Have been reading posts from last year in reference to Kira Takenouchi. I just need to make some apologies.

I had forgotten that when you post a comment in all caps you are denoting anger. I am deeply apologetic for that. I was 58 at the time and I claim a “senior moment.”

Back in March of 2008 Kira had a manic episode and the one person who termed it a ‘train wreck” was right on the nose. Naturally when Kira “came back” she was alarmed and in a panic. Words were said, shots were fired, yada, yada, yada. I was happy she was back and blind to everything else. The fact that she was offering former Elites and Blondies lifetime memberships free of charge-well, to say I was estatic was an understatement. Just felt I had to defend her.

Update:

Kira has once again found religion, god, whatever. She has more less stated that writing yaoi is wrong and will write only about relationships on a spiritual level. Even hinted on possibly taking some of her yaoi based stories and changing the writing genre to reflect her reawakened christianity.

I don’t really know when this happened because I was without a computer for a few months. All I know is that when I logged onto her site and saw a story that she had posted months ago on her Kiramorningstar site I got a little worried. Immediately logged onto her journal and to say I was crushed was an understatement. She assured everyone that she was NOT having an episode and that she was taking her meds as prescribed. She had also let Esther and Sarah go. I e-mailed Esther to ask her what had happened and she would not elaborate but stated simply that Kira couldn’t afford to pay her or Sarah anymore but would receive a percentage of her profits or something to that effect.

In 2007 prepaid for 3 books and realized that I would never see these books come to fruitation or end up being rewritten to coincide with her new writing genre. I made the mistake of asking Kira how I would go about getting refund for the 3 books that will never be published and if they are, not in the genre I paid for. The reply I got was terse and the general gist of it was “good luck with getting a refund.” I paid by credit card and contacted by cc provider as to how I can get my money back. Waiting for a reply.

I no longer defend Kira because I have no cause. After all, what CAN I say? It won’t change anything. It is what it is.

I still wished Kira success but that was all.

Ciao!

P.S.: Forgot to mention that she locked me out after the refund request. Oh well.

In my attempts on this site to see if there are any updates on Reba Belle’s situation, I discovered this thread for the first time and the inclusion of my situation on Amazon, so forgive my late entry here. I thank you very kindly for mentioning me although I don’t compare very well to Reba’s situation in which she was threatened and harassed. I have attempted numerous times to get a more detailed explanation from Amazon as to what happened to cause me to be both banned and have ALL my comments over two years deleted, but to this day I have not been given ANY specifics other than the canned response, “Your comments were reported as spiteful, harassing, negative . . .”

I am one that personally never accepts these actions I was accused of very lightly and I make it a constant habit to report such actions myself when I discover them on Amazon. Like anyone, I can say some regrettable things in anger, but that IS NOT my HABIT on Amazon or elsewhere. I admit that I’ve left some sharp comments on some top reviewers who I think are abusing the ranking system by exploiting loopholes in it, but most were tongue in cheek comments and there were only a handful at best. In addition, I was banned on Amazon some time after I had basically given up on those reviewers and there are still endless other people hounding them who are clearly angry, spiteful, and mean-spirited and nothing I said there would even come close to their near DAILY comments. I hope that I have cleared this up some as it has been suggested that my comments there were the reason for my banning. I do not believe that suggestion holds much weight and considering my vocal support of Reba and condemnation of DAM and her company of clickies, it seems more likely that there is where the banning lies more than anywhere else.

Now, since Amazon refuses or is unable to notify me as to where I was such, I am still left assuming that it was a situation like Reba’s where I was a victim of “clickies” on Amazon’s automated system that allows one’s comments to be deleted if enough people click “abuse” and if enough comments are “clicked” as “abusive”, one is subsequently banned with NO human investigation of any kind. Since Amazon themselves will ONLY state that my comments were “reported” as abusive in some manner, but NOT that they themselves found me abusive and will not tell me where or how I was such, I think my argument/belief has considerable credibility to it.

I do want to offer an update though in that Amazon has backed off on my account. I was initially banned completely with no ability to post new reviews or vote, no movement in rank, and, of course, no ability to post comments. Since then, Amazon, with NO notice to me from them, suddenly allowed me to post new reviews again (I had tried and failed numerous times and one day . . . POOF, I could again). In addition, again without notification or acknowledgment from Amazon, I noticed that I was allowed to move up in the rankings again (where I had no movement for quite some time). I then experimented with voting again and noticed that I could do that again as well.

The only thing I’m not allowed to do at this time still is comment, and, of course, I have made no headway in getting my nearly two years of comments restored. I admit I’m hurt by that as I had engaged in many good conversations on reviews about drug and alcohol abuse, child abuse, violence in films, dysfunctional families, and health concerns. To see ALL that gone is admittedly difficult for me to accept, but I have little choice in the matter. I did seek approval from Amazon to start up another profile with my real name again so that I could comment again on other reviews as well as ones that I still post on my old account. I have now broken into the top 1,400 since my banning. I guess Amazon considers me still useful to them.

Well, I wasn’t sure where to post any kind of update on my situation and since I saw my situation noted here, I thought I might give my update here. I hope that was okay.

I sincerely thank Jane for having this site up and for their support of Reba and others who are unfairly treated on Amazon and for taking such an active stance against authors who behave so badly.

With Respect,
Steve Hedge

I do feel for the mother-to-be at said Baby Shower.