Friday, April 18, 2008

The Amazon Petition

At Dear Author here is the ipetition to ask Amazon to respond to the recent case of an author harassing an Amazon reviewer for a 3-star review. Three stars is too low for this author, who routinely manipulates the Amazon system to get high reviews.

The harassment is described here. The author, a Deborah Anne MacGillivray, apparently hired a private investigator and tracked down the reviewer's name. Tracked down her address.

Tracked down the names of her children ...


Says MacGilivray ... '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.'

No. It is not lol.

This is a stalker. This is stomach-churning. This is creepy.

9 comments:

  1. I heard about the reviewer dilemma on another blog, but thanks for the petition link! It's a horrifying case. I agree that it amounts to stalking (and collusion)...and harassment. For an author to exhort her fan base to such extremes is unbelievable.

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  2. Hi Precie --

    This is happening in Romancelandia. It's one of 'our' authors.

    That makes it worse, somehow.

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  3. Anonymous6:46 AM

    Hi Jo,

    Thanks for posting this. I don't often read Dear Author (lack of time) so I hadn't seen this. That is extremely disturbing. Getting your fan base to have any bad reviews deleted is an abuse of power. The stuff with Reba is just sick.

    Obviously, I've signed the petition.

    Helen/Corrallie (from the Compuserve Books & Writers forum)

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  4. Hi Helen --

    This whole 'Night of the Clicking Fans' schtick is so weird.

    Who signs on to do a 'I will perform your small malices for you' gig?

    Who lies back and begs, "Yes. Yes. I want to practice sly, tawdry deceits under a series of false names. Use me. Oh. Oh. It's soooo good."?

    I seem to have problems making good villains, so I'm, y'know, researching. I'd maybe use one of these squidgy women as a character if I could just wrap my understanding around them.

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  5. Wow.

    Know what's bugging me right now? The fact that a published author spells so badly!

    From what it looks like, she will be better known for being an ass than an author.

    Petition signed. Thanks, Jo!

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  6. Wow. I tried to read her first book and quit because of the historical innacuracies. Guess now I'm glad I didn't post a bad review...

    In other news, I tagged you on my blog. *g*

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  7. Guess if I want to get published, I ought to learn to spell "inaccuracies" huh? *w*

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  8. Hi Jenny -

    You didn't post a review.
    You obviously had a narrow escape ...

    Spelling? There are people who can spell?

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  9. Jo, I can find anyone on the internet, at any time. House, price, kid's names, phone numbers. The world wide web makes it possible to do almost anything. The problem: there are poisonous spiders in that web. I shall sign the petition,

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