Q –
Hi Angela,
Amazon has deleted some verified reviews from my book page, and isn’t allowing some (but not all) of the verified purchasers to leave reviews. Is this common, and can anything be done about it?
Mitch
A –
Hi Mitchell, 
If these review were submitting by friends or family members, believe it or not, Amazon has a way of knowing that. For example, if I had a gift shipped to my aunt last year, and if she then posted a review of one of my books, Amazon would know we had a personal connection.
Amazon owns many companies. If you are “friends” with someone online, or have some other connection to that person in a database that Amazon owns, they can see that, too.
As ridiculous and Orwellian as it sounds, f Amazon does figure out a connection between the author and a reviewer, they can (and probably will) reject the review.
See:
IS AMAZON REJECTING BOOK REVIEWS FROM YOUR READERS? We Found a Work-Around!
and
“Why won’t Amazon let my relatives post (fake!) reviews about my new book?”
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Interestingly, though, a publisher giving three hundred free copies to employees of a PR firm representing the author and telling them to write reviews under their own names does not qualify as “cheating.” So they are good at squashing one or two bugs, but a whole arsenal gets past them. Which is why you’ll see business and self-help and celebrity memoirs get to the top of the bestseller lists and have thousands of reviews when the book has only been out four days.
Most friends and family reviews are the useless type like” I liked it so buy it or other inane useless comments with 5 stars.
But actual reviews with factoids especially when the book was purchased should be allowed. Amazon is using genuine stupidity AKA “artificial intelligence” to make bad decisions.
I guess this explains the latest deletion of one of my verified Amazon reviews, even though my connection with the reviewer happens to only be as a FB friend. Oh well… ecco la vita.