that her account will remain in bad standing and that maybe sometime in the future, she might be granted the privilege of posting again so long as she never brings this topic up.

April 17, 2008 – Dear Author sponsors an iPetition to have Reba’s rights restored and to ban DAM. (Please note that if you do digitally sign the petition that you do not have to donate any money. When that screen comes up, click away).

***

Other readers want to know what more they can do. I have compiled a list of email addresses provided by different commenters. Please add your own thoughts in the comments section.

You can write an email to ago@amazon.com. This is the email address for Amazon’s Executive Customer Service Department.

The president of Deborah Anne MacGillivray’s publishing house is Steven Zacharius szacharius@kensingtonbooks.com.

Another reader posted a list “of mainstream media contacts if anyone wants to forward this story on to any of them. Lots of email addresses in there. There might not be tons of interest in little old nobody MacGillivray, but the whole Amazon voting/ratings fraud angle, with this as just one instance, might spark some interest.”

ABC News
77 W. 66 St., New York, NY 10023
Phone: 212-456-7777
General e-mail: netaudr@abc.com

CBS News
524 W. 57 St., New York, NY 10019
Phone: 212-975-4321
Fax: 212-975-1893

email for CBS news programs:

CBS Evening News: evening@cbsnews.com
The Early Show: earlyshow@cbs.com
David Letterman: lswdl@aol.com

CNN
One CNN Center, Box 105366, Atlanta, GA 30303-5366
Phone: 404-827-1500
Fax: 404-827-1906
e-mail: feedback@cnn.com;

Fox News Channel
1211 Ave. of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Phone: (212) 301-3000
Fax: (212) 301-4229
comments@foxnews.com

NBC
30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112
Phone: 212-664-4444
Fax: 212-664-4426
NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams: nightly@nbc.com
NBC News Today: today@nbc.com
Dateline NBC: dateline@nbc.com

MSNBC
One MSNBC Plaza
Secaucus, NJ 07094
Phone: (201) 583-5000
Fax: (201) 583-5453

PBS
1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, VA 22314
Phone: 703-739-5000
Fax: 703-739-8458
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: newshour@pbs.org

National Public Radio
635 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20001
Web site: http://www.npr.org

Associated Press (AP),
50 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, New York 10020
Feedback, feedback@ap.org

Newsweek
251 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
e-mail: letters@newsweek.com

Time
Time & Life Building
Rockefeller Center
New York, NY 10020
e-mail: letters@time.com

Newsday
235 Pinelawn Rd.
Melville, NY 11747
e-mail: letters@newsday.com

The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, New York 10036
e-mail: letters@nytimes.com

The New York Post
letters@nypost.com

USA Today
1000 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22229
e-mail: editor@usatoday.com

The Washington Post
1150 15th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20071
e-mail: Letterstoed@washpost.com

The Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia, PA 19101
e-mail: Inquirer.Opinion@phillynews.com

The Boston Globe
P.O. Box 2378
Boston, MA 02107
e-mail: letter@globe.com or news@globe.com

The Boston Herald
One Herald Square
Boston, MA 02106
e-mail: letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com

Chicago Sun-Times
401 N. Wabash Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611
e-mail: letters@suntimes.com

Chicago Tribune
435 N. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611

Cleveland Plain Dealer
1801 Superior Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio 44114
e-mail: news@cleveland.com

Dallas Morning News
P.O. Box 655237
Dallas, TX 75265
e-mail: letterstoeditor@dallasnews.com

Detroit News
615 Lafayette Boulevard
Detroit, MI 48226
e-mail: letter@detnews.com

Los Angeles Times
Times Mirror Square
Los Angeles, CA 90053
e-mail: letters@latimes.com

San Francisco Chronicle
901 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
e-mail: chronletters@sfgate.com

San Francisco Examiner
110 Fifth Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
e-mail: letters@examiner.com

***

DAM also held a fundraising charity for deceased author Dawn Thompson. Some people are inquiring about the legitimacy of the fundraiser. DS provided some details as to how to go about finding out more information regarding this fundraiser:

Something quick about the charitable lottery.

DAM was in Kentucky- Here is the url to the Kentucky Office that oversees charitable gaming:

http://www.ocg.ky.gov/complaints.htm

Leeann Burroughs and presumably Highland Press is in Florida. Here is the url to Florida laws.

http://www.flsenate.gov/statutes/index.cfm?mode=View%20Statutes&SubMenu=1&App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=raffle&URL=CH0849/Sec0935.HTM

This will get you to the complaint form for Florida:

http://myfloridalegal.com/pages.nsf/4492d797dc0bd92f85256cb80055fb97/030e31f06ef0184d85256cc600706904!OpenDocument

Note that the statute finds that failure to comply with all of Florida statues regarding charitable gaming is a deceptive trade practice.

Dawn Thompson was in New York.

Here is New York’s Rules:

http://www.racing.state.ny.us/charitable/faqs_raffle.htm

and here is an address of the overseeing authority:

New York Charitable Gaming
New York State Racing and Wagering Board
1 Watervliet Avenue Extension, Suite 2
Albany, NY 12206
Phone: (518) 453-8460

Here is where you can file a complaint.

http://www.consumer.state.ny.us/

The thing to remember is that the only people actually defrauded are the ones who sent money or the ones to whom the money was supposed to go. They are the ones with the standing to complain.

Update on Amazon Situation: Amazon Petition

Jane — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:36:55 +0000

Most of the blogosphere has been mouth agape in reaction to the Deborah Anne MacGillivray harassment of an Amazon reader over a 3 star review that the reader left for a book of MacGillivray’s. In my link backs, though, I saw a post called “Authors Who Bite Back” from Tess Gerritsen’s blog that left my mouth agape. This is a three star review. Three stars! It’s like an average grade. From a reader who loved the first book.

My first reaction to this story was: "What? I can get the bad reviews taken off my Amazon pages? How do I do that?" Because I didn’t know an author could do that. I thought you just had to live with them and suffer heartburn every time you scroll past them.

My second reaction was: "There but for the grace of better self-control go I."

Because, let’s be honest here. Really. Is there an author alive who hasn’t wanted to hunt down the identities of those who’ve written bad Amazon reviews of our books? Is there an author alive who hasn’t harbored fantasies of revenge, even if it only involves sticking a few pins in a voodoo doll? Is there an author alive who hasn’t wanted to fire back a response along the lines of "what could you possibly know about good writing, you illiterate slut?"

If you haven’t harbored such fantasies, then you’re a far better person than I am.

Now, I’m not saying that Ms. MacGillivray wasn’t out of line here. But her major foolishness was that she got caught at it.

As an astute commenter pointed out,

I guess I would argue that her "major foolishness" wasn’t in getting caught – because that implies her actions would have been OK if she hadn’t been caught. I would argue that her problem is that she crossed the line of what most people believe is acceptable behavior in our society.

Ms Gerritsen defends herself in subsequent posts by saying she was trying to be funny;

Humor involves a certain amount of exaggeration, and the actual story I cited is about the exaggerated lengths a certain author has gone to to protect her turf. Yes, she went way over the line into the creepy. But am I the only one who found black comedy in the story? The only one who could see it as a wacky film about people who get carried away into committing absurdities?

And then says that she was just being honest about her sensitivities to negative reviews written by cowardly anonymous reviewers.

So okay, maybe I’ve said things here that sound neurotic and hypersensitive. But at least, damn it, I’m brave enough to OWN MY OWN WORDS. On this blog, you all know exactly who’s writing these thoughts.

Unlike the cowardly anonymous reviewers who throw bombs and scuttle back under their rocks.

If a reader did this to an author would Gerritsen find the black humor in it? If a reader, to a reader’s group, said “vote down this bitch” and “Well, thanks to XXXXXX our PI , we now have her name, her husband’s name, her chidrens’ names, her grannies and great grannies name. Her address phone number and email lol- quite interesting.”

Please Note that the Following Petition Is not in any way related to Tess Gerritsen, her blog or anything on her blog. Instead the petition is directed at Amazon’s inaction toward Deborah MacGillivray and the unfair treatment of reader, Reba Belle.

In any event, we’ve got an iPetition up for those who believe that Amazon’s inaction toward the author and the banning of the reader are inappropriate. You simply need to provide your name and email address and you are given the choice of signing anonymously. One you hit the “sign petition” button, you are done. You will be directed to a page asking you for a donation. You absolutely do not need to give any money to iPetition.com in order for your signature to show up.