torture, lies, coersion, and Satanism

[thepeachfish]

HOLY SHIT.

So about a month ago, I couldn't sleep one night and flipped through a few infomercials, watched one, went to do some research on it, and was blown away by my findings.  I wrote an e-mail to myself to document everything I'd discovered; it's postmarked 7/24.

A month later, it's a NY Times article: Http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/

Comments

Amazon reviews

[anonymous]

Interesting thread. As someone familiar with Amazon and Amazon reviews I would like to add my two cents. I like writing reviews for Amazon. I have done about 110 or so, mostly Eastern European/Russian literature and history. However, the reviewing system is subject to abuse. Specifically, many products such as this scam book you discussed are barraged with shill reviews. People, sometimes the author, publicist, publisher, etc. create multiple identities and bombard the product with glowing 5 star reviews. They rely on people to be surf Amazon, see the glowing reviews by an adoring public and buy the product. Unfortunately this is not an unsuccessful practice. If you go back to those reviews you might click the "see all my reviews" button by each reviewer's name. It will take you to their reviews page listing that individual's reviews. If you see a book like this with multiple glowing reviews you will likely find that most of the reviewers who gave 5 star reviews have only reviewed 1book - this one. That is a sign of shilling

Re: Amazon reviews

[thepeachfish]

Thanks for your comments - I was just blown away by how quickly this thread turned to religion; where the hell did Satanism come from? I hadn't been aware of this shilling issue before, but I can see how easy it would be to make up a profile and really ham up the reviews for someone's book. I'll be on the lookout next time I shop.