THE Group for Authors! discussion

Goodreads is showing a banner message about investigating a "reviews-based extortion scam" on the site. I've not come across anything like this but it piqued my curiosity and I wondered what this would look like.

I've seen plenty of offers out of the blue to review my books, and these would all likely turn out to be scams (Oh, I forgot to mention the $100 fee for a review on my website that nobody reads), but those don't fit the "extortion" aspect. The only thing I could imagine was someone saying send me money or I'll hammer your books with 1-star reviews. Then again, the forums already abound with people complaining they've been hit with malicious reviews that GR doesn't do anything about, so what's different about this one?

Anyone any ideas what this is about?

Terrible beyond words!

About Time then they can remove the fake reviews on my book
how about banning Fake authors as well who pretend to be someone else so they can bad mouth you on Amazon

Gee I had no idea this was going on

Simon wrote: "About Time then they can remove the fake reviews on my book
how about banning Fake authors as well who pretend to be someone else so they can bad mouth you on Amazon"

Simon, don't get your hopes up. I don't think Amazon or GR has any motivation to stop people simply leaving bad reviews, whatever the reason. The fact that they refer to an "extortion scam" suggests there's money involved in this case, which is now a crime rather than just an annoyance.

Linda wrote: "Gee I had no idea this was going on"

Just out of curiosity, Linda, do you see a big yellow banner across the top of the page on your main page in Goodreads? I see it at the top of my author dashboard, which is what prompted me to ask about it. But TBH it's so full of tiny text it's easy to gloss over it as nothing of importance.