Thursday, November 27, 2008

Amazon, we can see you ...

They're doing it again.

I guess I shouldn't be using the word unbelievable, but still. What are they thinking? They must be losing revenue on this. Certainly I'd think more than twice before I'd order anything from them … which I haven't done now for at least a year. Not entirely unconnected. Is it possible that the 'Church' of $cientology is actually this powerful? No, seriously, that is not possible. So even though infiltration is a pretty messed up word to use, I am actually almost leaning in that direction. Although perhaps this theory makes more sense. Oh, and read this blogpost and check out the answers this guy got from Amazon … way to go on customer service. Certainly doesn't tempt me to put my time and effort into writing reviews on their site.

I'm mentioning this because I think the Co$ is a dangerous organization that preys on vulnerable people for profit. I could go on, but I won't … if you don't know a lot about $cientology, then please educate yourself – this is a great place to start. It has lots of information and lots of links. Keep an open mind, and the facts will speak for themselves. We should all be grateful that the Co$ is doing so much more badly than it claims.

Somebody some day will say 'this is illegal.' By then be sure the orgs* say what is legal or not.
L Ron Hubbard, creator of $cientology

If you are a customer at Amazon or you are considering becoming one, please also consider the information linked to above. Do you think it sounds right? Do you want to support a company that does business in this way? All I ask is that you think about it.

When it comes to buying books online, Amazon is not the only or even the best place to go. I've got a couple of other recommendations that you may want to look into, if you're looking for online bookstores. For both new and used books, but mainly the latter, try ABEbooks. This site lets you search the inventories of literally thousands of booksellers all over the world. It's the best place to find that out of print title you're looking for … and you can usually choose from a great variety both in price range and conditions. For new books, check out The Book Depository. Their selection isn't as enormous as Amazon's, but it's still very good … and here's the clincher, they ship worldwide free of charge. :-o So seriously, whatever you're considering buying at Amazon, check The Book Depository first. Your bank account may thank you. I've bought books from them a number of times and I've always been satisfied with the experience. And now is definitely a good time to let Amazon know that rules and regulations are there for a purpose, regardless of what some overzealous clamheads may think. They are defrauding their customers by giving a false impression of items for sale.

Spread the word, if you can.

In other news, I may already have broken my mp3 player – I tried figuring it out last night, and I did things, and I don’t quite know what happened but everything seized up and now it's just completely dead. Waah!! :-( trilltrall may have his work cut out for him on Saturday. But on a more cheerful note, I got zero junk mail yesterday. Yes! :-)

And I’ve gotten more than 300 ‘thumbs up’ on my comment on this article on Tuesday. Like, omg lolz!!

*$cientology organizations

4 comments:

Paz said...

good post madam

Anonymous said...

I actually don't use Amazon anymore (unless somebody gives me a gift card). Haven't done for ages, really. And now I've discovered The Book Depository, which tends to be cheap and has free shipping!

Leisha Camden said...

Thanks, Paz ... I think it's kind of important to be aware of the fact that this is going on, for people who are considering shopping at Amazon. Partly because this is a kind of censorship that ought to be very distasteful to anyone who's even slightly socially aware - today the $cientologists are getting their way, who's next? Or who is already doing it that no one has cottoned on to yet?

But partly also because it's false advertising. Amazon are very proud of their user-generated reviews which give you the 'best', supposedly, information about the product, not from ads, but from users of the product like yourself. But if they delete all or most of the negative reviews, how is that helpful to the customer?? How does that give you a correct impression of the product??

Elin, The Book Depository absolutely rocks ... I need to be so desperate to use Amazon and if I do (rarely) it's only their marketplace and not the main store. TBD is quite able to compete and at the moment, knowing what I know, I'm really not very interested in giving Amazon my money. I wanted to plug both ABEbooks and TBD in my post because if people see that there are options, and start taking their money elsewhere, that's the decidedly best way to get Amazon to see that people are watching, and we don't always like what we see.

So this post was my small contribution towards that. :-)

Paz said...

there was a story in one of Irelands papers about John Duignan who was in "the Sea Organization" a paramilitary section of Church of scientology, he was high ranking member for 22 yrs and wrote a book, this book was pulled from Amazon.co.uk after Cruise visited Amazon in the states to 'promote' a movie. It was not in the 'reputable' papers and I haven't looked this guy up, thought you might be interested
(BTW, he's Irish and might be a bit mad) ;)