Ian MacGregger's Blog - Posts Tagged "givaways"
A parasite eliminated
I am posting an update on an earlier message concerning the results of a Giveaway. For those who did not get a chance to read that original post, when I received the list of winners I noticed that all the addresses were the same even though the names were different. I immediately contacted the people at Goodreads to let them know what it happened. I also posted a summary of my experience on a number of groups. Some of the group managers supported the posting while others treated it as an “advertisement”.
The good news is that the culprit has been identified and banned. Here is what I recently received from Goodreads: “Unfortunately, we've recently had a user who has tried to "game" the giveaway system by creating hundreds of accounts to try to win giveaways. The terms and conditions of our giveaways expressly prohibit users from creating multiple accounts for the purposes of winning giveaways. I have therefore banned these profiles from the site, which has removed them from your giveaway.”
This kind of behavior constitutes a major threat to all authors and I applaud the way that Goodreads dealt with it. We need to help them out by letting them know when we see similar patterns amongst the winners of our giveaways. Do yourself and every other author of favor by immediately reporting such results. Based on direct experience, I can tell you that Goodreads acts quickly and forcefully.
The good news is that the culprit has been identified and banned. Here is what I recently received from Goodreads: “Unfortunately, we've recently had a user who has tried to "game" the giveaway system by creating hundreds of accounts to try to win giveaways. The terms and conditions of our giveaways expressly prohibit users from creating multiple accounts for the purposes of winning giveaways. I have therefore banned these profiles from the site, which has removed them from your giveaway.”
This kind of behavior constitutes a major threat to all authors and I applaud the way that Goodreads dealt with it. We need to help them out by letting them know when we see similar patterns amongst the winners of our giveaways. Do yourself and every other author of favor by immediately reporting such results. Based on direct experience, I can tell you that Goodreads acts quickly and forcefully.
