Shenanigans

At the moment, the only calls I expect are from people asking when the baby is due, or that terrifying call from Sarah to say she’s gone into labour. So it was quite surprising to get a call from someone on Friday alerting me to certain shenanigans going on at Amazon UK – specifically with the details of The Secret War.

Three years ago, I had a passionate discussion – okay, an argument – with someone on a since deleted forum about the value of consumer opinion. My argument was, that as a music critic many moons ago, my opinion was no more or less valid than the average consumer so why shouldn’t there be a place where consumers can place their reviews of a product, i.e. Amazon. The argument against was that none of the reviews could be regulated and that unlike professional critics they weren’t as informed. To me that was a nonsense, and I argued my corner strongly. I can’t say I won the argument, but I reckon it was a draw at the very least. In my opinion, someone who has just bought the latest U2 album has as much right to review it publicly as someone who has been given it to review as an assignment.

But there are abuses. And it appears that I’ve been a little naïve.

It seems as though The Secret War has suffered certain shenanigans over on Amazon. Over the last three months there has been about three new reviews of the book ranging from great to not so great (not a problem – as I said, everyone should have an opinion). In terms of voting for these reviews, it’s been just as slow with only a handful of votes either way, if that. And then, in the space of 24 hours, not only is there a new review, but instantly there are 6 votes for it – oddly, 3 for and 3 against. The caller confessed they were one of the three against (having thoroughly enjoyed the book, they agreed with some of the review, but not all of it), but the other two are a mystery. Now while I love the fact there are people out there who will defend the book, the reviewer has the right to feel a little bullied. I’ve read the review myself, and some of the criticisms are fair, so my first reaction was that perhaps it was unfair to suddenly turn on the review so quickly.
But then something else struck me as odd.
You see, it wasn’t only this review that got votes. But the other reviews below it. And even odder, they were all negative votes, ranging from three to four negative votes on each review – and here’s the strangest thing – even when the reviews concurred with the new one. In fact, it seems the only review to get any positive votes at all, was the new one. Three positive votes in less than three hours or so.

Amazon’s review system is such that only the most helpful reviews make it to the top of the pile, i.e. the first page. The more helpful votes a review gets the better chance it has at staying on top and accruing more votes. So I did some digging on the internet and discovered that it isn’t uncommon for reviews to suddenly get helpful votes within minutes of being posted, either from friends of the reviewer or from the reviewer themselves with multiple accounts.
So I tried this myself. I opened two new accounts on Amazon using my website e-mail address, and low and behold I was able to vote more than once for a review, in this case the Sony Camera I bought last year which is bloody marvellous and worth the votes. If I were to write reviews on Amazon, it would be quite easy for me to vote for myself and bump myself up the ladder.
And the rewards for getting to the top are apparently worth the shenanigans, as Top 50 reviewers apparently get sent copies of movies and books and CDs to review in advance of publication, becoming part of Amazon’s Vine select reviewers.

I’ve since trawled a few posts around the web and there are other examples of Amazon review abuse, from artists and companies to reviewers, where reviews have been “negatived” out of existence, and where there have been malicious campaigns to discredit Top 100 reviewers by rivals.
I suppose there’s nothing new here – something like this was always going to be open to abuse – but it’s disappointing, because it detracts from the whole point of people out there having an opinion.
I still stand by my argument, that there is a place for consumer reviews, but I don’t think the Amazon system works. There are too many agendas involved, too many problems with it, and as such I’ve decided to distance myself and this blog from it (and soon the website), removing the links to Amazon. Please feel free to use Amazon to buy the books (I still use it to buy things I can't get elswhere), but I guess I would go elsewhere for objectivity when it comes to the reviews and how they are voted for and against.