In the last week or so, I have found 9 review cheats.
These nasty little bodies write a bland generic review (“Love this, you obviously have talent, etc etc”) and spam it to multiple submissions.

OK, I have now got into the habit of looking at the reviews on the profile of anyone reviewing my work – but what a pain this is.

I think it’s time we all had a crack down and see if we can get rid of them all.
Ignore the false praise, look at their other reviews and report them if they are doing this.

It is a waste of everyone’s time having these thieves on board.

Ask for a refund and report them to Steve’s sister.
They usually give up on being around after a while.

Wordwan and I reported one last week, he’d robbed nearly 4000 credits, but Steves Sister dealt with him, he lost all his credits, not sure if anything else happened or not. Yeah jebozid, we should spend a week , checking for copy/pasted reviews and get rid of them all

I found two in advance (i.e. without their reviewing my work) by looking through the ‘friends’ list of another cheater.
No, not all on the friend’s list were cheaters, but as I say it did reveal two more.

I resented feeling I had to do this, but I am so fed up with them and resent having to waste time (on my slow internet connection) checking profiles before opening a review.

Another one caught me out because all of his previous reviews were fine, paranoia was avoided when I looked again and found mine was just the first and he had subsequently done it to someone else.
Far from ‘They usually give up on being around after a while’, this one had taken it up only after being around a while.

I had three consecutive reviews of just one story all by cheaters. (Two spotted by looking at profiles and not opening them).

I believe you need to open them so you can ask for a refund. Otherwise they will count against you in placing your items on the queue. Unopen reviews are part of the formula.

Yes, but what an immense waste of everyone’s time and energy.

And meanwhile, as I wait for the refund, I’m back to building up credits to read the genuine reviews – whether I’m in the mood or not.
I hate reviewing when I’m not in the mood as it can become unfair to those I review, but I do want to read those reviews others have spent time giving to me..

I’m not blaming Urbis for their approach, I am pushing for a concerted effort to purge these selfish little thieves.

If you’re fairly sure the review is an out right fraud, you can message me and it can be removed before you unlock it. Many times this happens anyway when a fraud is found. The system removes all the fraud reviews, whether they have been unlocked or not. Meanwhile we do try to purge them, but as in any online community there are trolls who are annoying so we do all that we can to minimize their damage.

Heather
I’d love to bundle all my reviews I’ve done together and call it a short story . Then submit for others to review.Wonder what might happen …

LOL – Cleve,
It has been done, in a sense. Ashkrafton wrote a criticism piece about this very thing. :)
Jen

Cleve, you sed:

Heather
>I’d love to bundle all my reviews I’ve done together and call it a short story . Then submit for others to review.Wonder what might happen

Cleve, I’m going to focus on a part of that, for a second. People like Carl Hiassen have bounded their columns into a book, why don’t you?

Bind your reviews into a book. Yes?

Let’s talk about that one, okay? I think some of this wordage is being wasted on our viewers. Here’s possibly, a novel (ha! novel) approach to getting our work seen.

Cos, as I also recall, in some early exchanges on the forum, there were comments made about the REAL importance of the reviewer. And how, basically, he is seen as a second class member in this system of publishing. Interesting you should say this. Thank you.

Heather