REJECTED REVIEWS ON AMAZON

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Recently I posted two reviews on Amazon.ca and both were rejected because apparently, I did not follow the community guidelines.


Thank you for submitting a customer review on Amazon. After carefully reviewing your submission, your review could not be posted to the website. It appears your content did not comply with our guidelines.

While we appreciate your time and comments, reviews must adhere to the following guidelines
Amazon Community Guidelines
  More than Coffee: Memories in Verse and Prose 5-*
from Carol Balawyder on April 13, 2023
Fairy Tales Do Exist
More Than Coffee is a tribute of love to her family. It is an intimate look at her thirty-two-year-old marriage – a husband whom she met serendipitously by selling a fridge.
The book is a mixture of prose and poetry with some touching lines.
For example,…

Thank you for submitting a customer review on Amazon. After carefully reviewing your submission, your review could not be posted to the website. It appears your content did not comply with our guidelines.

While we appreciate your time and comments, reviews must adhere to the following guidelines
Amazon Community Guidelines
  Fatal Rounds 5-*
from Carol Balawyder on April 11, 2023
Odd but Loveable Character
If I have dark circles under my eyes blame it on Carrie Rubin’s latest book, Fatal Rounds.
I have read many of Carrie Rubin’s books, including her Benjamin Oris series and the book she wrote under her penname Morgan Mayer. Fatal Rounds, in my opinion, is her…    

So, I wrote to Kindle Support:

I have read the community guidelines and can’t see anything that I violated for both of my reviews of Fatal Rounds and More Than Coffee.

Would you please explain to me specifically what I need to correct so that my reviews can be posted. This is the second time that you have blocked my review. I wrote to you about my review for Carrie Rubin’s Fatal Rounds asking what I had done wrong but you did not respond.  Now, once again you are blocking me for Lauren Scott’s More Than Coffee.

After sending me a host of links I wrote back and got this as reply:

Hello,

I understand that you are requesting to remove review. Please allow me to elaborate we read the review and did not find that it qualifies for removal for violating our Community Guidelines

To which I responded:

Thank you for your response. However, you misunderstood my request.
The two reviews which I had posted Fatal Rounds by Carrie Rubin and More Than Coffee by Lauren Scott were rejected because they did not follow community guidelines.


Now, you are telling me that “we read the review and did not find that it qualifies for removal for violating our Community Guidelines.”

I do not want my reviews to be removed but want them to be posted.

Further, how can you talk about removing a review that was not posted?

Obviously, there is a mix-up.

Also, Amazon rejected my review for D.G. Kaye’s Words We Carry and Conflicted Hearts.

These same reviews were posted on Goodreads, which you can read by clicking the links below.

Read on Goodreads

Read on Goodreads

Read on Goodreads

Read on Goodreads

50 thoughts on “REJECTED REVIEWS ON AMAZON”

  1. How very frustrating, Carol! I’m so sorry this has happened to you! And reviews are so important for authors, too. Thanks for posting a bit of those reviews here, so the authors would at least know that much. I hope this gets resolved!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Indeed, very much so! The other day I was looking for the expected publication day for a book, and spotted some reviews for it on Goodreads. I immediately clicked, wondering who were the lucky folks that already read the book. One of the reviews said something like: it took me a while to get into it, but after that it was fascinating! To which another comment responded that the book isn’t out yet and that the review is fake. And that review got published… 🤷‍♀️

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      • Hard to understand. Something is terribly wrong when Amazon tells me that I can’t take down my review when it wasn’t even posted! Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

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  6. After buying a lot from Amazon for two decades and reviewing hundreds of books and other items on Amazon I had a review approved only to be removed one month later and I was also given a warning “consider this your first warning”. Same thing, they just referred to violating community guidelines, but no details. I could not see anything wrong with it and my friends could not see anything wrong with my review either.

    When I asked what guideline I had violated they did not answer. However, I was persistent and finally I got an answer. It allegedly contained offensive content. It was a five star review containing only mild critique of the book. Maybe it was a bit provocative because it paraphrased some of the book’s somewhat provocative content but none of my friends saw anything offensive. I did not complain. I was just happy they explained it to me.

    What worries me when I see your reviews being rejected as well is that they have started using bots, like Facebook, and that would be a disaster because AI bots exhibit no true autonomous intelligence and can make the most bizarre mistakes. I don’t know if that is the case, but when you start having reviews rejected that no one can see a problem with, that is suspicious. The danger is that a few rejected reviews can lead to someone having their reviewing rights revoked. They aren’t making it easy on reviewers.

    Liked by 2 people

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  7. This happened to me a few times and they could never explain the problem. I just stopped posting ratings on Amazon. Perhaps we could use AI to get it right. That would be ironic at best. Cheers. Allan

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  8. Carol,

    I read your novel, The Lilac Notebook, and successfully posted a review. I loved it and plan to read it again.

    I have had problems getting reviews for my novels. Quite a few people expressed their inability to post a review. I don’t understand the “Community Standards.” Keep me posted if you obtain any insight on this problem.

    Great job for your latest.

    Jack

    Sent from my iPhone

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Thanks, Jack. I so appreciate your comment and the time you took posting a review. I’ll keep you posted . You might want to read thomasstigwikman’s comment and his experience with reviews on Amazon. 🙂

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  10. Fortunately, I’ve never experienced problems posting my reviews, but I know people who’ve had all of their reviews pulled. It’s so unfortunate. Thankfully, there are other options out there. Thanks for sharing, Carol.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Thanks, Jacqui. Jeff Cann’s response that chat bots now rule the world might be the answer. I’m not going to pursue with this issue but will keep trying with other reviews. At least Goodreads posts my reviews.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  13. I had a similar experience, Carol – two reviews were rejected, with no explanation except the standard one. I decided to stop posting reviews on Amazon, as I’m frightened they could take my own books down if I argued with them.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I kind of was/am a bit concerned that they might block me for having written this post. I’m leaning with you on not posting on Amazon although I’ll try again with different reviews. It’s unfortunate because readers often will decide to buy a book based on the reviews. Thanks, Toni for your comment and stopping by. Have a super great day!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  15. Omg Carol, they are so frustrating! I remember you told me you couldn’t post your review of my recent book either. There is definitely a glitch and you need to speak to a human at this point. So annoying. Thanks for mentioning my book. ❤

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  17. How disappointing. Although I often buy my books elsewhere, if I want to review one, I’ll buy a Kindle version just so I can post a review on Amazon. Far as I know, none of my reviews have been removed, but, in general, I don’t trust Amazon 😉 I share book reviews on my blog and post to other websites like Goodreads and LibraryThing just to make sure the word gets spread ;-).

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  18. Hi Carol. I was told that we authors can’t give reciprocal reviews on Amazon. You review mine, so I’ll review yours, is apparently a no-no. I don’t know if that has changed or not.
    By the way, I loved your latest and left a rating on Goodreads. I’m always looking for a different kind of story, and the Lilac Notebook definitely was that!

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  19. Thanks for sharing. I had heard that Amazon would remove reviews if they thought the reviewer was friends with the author. I post on my blog but not always on Amazon.

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  20. I have a fridge magnet that reads: “This would be funny if it wasn’t happening to me.” And this is exactly what I thought about when I read your account. I did write to Jeff Bezos, when he was still CEO of Amazon, about some reviews I had rejected, and they were reinstated, and, for a while at least, I had no more trouble, but I’ve found as well that sometimes my reviews on Amazon.com will be accepted, but not on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon Spain, or the other way round, and if one points that out, they say the rules are not the same everywhere, but, the guidelines read the same, so… Go figure! Bookbub is another place where I sometimes share reviews, but I don’t always find all the books I read there. Good luck and thanks for sharing your story, Carol.

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