Well I suppose it had to happen sometime, although I didn’t know that somebody would be as petty as to steal a book review! But it appears there are those out there who have no problem doing so.
Not too long ago I was using google to see if any reviews came up that were similar to mine for “Vampire Interrupted” by Lindsay Sands. I googled a few key words and clicked on one of the results. It was on ebay. I didn’t even know ebay had product reviews on there… but they do. And in this case, the review I clicked on was identical to mine!
Edson.financial.group is to blame. Believe it or not they have around 250 reviews of books and audiobooks up, and it is easy to determine that ALL OF THEM are (or were at one time) spotlight reviews on Amazon.com. Needless to say, I was pissed! And it’s easy to prove that mine was written first! Here’s mine on Amazon.com- the creation date is clearly listed as February 27, 2008. Here’s the one up ‘by’ edson.financial.group- the creation date is clearly listed as March 20, 2008.
So of course I reported this to ebay, and in numerous ways. From one I got an automatic response back saying I’d get a reply in 24-36hrs and to be patient, that sometimes it was even up to 72hrs before they could get back to me. So I waited, patiently, but angrily. 72 hrs passed. I contacted live help and was told to wait patiently and that my email was in line to be read. More time passed. I contacted live help several more times, each time being told that this issue would be taken care of soon and they would put a note on my complaint to escalate the situation.
I sent in my complaint on 6/12! (Not counting the first time a couple days before this, b/c I never got the automatic response and I assume it didn’t go through.) I felt like I was getting the run around. How hard could it be to fix this? So I got mad. I started notifying the true Amazon.com authors individually- on the product reviews themselves, and through the ‘friend option’ which allows a short message. It was time consuming as I had to hunt all of the reviews down and then ask to be friends as well– my hope being that this way they would definitely get my message. This way ebay wouldn’t be getting complaints from just one person, but from 250 angry people! I got through about 50 people and got quite a few responses who reported the problem to ebay as I had hoped. I plan to keep contacting people, although I recently posted about this in the customer reviews discussion forum hoping to spread the word even more.
*Some say that once you post on Amazon you have no control over your review and that Amazon gives them to other sites. While it is true that Amazon does give it to others, (I have seen one of my reviews on an author’s personal site directly from Amazon), these sites still keep on the reviewer’s name- in my case K. Gilligan. It was also mentioned that I should have put my name at the end of my review, a signature of sorts. I noticed for example though, that Harriet Klausner (the number one reviewer over at Amazon.com) signs her reviews, but the review that Edson.financial.group posted was identical up to that point. He/she simply cut off the signature.
A fellow reviewer contacted Amazon to see if they could do anything about this, and this was Amazon’s response: “Greetings from Amazon.com. I apologize that your review for an item on Amazon.com was posted on another web site. In this instance, please know that we did not give permission for this to happen. Unfortunately however, we are not able to take any actions to have the review removed as the review you are referencing is on a different web site than ours or one of our sister sites. I would ask that you contact this site, in this case e-Bay, to ask that the review be removed. I hope this information is helpful. Thanks for your interest in Amazon.com.” Wow, thanks Amazon.
I’m simply astounded at the lack of action on ebay’s part. I’ve never had to use ebay’s customer service but this is ridiculous! I’m now posting this on my blog, and will soon be posting this wherever I can think of. I’d appreciate it if you’d also report this user (who by the way is a power seller and has a ‘top 100 reviewer badge’!). All you have to say is that this reviewer is using unauthorized text that doesn’t belong to him/her. Or click the ‘report this review’ links at the bottom of ‘edson.financial.group’s reviews’.
If you could link to this also, I’d really appreciate it. I’m trying to spread the word. You also might want to see if any of YOUR reviews are on ebay.com without your knowledge and being attributed to an ebay user. (One amazon.com reviewer found another of his reviews under another ebay user’s name too!)
Oh man, that is AWFUL!! I would be so MAD! I reported that user on the book review that you wrote like you asked. I noticed that they don’t have a great rating as well. Have you tried contacting them directly? Once they realize that they are found out they might back off.
That is totally outrageous – I can see why you are so upset. I am going to write ebay as well. I never have used them, and probably never will.
I’m in the fight with you! I’ll be on ebay after work tonight. I’m really sorry that this is happening and I’m not sure I’d even want to know about my own reviews… Keep up the good fight. Together we’ll get this guy.
Wow, that’s truly atrocious and I’m appalled by the fact that this can happen and no one is doing anything about it! I don’t have an ebay account, but I’ve got my fiance reporting the review and writing a complaint for this.
oh, YUK! That is horrid. I wish they would just not let him/her review anymore for amazon, it seems they are gliding on other peoples hard work. So sorry 😦
Thanks for the support guys. I really appreciate it!
Natasha- I didn’t personally email him, but I know that several of the Amazon.com reviewers did and sadly never got a response.
I’m guessing there is nothing legally you can do to stop these persons from copying your reviews? You see this type of crap all the time on line. People think just because someone has posted it online its alright for someone else to just take it and take credit for it. My husband has writtten alot of really great poetry (some which he has one some small awards for) and has offered to let me post it on my blog but I have refused because I know someone will just copy it and take credit for it.
Kathleen, thank you so much for posting this on the Amazon Discussions and here. Since I read your post at Amazon tonight, I’ve discovered three of my own reviews stolen by Edison Financial Group and reported them several different ways to eBay.
I’ve also posted about it on both my personal blogs and MySpace and the blog and MySpace for the Review House I own, Wild on Books. I then posted it to quite a number of reader, author, and reviewer Yahoo groups and Message boards I am a member of.
Several other professional review houses have now been galvanized into action on this, and I know of a few who have discovered their reviews stolen by Edison Financial Group.
Hopefully, with a group effort to shut this type of blatant thievery down, it will end soon.
Thanks again, and good luck with your complaint! With any luck, eBay will ban this thief altogether.
I have also reported it on the link you listed and I will be checking my own reviews tonight. That’s awful and I am furious that eBay has not been more supportive.
Is there someplace you can post feedback about a seller without buying something from them?
I’m so sorry to hear this! My husband worked for ebay a few years ago and I can tell you that it doesn’t surprise me that ebay is not being very responsive to you. They don’t like to get involved in disputes involving their sellers — if it’s not a clearcut case of fraud or blatantly illegal activity, they don’t do much. France has forced ebay to cough up $61 million for a fraud case recently, so perhaps their business practices will change in the future. However, as long as the seller is delivering the advertised products to their customers, ebay’s typical position is: “Take your problem to the seller, not us!” Good Luck!
This made me sick to read about. I will be looking them up as well and reporting them. Hopefully all the reports will stop them.
Have you used the VeRO program to report the intellectual property theft? eBay usually responds very quickly to those complaints.
Kathy- sounds like a good idea!
Jennifer- glad to hear it!
LisaLynne- Thank you, unfortunately nowhere I can find.
Karen- I recently read about that. Ugh I wish they’d get more involved!
bookroomreviews- thanks!
Jane- VeRO isn’t relevant in this case because that is used for listings, not reviews. Unfortunately!
Terrible! I’m going to have to check out any books I’ve reviewed. I’ve never reviewed for Amazon though.
Thanks for the alert – it sounds like we’ll all be keeping an eye out for “Edison Financial Group” on our own reviews … hopefully he/she/they won’t simply switch to another user name.
I can’t imagine how you feel … really, like more serious identity theft or a robbery, I’m sure you feel invaded!
Good luck, keep us updated.
Wow, thanks for posting about this. I haven’t done any reviews for Amazon and I doubt that I will now. But it’s still a concern. I have no problem with people using my online reviews so long as they give me credit for them. But this is just stealing, plain and simple. I reported the “Vampire Interrupted” review to eBay, but I don’t think the Edison or Edson group is selling anything right now, so I doubt anything is gonna get done. Really awful.
J Kaye referenced this post on her blog too. How horrible! Thanks for posting about this to let others know. I am headed over to ebay right now to check this out and report the seller. Good luck and please let us know if you get a reply.
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Kathleen, thank you so much for bringing this to my attention! I am a Top 100 Reviewer on amazon.com, and I found two of my reviews that were stolen by edson.financial.group and passed off as their own on ebay. [Note: other sites do repost amazon.com’s reviews, but they often include the original reviewer’s name, and even when they don’t, they don’t try to pass them off as being written by someone else entirely!]
Anyway, I reported the two stolen reviews using ebay’s veRO form. I faxed this form along with a detailed cover letter explaining the situation; I also CCed amazon.com’s customer service to make sure that they were aware of what was going on. In less than 48 hours, I had a reply from ebay saying that the reviews had been removed, so the system DOES work.
Thanks again to Kathleen for making everyone aware of this problem!
As of now, their review count is down to 218. eBay has removed six of the plagiarized reviews so far.
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I just came across your post about this. I saw the same complaint from someone else on the BookObsessed forums. She also had some reviews “stolen” by Edson Financial. Not sure if anything’s been done on her end, but thought I’d share a story about another victim. Overall, what a rotten, rotten thing to do! Hopefully Ebay will be able to take care of this in an effective manner for you all.
I see a lot of cheating of various kinds on Amazon including plagiarism. I’m familiar with people stealing reviews from other websites and posting them on Amazon and, to be fair to Amazon, they are always quick to remove such reviews when presented with clear evidence.
Your case is the reverse – people stealing from Amazon and posting elsewhere – but, sadly, it doesn’t surprise me. Of course, Amazon reviews turn up on other sites legitimately because of the “Amazon Associates” scheme, but that clearly isn’t the case here. Still, anybody surfing the net looking for their own reviews has to allow for this.
I have a series of blogs (really mini-websites within a blog environment), one of which deals with Amazon issues. You can find my blog by clicking on my name (that gets you to my profile page on MySpace) then clicking on “Amazon topics”. You may be particularly interested in my page “Expose cheating on Amazon”, which now links back here as well as to other pages within my blog discussing specific cases of various types of cheating – “Shill Reba McEntire reviews”, “The British voting scandal” and “Deborah MacGillivray”.
Your own link “Bad reviews and worse behavior” goes to a page about the MacGillivray case. Another of your links “Are companies sabotaging negative reviews of their products?” goes to a different case but the MacGillivray case also involved sabotaging negative reviews, but involved personal threats on the reviewer and her family.
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