Amazon Deletes Negative Reviews

Amazon has repeatedly deleted my negative 1-star review of a
Sedona-area guidebook that I returned for a refund, because it was an
advertising-filled piece of junk, NOT a true guidebook by any
definition. It's been deleted over and over, despite me re-posting it.
Interestingly, there remain FIVE five-star, positively RAVING reviews
of this piece of garbage, EACH ONE by an author that has only reviewed
this book, and NEVER reviewed anything else on Amazon.com. I don't
trust Amazon as far as I can spit! What a crooked organization. Anyone
who thinks their review system is truly open and unbiased is horribly
mistaken! They manipulate their review system to their liking, and
they'll delete any review they damn well please if that's what they
feel like doing. What a bunch of Nazis!

It seems weird that Amazon would do that. I love Amazon. It's my
favorite "store." I do read the reviews and trust the opinions. I've
bought many things from amazon and read countless reviews...I've never
suspected "tweaking" of reviews. Usually I can find just as many bad
reviews as good.

I have, however, come across reviews which just seem to be something
like an author's friend beefing up the review list and whatnot.
Sometimes it can be pretty easy to spot the fakes.

I hope Amazon responds to you...I would like to hear their response.

Also, perhaps they had a glitch or some server problems? Maybe
technology is to blame, since you said a large number of reviews have
vanished?

One more thing...have you tried e-mailing customer service with your
questions? I find that it's the best way to get something handled.
That's another thing I love about Amazon: awesome customer service.

Good luck!

I'm too tired to go try and check, lol. I would hate to think that
Amazon would selectively delete negative items though, if they were
not against some TOS.

The first paragraph of an amazon.com, review of Dianetics:

"From the very first paragraph, Hubbard exhibits the controlling
attitudes of a cult leader such as Jim Jones or Joseph Smith. His
"dogma" has a unique language, unlike any mainstream psychological
terminology. Over and over he states that "My research has
proven...such and such." Well, where is it? The book has no references
to any such research."

This is a somewhat competently written criticism of the book. It
doesn't sound like something that would lead someone to buy it.
Amazon makes the reviews easy to access, as well. You can quickly see
"all 2 star reviews," for example. If they wanted to hide the
negative, they wouldn't offer this feature.

You have to take EVERYTHING you find on unsecure websites with a grain
of salt, especially what you find on this very site. The fact that
clearly negative reviews are right there to help shape a buying
decision negates your argument. For me, one or two negatives can
easily outweigh 100 positives, if what they contain makes sense.

I don't spend a lot of time surfing reviews on the web, thank the
Lord. However, being able to quickly search and find a cross section
of reviews is helpful, and I think Amazon does a good job of that. I
don't need 50 reviews to agree with a point of view that sounds
"right" to me.

This feature would seem to attempt to filter shill comments, and to
some extent it does. However, I don't pay much attention to it,
because I have found it far askew of common sense in some cases.

As an avid ebayer, I read a lot of user feedbacks in an attempt to
judge the honesty and "user friendliness" of buyers and sellers. I
find I have to use these same thought processes when reading reviews
on the web.

Keep in mind, this isn't necessarily done with EVERY product. I
think... You are going to see negative reviews on several products on
Amazon; however, negative reviews on Hubbard's books are getting
deleted. At one time there was 164 one-star reviews -- and in truth,
about 50% were worthwhile. So where did those 82 reviews go? Why did
they go? Did someone complain? Does one person's complaint merit the
removal of all negative reviews? That would stink.

The review you mention above is probably marked for deletion. Amazon
has as part of their review policy that a reviewer "cannot comment on
an author or their intentions." Now think about that for a moment. For
a piece of work labeled non-fiction, based around a writer's beliefs,
how does a reviewer NOT do that?

My thought is that if that if Amazon can do this for this one product,
why not others? What if they have a vested interest in a product --
say the Kindle -- might some of those negative reviews be deleted?
Sure, if you check out the Kindle, there are plenty of them; but
neither you or I know if we're fully getting both sides of the story.

I, like you, prefer not to spend a lot of time searching for reviews.
I used to think amazon was such a place -- but now I've got my doubts.
Even though this is one book, you can be certain it's happening
elsewhere on the site.

Here's an interesting write up of another person's experience:
http://koavf.blogspot.com/2008/02/dianetics-diaries.html.

Wow- this is so true. I reviewed Zeno 3 times giving it 1 star and
all 3 times it was deleted. I then contacted amazon to find out what
was going on with my review and they put my review back up, but now
without modifying it. The last sentence or two was deleted. It has
since disappeared again (1 day later) and all the other reviews are
4-5 stars. I researched this product outside of Amazon and found
negative reviews. I will never trust Amazon again and will try and
make my purchases elsewhere.

Amazon's review system lost my respect ages ago. Why? Check out the
"top reviewer" list and look at the number one reviewer. I won't
mention the name here, but this "woman" has been posting upwards of
20-30 reviews A DAY for years - every one of them 4 and 5 stars. In
her profile she claims she's a "speed reader" and reads 2-3 books a
day. Her reviews are simply atrocious. They're long, but they're
filled with glaring errors about the content of the books, as well as
numerous grammar and spelling errors. There are many people who
suspect that this "woman" is actually a large group hired to review
books, either by the authors or Amazon.

As soon as you click on User Reviews, they show two reviews (one good,
one bad) next to each other. For whatever reason there are only a few
bad reviews right now, but they are there to see. So the one negative
review you desire is right there to see.

I notice Hubbard's latest book has only 3 reviews, a 1 star, a 4 star
and a 5 star.

I haven't been monitoring Amazon's editing of reviews of anything, as
I don't have the time for that type of activity. However, I use the
reviews. If they were censoring negatives, why not get rid of all of
them?

Look it up on Barnes & Noble (www.bn.com). They have 32 reviews, and
granted, the majority are positive, but there are a handful of
negative reviews, and they are mostly well-written and reasonable. :o)

It makes no ense for them to delete negative reviews. Now, because of
the nature of that specific book, I can see folks writing inflamoatry
negative reviews. controversial material tends to bring that out in
folks.

Howeverm, if teh reviews are factual, negative or not, they should
stay!

Great letter, and I agree completely.