SOS: Serious Overload of Series discussion
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Caution: Reviewers being targeted by email pretending to be from Amazon
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Wow, OK I'll keep a look out. Mind you I typically don't respond to stuff like that. I hate being pressured for reviews, so I only do author reviews that I have a personal relationship with.
I don't understand. I have read this 6 times, but I don't understand.
It's about being spammed by authors, buying lists of reviewers, and pretending to be from Amazon.
Plus, not just for emails offering review copies (real offer or fake offer) via purchased mailing lists.There's some truly dangerous email crap floating around pretending to be from companies you presumably trust. Phishing schemes to get account details, links that go to malware sites instead of Amazon as expected, ...
I'm not accusing all authors buying the illegally harvested emails mailing lists of phishing or sending you anywhere other than their own sites -- but beware (and report please) anything pretending to be from Amazon, goodreads, or anyone else.
It's creepy when you hover over what appears to be a link to Amazon before clicking and see it would redirect you elsewhere.
Oh, didn't realise we were also talking phishing ... dangerous stuff!!!!
I have received quite a few saying it's PayPal (it really isn't) wanting me to update my account info.
Yup. I'm not saying review requests or emails from Amazon are wrong -- just the ones only pretending to be from Amazon and using illegally harvested emails. And there are a lot of templates, lists and books being sold recently that authors are started to use doing just that (looking like came from Amazon).I didn't look the PayPal info back up but their reporting email used to be spoof@paypal.com
(Amazon emails always come from Amazon, never gmail or mailchimp). If anyone is getting that spam/spoof via mailchimp see http://mailchimp.com/contact/abuse/ .
ETA: Moving a longer rant confusing later poster under spoiler; the meat of the matter is the above paragraph. (view spoiler)[There are several books being sold that are basically mailing lists of harvested reviewer emails saying how that doesn't violate any spam laws (odd things like it's only one email, it was public, never sent a second followup email, just because CAN/SPAM not only says it's a violation but adds it's an aggravated violation with additional penalties doesn't mean anything cuz I is so spechul ...) that your email provider, Amazon, mailchimp, and gmail are unlikely to agree with.
One even includes mailchimp templates to make it look like sent via Amazon.com (durn good impersonation according to one friend except came via a mailchimp list, wasn't to amazon account email, and some duplicate ones even noted the book they got your name from as reason you were receiving the mailing).
On the other hand, if you do want your email added to such mailing lists so that authors can contact you to get reviews -- put text asking for just that on your profiles, blogs, websites or wherever your email could be harvested. That way, authors using are not sending spam (unasked commercial contact).
Most of the mailing lists being sold as if books are concentrating on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk reviewers. Oddly since both countries are ones that take spoof and spam seriously and prohibit email harvesting. Presumably because those two sites are "bang for your book" and require different quantities of reviews for different visibility boosts. (hide spoiler)]