Victoria Laurie, a professional psychic and author, engaged in an Amazon contretemps not too long after the Deborah Anne MacGillivray. This led to a mass deletion of reviews and comments at Amazon on all sides.

Apparently Laurie, who says

“Thanks to Candy Thompson and Deborah MacGillvray for their support, advice and for hanging in there and thanks to everyone else who clicked that "not helpful" and "report this" button – I most appreciate it!”

has taken to instructing readers not to pick fights with authors.

And you should never pick a fight with an author-.well-.because, honey, we know how to get even. ;)

The reason that Laurie gives is that if you do decide to “slam an author”, you’ll be inserted into their books in an unflattering way:

And so, come September-my little "fan" and some of her close friends and family will likely read about a character with a very similar name, (i.e. nearly identical but not enough to get me sued) depicted in one of the most comical and fabulously scandalous scenes within Death Perception. And trust me-this isn't a scene which in any way flatters that character. :) (Also trust me-.you'll know it when you read it!)

…

In other words, if in a year you should pick up a copy of Doom With A View and read about a certain transvestite prostitute with a piss poor attitude and a bad case of V.D., who just happens to go by the name of an ice cream topping-.well, you and I and about 60,000 of our closest friends and family will know exactly where that inspiration came from. ;)

The possible remedies include a tort action for defamation (is Laurie saying that Butterscotch is a transvestite prostitute with a bad case of VD) or possibly intentional infliction of emotional distress (a person does something intentionally to another to cause the victim emotional distress and the action “shocks the conscience of the community). After all, simply because Laurie has slightly changed the name of a character, she is making it publicly obvious who the mocking, possibly defamatory language is about.

Anyway, you have to read the whole post to get the flavor of what Laurie is posting about including her publicly bragging of getting negative reviews removed through the “not helpful” and “report this” button. It’s all pretty stomach turning so I hope you eat lunch after reading the post. Hat tip from SB Sarah

Related posts:

1. Laurie Unhappy About Lack of Blogging for All About Romance Reader’s Poll
2. REVIEW: Slightly Psychic by Sandra Steffen
3. I’ve Seen the Vision of the eBook Future via Google and Random House and It Stinks

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.

Related posts:

1. Update on Amazon Situation: Amazon Petition
2. New York wants Amazon to pay Sales Tax
3. Author DeborahAnne MacGillivray Harasses Amazon Reader

Perhaps you know that there was a bit of scandal involving the Amazon review system that erupted in the past couple of weeks. An author, Deborah MacGillivray, was found to have been the leader of a group of people who worked systematically to make their reviews the top rated ones and to get negative reviews actually deleted from the review page. As my friend and fellow blogger Robin says, the deletion of reviews is particularly disturbing because it represents the silencing of a reader’s voice. KatieBabs, who blogs at Ramblings on Romance, wrote about her frustration with Amazon. Katie shared with me the following:

I did a review for Lord of the Deep which happens to be a Dawn Thomson book and one for Raine the hermaphrodite one a few weeks ago. My LOTD review got 10 negative votes and soon after disappeared. I reposted 4 times after email after email to amazon customer services. They said because my review had sexual connotations in it, they wouldn’t post it. Plus, I wasn’t giving a good critical review of the story. So, I revised it yet again and a week later it was gone. Raine because I gave it one star and guess what happened less than 24 hours? It went missing because I was the only one who didn’t like it out of the majority of reviews posted for the book. So if a book has a lot of positives and you are the lone review that is a negative, 9 times out of 10 your review will be gone.

More importantly it frustrates the reader and turns them against Amazon’s system. MacGillivray is a top 50 reviewer. Her reviews are deemed to be some of the most helpful on Amazon. She is part of the “Vine” system which is a program wherein Amazon rewards reviewers with advanced copies of books. Does MacGillivray with her history of abusing the system deserve to be in this position? Is this the type of reviewer that you, Amazon, is supporting? And what about Donald Mitchell, who is an Amazon top reviewer, also member of the Vine program who received $20,000.00 for reviewing books on Amazon over a seven year period? Your POD company, Booksurge, as of last year, offered a positive review for the cost of $399.00. After being outed by Slate, you apparently discontinued the public offering of this service.

When DP Review, the premiere camera review site on the internet, was purchased by Amazon, the tech world was worried that Amazon’s new ownership would affect the value of the site’s reviews. We know that part of the value of Amazon’s site is the integrity of the reviews. That integrity is in question and has been for some time. You’ve made changes but it isn’t good enough. I’ve got some suggestions for changes to the review system:

• Get rid of rankings for reviewers. Some reviewers who have only written a few reviews are just as helpful (or more so) than the Harriet Klausner or Deborah MacGillivray’s of the world. As a friend of mine said, if there is no reward for writing quantity over quality then maybe people won’t be driven to write a mass amount of reviews.
• Another suggestion is to allow only those who have purchased the book from Amazon to be allowed to review it. Fictionwise does this.
• Have a helpful button but not a “not helpful” button.
• Make the report abuse more difficult. If your metric for removing a review is based on how many people click the “report abuse” button, it’s too easy to manipulate, as we have seen. I think that you either need to change the metric or make the reporting of abuse more difficult such as requiring more steps than merely clicking a button.

What we are asking you to do, Amazon, is to be willing to stand by your motto which is to serve the customer. We’re excited about your new initiatives like TextBuyIt (although you need to streamline the process so that we don’t have to have the follow up phone call). We like the free shipping for orders over $25.00. We like the fact that you have the recommendations that help us buy books we might not have ordered. But our confidence in your product, the community that you are trying so hard to build, is being eaten away.

Unfortunately, this incident makes consumers like me doubt the veracity of ANY Amazon review. I use Amazon as a resource center. I might not always buy something from Amazon but I look at the reviews to tell me what others think about a product I am buying. I may have doubted Amazon reviews in the past for romance books, but I didn’t doubt them for children’s books or exercise videos or electronics or toys. But now I do. I am wondering who else is gaming the system and I have to ask, what are you going to do about it?

Best

Jane

***

Readers, please let us know what changes you would recommend. I plan to send this whole post and all the comments to Jeff Bezos via regular mail and email. You can just post a comment to say that you want change even if you don’t have a suggestion.

Related posts:

1. More Evidence On the Unreliability of Amazon Reviews
2. Harper Collins New Studio to Test New Author Paying System
3. WSJ Does Round Up of Blogger Reaction Includes Dear Author

Reba,

Thank you for letting me know you enjoyed "A Restless Knight" so much you read it twice. It’s always nice to hear this. I appreciate when people take the time from their busy lives to let me know what they feel about my books. Sorry, you didn’t let me know before. As it was my debut book, I was very interested in responses.

I think perhaps, as Anne posted, that you are a bit too much in love with Challon, and thus resistant to Damian. It does me credit that I can create a character who conjures such loyalty from you.

-.

However, I fear you did missed the point of Damian wanting to fight Dirk. He was not fighting for Tamlyn, he was going to take Challon’s place – to protect Challon.
-

I am think you skimmed the book, sitting in an auto place, worry about big bad men sniggering, and didn’t bother to see why the characters did things, just took surface reactions. You are keying into Aithinne’s POV, which at many times is not accurate to what was really happening.

-..

And where you got he was hung up on Tamlyn by the middle of the, that is SOOOOO wrong. He knew from his return he was mean for Aithinne, she was THE ONE. You are reading your quick assessment into that. He was NOT hung on on Tamlyn at any point after his return and he saw Aithinne. For you to keep saying that, shows how totally you are missing the true emotions of these characters.

As for accusing Athinne of asking Dirk into her room – he is MALE. Male do silly thinks when they are upset and jealous. This is so TM – Typically male. Men do silly things at times of high emotions. Damian is human, not perfect.

-

P.S. Thank everyone for the lively discussion. Sales have jumped!

She has since deleted the review, but not before it came to light that MacGillivray uses yahoogroups and author groups to encourage, browbeat, or by other means, individuals into taking down negative reviews by reporting that the review is a) not helpful and b) abuse. MacGillivray also appears to have taken even further steps to ascertain personal information about Reba

2c. Re: vote down this bitch please
Posted by: "DeborahAnne MacGillivray"
writer@DeborahMacGIllivray.co.uk scotladywriter
Date: Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:17 pm ((PDT))
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.

Hilary Sares, MacGillivray’s Kensington editor, purportedly ” is very aware of this situation and said only people with nothing better to do plays in this mess.”

As a reader, I hope that this is not true, that an editor wouldn’t be so cavalier about an author hunting down a reader’s personal information in this manner. I also hope that MacGillivray and her pals would stop using the Amazon system as their own little playground. This sort of thing works to devalue the very product that MacGillivray is working so hard to build up. I’ll be blogging more about this on Sunday.

Related posts:

1. The Author/Reader Disconnect or Why Can’t We Just All Get Along?
2. Amazon Reader Purportedly Better Than Sony’s But Also More Expensive
3. Amazon.Com Offers Exclusive Look at Kite Runner Author’s Sophomore Effort