October 2011
Allbooks Review started in 2000 and has reviewed thousands of books, encouraging and supporting new and established authors for more than eleven years. Imagine my astonishment and confusion when I received an email from Amazon.com stating:
“We found your reviews to be in violation of our guidelines and have removed them.
Because of this violation, we’ve removed your reviewing privileges from your account.
Thanks for your understanding in this matter.”
Thank you for understanding? Understanding the fact that you have just removed thousands of reviews, after eleven years of posting with no problem, with NO explanation whatsoever? NO Amazon, I don’t understand!
Wanting to get to the bottom of this, I emailed Amazon. A stock email was sent to me explaining nothing but saying: “I am sorry for the inconvenience. We found your reviews to be in violation of our guidelines and have removed them.” THE END, no explanation as to which guidelines we violated, no suggestion for a resolution, just “Sorry for the inconvenience.”
I immediately emailed customer service and was told to phone to resolve. The email read. “After looking into your issue, I suggest it would be easier for us to resolve this issue over phone as you can speak to our live customer support exec,who can discuss the problem in detail and resolve the issue to your satisfaction.”
I was encouraged and picked up the phone, carefully dialing the number provided. A person with no last name, from an outsourced company, informed me that she could do nothing for me as she didn’t deal with these matters, however she would have Amazon Community email me with a resolution. I asked if we were not going backwards and could she not switch my call to Community service? Her reply “No, they will email you within 24 hours.” Back to square one.
I then learned from some of the Allbooks Reviewers, who also review for other sites as well as books that they have purchased on Amazon, that all of their reviews have been removed and their privileges blocked!Do I need to become the Michael Moore of the book industry to resolve this issue? Perhaps!
I will not stop until I get an answer and will keep this blog going, with details of the search for resolution.
In the meantime, I want all authors who have dealt with Allbooks Review in the past to know that we will continue to post your review on as many other sites as possible until this is resolved. We appreciate both your business and your patience and we will get to the bottom of this and have our reviews reinstated. Apparently we are not the only one with this problem and I am suggesting readers visit another blog with the same problem to learn more.
http://www.bloggingauthors.com/blogging_authors/2011/7/31/amazon-vs-reviewers-authors-lose.html
and there are dozens more. If you have had an issue with Amazon, let us know. There is a special box with a “contact us” on our website and we would love to hear from you. Check out the blog below from Reader Views, it says it all.
Shirley A. Roe, Managing Editor of Allbooks Review Int.
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