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Thread: Ben Mezrich appears to write his own 5-star book reviews on Amazon

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    NoFraud Poker Room Manager Belly Buster's Avatar
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    Ben Mezrich appears to write his own 5-star book reviews on Amazon

    Looking at the (very few) 5-star book reviews of Straight Flush on Amazon, one is by "A. J. Wolfson" http://www.amazon.com/Straight-Flush...owViewpoints=0

    The only other books reviewed by "A. J. Wolfson" are Ben Mezrich's Ugly Americans http://www.amazon.ca/gp/cdp/member-r...stRecentReview and Ben Mezrich's Accidental Billionaires http://www.amazon.com/review/R17UIR94NNT98X

    A bit further digging shows in this court filing http://www.aarongreenspan.com/filing...3.appendix.pdf that Mezrich was previously in hot water for posting false 5-star reviews on Amazon (see p35). The court papers noting "Such reviews constitute “advertorials”—advertisements in the guise of objective editorials written by consumers—that violate Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) advertising guidelines."

    So if this is not Mezrich himslef, it appears a source close to him (his publisher?) is doing some false advertising.
    Last edited by Belly Buster; 06-17-2013 at 11:10 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    BTW JACKDANIELS is the first one banned from the thread. He is accusing me of being "duped by a middle aged man who dresses like John Cena"
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    Bronze offthetop's Avatar
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    The review fron 'Travis', is even far more awful
    Martin Curacao 95.5 KWNR Radio Host "We see 192 000 miles for your car. How did you put on that many miles since 2005?"

    2005 Chevy Impala owner "Drove it"

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    This is even more of a reason to go to Amazon and 1-star-review his crappy book.

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    Gold Deal's Avatar
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    Better hit amazon.ca as well since they don't share reviews. I have no idea if there are others, .eu perhaps.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jasep View Post
    I have always tried to carry myself with a high level of integrity in the poker community and I take it very personally when someone calls that in to question.

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    NoFraud Poker Room Manager Belly Buster's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by offthetop View Post
    The review fron 'Travis', is even far more awful
    I looked into that too and Ben Mezrich has a friend Travis Piepiorka on facebook https://www.facebook.com/BenMezrichAuthor and https://www.facebook.com/travis.piepiorka

    Wouldn't be surprised if his buddy wrote that review. Also who goes to the trouble of creating a bunch of links to other books in a review?
    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    BTW JACKDANIELS is the first one banned from the thread. He is accusing me of being "duped by a middle aged man who dresses like John Cena"
    #FREEJACK #NEVERFORGET

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    Bronze offthetop's Avatar
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    How can we steal this book?
    Martin Curacao 95.5 KWNR Radio Host "We see 192 000 miles for your car. How did you put on that many miles since 2005?"

    2005 Chevy Impala owner "Drove it"

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    Bronze Ryland's Avatar
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    "I have read the book, and am impressed by the style and thorough use of first hand accounts to piece together the story. When one reads the other reviews here it really makes you wonder if any of them actually read the book, or are just complicit gamblers who lost their money with their "skill". Statistically you eventually lose all your money any time your odds are less than 50-50."



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    Poker Investigative Journalist
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    There's an even funnier one up now, as it appears Ben is having people shill for him. Maybe, maybe not, but this one is funny:

    "This is a great book, The author has plenty of evidence to support his findings, but of course the casino owners are having there people give it a Scam rating, So that it's not made into a Movie. Good luck with that the truth is out."

    Goddammit, Frank Fahrenkopf, where is my check???

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Belly Buster View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by offthetop View Post
    The review fron 'Travis', is even far more awful
    I looked into that too and Ben Mezrich has a friend Travis Piepiorka on facebook https://www.facebook.com/BenMezrichAuthor and https://www.facebook.com/travis.piepiorka

    Wouldn't be surprised if his buddy wrote that review. Also who goes to the trouble of creating a bunch of links to other books in a review?
    Exactly. Unless Amazon somehow does this by itself, that's the total sign of a shill.

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by haleylh View Post
    There's an even funnier one up now, as it appears Ben is having people shill for him. Maybe, maybe not, but this one is funny:

    "This is a great book, The author has plenty of evidence to support his findings, but of course the casino owners are having there people give it a Scam rating, So that it's not made into a Movie. Good luck with that the truth is out."

    Goddammit, Frank Fahrenkopf, where is my check???

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Also, the last two 5-star reviews (posted within minutes of each other today) are VERY suspect. This includes that stupid one Haley posted above.

    Among the suspicious circumstances:

    1) Both "Michael" and "DC" gave 5-star reviews to the book on Amazon despite not having purchased it there.

    2) Both reviews were posted within minutes of one another.

    3) Both reviewers have posted ZERO other reviews anywhere on Amazon.

    4) Both used a short phrase with all capitalized words and an exclamation point as their review title. Michael's is "Extremely Accurate!" while DC's is "Rock Star!!!!"

    Here are the review lists for each person:

    DC: http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-...stRecentReview

    Michael: http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-...stRecentReview

    So we're supposed to believe that "Michael" and "DC" have never used Amazon to review a book prior to today, yet both showed up to post 5-star reviews within minutes of one another, and neither used Amazon to actually purchase the book. And they have similar writing styles.


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    NoFraud Poker Room Manager Belly Buster's Avatar
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    To add a bit of karma I've posted my review on there. Will see if I can do the same on Amazon.co.uk
    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    BTW JACKDANIELS is the first one banned from the thread. He is accusing me of being "duped by a middle aged man who dresses like John Cena"
    #FREEJACK #NEVERFORGET

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    Gold Steve-O's Avatar
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    Obviously Ben has found a new use for Fiverr.com... $5 book ($1 per star) reviews to tourniquet the bleeding your reputation is taking
    I write things about poker at my Poker Blog and elsewhere on the Internets

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    Cubic Zirconia
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    This is even more of a reason to go to Amazon and 1-star-review his crappy book.

    I just gave them a bad rating and write up. I was looking for your Druff to mark it as helpfulness but couldn't find it. What's your name you use on that site

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spdrwebb View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    This is even more of a reason to go to Amazon and 1-star-review his crappy book.

    I just gave them a bad rating and write up. I was looking for your Druff to mark it as helpfulness but couldn't find it. What's your name you use on that site
    I don't want to make that public for various reasons, but just give HELPFUL to all 1-star reviews and that will be great.

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    Cubic Zirconia
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    Hi,

    I'm Aaron Greenspan, the plaintiff in the Greenspan v. Random House, Inc. lawsuit that was dismissed by the federal District Court of Massachusetts and the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and denied certoriari by the Supreme Court of the United States. I spent a lot of my time and some money fighting Ben Mezrich and his publisher Random House, Inc. basically knowing that I would lose, because I have a problem with people like him, by which I mean, people who earn a living by defrauding the public. (See http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=71.) And I'm really glad to see that maybe I'm not the only one.

    I don't know if Ben writes his own reviews. He certainly might. But that doesn't much matter. What I know he does for certain is just as bad or worse. He has certainly asked his wife Tonya to pose as an objective reviewer, and either he or his wife has in turn asked some of her friends, such as "T. Dowd", otherwise known as Tiffany Dowd, to do the same. This activity, in my opinion--though clearly several judges think differently--is clearly in violation of the Lanham Act, a federal law that prohibits false advertising, because it misleads the consuming public as to the sponsorship of a commercial advertisement. When I pointed this out to the First Circuit in a petition for re-hearing (see http://www.aarongreenspan.com/filing...nrehearing.pdf), the First Circuit of course ignored it, just as they ignored the fact, which I also pointed out, that Tonya (username "sweetpea") had deleted the very reviews from Amazon.com that were in violation of the law. In other words, she destroyed evidence.

    Interesting side-note: there actually isn't a lot of precedent about on-line reviews and the Lanham Act. My case could have been the first to put the issues out there had the judges not completely ignored it and decided, thanks to Ben, that non-fiction is "anything based upon a true story." (!)

    My battle with Ben is documented in rather absurd detail here:

    http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=716057

    I haven't had time to put up all of the appellate documents, but some of them are available on my personal web site (http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/index.html under Legal Briefs), which it looks like someone found. That's how I found this page, actually. And a fun story did come of the Supreme Court adventure, if anyone cares, which you can find at http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=87.

    I don't know anything about poker, by the way. I'm really bad at cards. But if Ben has written a book about it, it probably means that he doesn't know much about it, either.

    Aaron

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Wow, really interesting.

    Aaron, I admire your tenacity in going after Ben for his shill reviews.

    What he did regarding his latest book (Straight Flush) goes far beyond "not knowing much about poker".

    The poker community was victimized not once, but TWICE by the owners/operators of Absolute Poker and Ultimatebet. The first time, they directly cheated their players by secretly viewing their holecards. Players were misled into believing they were facing legitimate opponents, when in reality they were facing Absolute Poker owners who could see all of the cards. Players lost large sums of money in this scandal, myself included.

    The second time, they simply cheated everyone by stealing the money on deposit, essentially looting the company and leaving the players unable to collect their balances. This is essentially equivalent to your bank running off with your money on deposit, to where your listed balance becomes worthless. It's even worse, because there is no FDIC insurance for poker accounts.

    The perpetrators of these frauds -- Scott Tom, Oscar Hilt-Tatum, Brent Beckley, and others, are the subjects of Ben's latest book "Straight Flush".

    Rather than focus on the cheating, stealing, and other abhorrent behavior or these individuals, Ben has printed blatant lies about the situation, turning these criminals into flawed heroes who were victims of the US government. It is a huge slap in the face to people like myself who got directly cheated by these scumbags.

    Mezrich did not do this out of ignorance. He was perfectly aware of the facts, but chose to print this fictitious version of events, turning callous criminals into fun-loving entrepreneurs. Despicable.

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    Poker Investigative Journalist
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    Hi, Aaron,

    Thanks for posting. I can't get the plainsite link to work but the other links indicate a ferocious battle between you and he and confirm what I'd already heard about "Accidental Billionaires." It proves to me that Mezrich's fraud in "Straight Flush" is pretty much his entire schtick; he is indeed a liar par excellence. Right now I'm considering a new project called "Debunking Mezrich," going through each of his books and describing in detail how fraudulent they are. Fighting fire with fire might be the best solution to ridding the literary world of his lies, not that there wouldn't be another lying fraudster ready to jump in and take his place.

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    Gold Deal's Avatar
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    I'm not defending Mezrich, but there seems to be some unfairness in these reviews. Druff is on radio and twitter and this site asking people to go and one star certain reviews he disagrees with and to create negative reviews calling Ben out on some truth doctoring. How different is that than Ben telling his buddies that he just wrote a book and that some internet geeks have pounded it with fraudulent negative reviews so it would be appreciated if they would read the book and post a review. That seems like a sensible reaction from his point of view.

    Druff, have you even read the book? Do you find your actions of encouraging others that have not read the book to post negative feedback in an attempt to influence sales ethical? I feel it is somewhat fraudulent and for sure unethical.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jasep View Post
    I have always tried to carry myself with a high level of integrity in the poker community and I take it very personally when someone calls that in to question.

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