fail_fandomanon

So, there is a way to register a phoney name with a credit card and get an amazon real name badge, and it's super, super easy. I just did it, as a matter of fact, and it took me all of two minutes. All you have to do is create a new account and add a real credit card in the payment options section with a phoney name. I'm not even sure that a real credit card is needed because they don't validate the credit card until a purchase is made -- it's just kept on file. I did this, using a different name than what's on my credit card but keeping the same address, and I was able to get a real name badge with the phoney name.

And it's not hard to figure out how to do it -- I found it in a forum discussing bogus Amazon reviews that was listed on the first page of google search results when I searched for "amazon real name badge."

http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,1214281,1214327

I think it's quite possible some trickster did this just to get everyone all riled up. Or it could have been Neo, but now I'm thinking it wasn't.

If it's so easy, do it then. Create a name with "Gentle Fail" as the amazon confirmed Real Name. Then show us the link.

(I'm the one who first proposed 'maybe it was a prepaid card' btw. It was a joke. God help me if this is Neo looking for some excuse to save face...)

+1

You guys seriously have no idea how easy it is, and I'm not pro-Neo at all. I just don't like being had:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3NNN3A1669OY?

For the record, I am super impressed with your journalistic integrity.
Even though if it does turn out to be a troll, my reaction will be "lol epic troll", not sorrow I made fun of NP.

Here's a screen cap, because I don't know if I'm going to keep that account active:

http://i55.tinypic.com/25higkg.png

Good work.

I'm still going to assume it's him unless he provides a screen cap of his correspondence with Amazon.

The review was taken down in less than 24 hours, or close to it. Would Amazon respond that quickly?

Huh. Well done, nonnie. Though this does rather take the shine off the whole n_p thing. Ah, well.

LMAO that post.

People with English names and imperfect grammar? In New York City? C'EST IMPOSSIBLE.

I'm sorry, but considering his biggest and the criticizer he hates the most is a bisexual, Latina woman, and he's sockpuppeted before, that's too much of coincidence for it to be a hacker or a troll.

Yes, none of his haters could know that much about him to stage precisely the worst possible outing. It's just not possible.

Okay, if it is a fake, why hasn't Amazon deleted it? Neo would've complained about that already, and he could easily confirm he's the real Dennis Upkins.

So yeah, sorry, not believe this. It was Neo.

But can you fake the Real Name badge of an existing account? Why did Neo turn off comments in that entry? Why didn't he provide caps of his correspondence with Amazon? Why is the 'bogus' reviewer still up?

You're giving him too much credit.

AYRT

Alas, I am not an expert in all things Amazon, so I have no idea why the account is still up. I posted this because so much of the credibility behind this being a Neo sockpuppet account hinged on the credit card verification of his real name, and I thought I should point out how easy it is to fake the Amazon real name credential. Apparently, a bunch of people on sf_drama complained to Amazon about the bogus review and demanded it be taken down long before Neo did, so who knows what Amazon's impetus was. I just don't think with a company
that big that the internet drama surrounding one bogus review is going to be enough to suspend an account.

It sucks because we've all had a day of thinking that Neo was 100% guilty, so it's hard to turn that off.

And seriously, captcha? Calculus equations?

...I just have to say, if in the next day or so a suspiciously glowing review by a newly created real name account is posted to his book, I am going to crack up.

I think we should make real name accounts for all the female characters in his book and have them yell at him for being a sexist jackass!

Two words that I think are most useful here: Occam's Razor.

It's possible that some trickster did this to get everyone riled up.

It's also technically possible that "some trickster" informed Neo that music theory classes are basically the same as performance classes, and that his Gary Stu protagonist would totally be able to show off his leet violin skills in the middle of class. It's also possible that Neo was working off several imperfectly translated sources when he made that reference to "Shang Tzu" instead of Sun Tzu, or that the rest of us are actually laboring under a delusion and Neo's right all along. It's possible that there are states where judges throw out jury verdicts on a daily basis, but we never hear about it because of the Illuminati or some such.

Hell, it's even possible that his book actually originally had flawless grammar, exquisite writing, and a not-at-all-convoluted plot until some heartless editor (could've been a white woman; I'm just saying) went after it with her red pencil, splitting complete sentences into nonsense fragments, reprogramming autocorrect to replace every use of "spare" with "spear" just for funsies, and adding several useless subplots and a metric fuckton of misogyny because that's just what you do when you're the only editor working at CreateSpace. And that Neo noticed all these flaws and desperately attempted to correct them, but was unable to overpower the Mighty CreateSpace Editrix and incapable of taking his work to another POD place, and that's why he's disclaiming all knowledge of such a shitty book even as we speak (he doesn't do it in public, mind; he only does it under f-lock and on this totally cool writer's blog -- you wouldn't have heard of it; it's not mainstream enough).

It's possible! All of these things are possible!

Or it's also possible that Neo overestimates his own cleverness, underestimates the importance of doing adequate (or, really, any) research, and doesn't bother proofreading to make sure that he's actually said what he wants to say.

Yeah, guess which one I'm gonna believe first?

♥ ♥ ♥

Marry me, nonny.

Yeah, and given that this guy has a history of sockpuppetry, has probably/possibly sockpuppeted as a bisexual woman before in order to be "allowed" to make misogynist slurs, and that there are other implausibly positive reviews of the book that are extremely suspiciously either him or his close good buddies...

Or it's also possible that Neo overestimates his own cleverness, underestimates the importance of doing adequate (or, really, any) research, and doesn't bother proofreading to make sure that he's actually said what he wants to say.

Yeah.

It sucks that there's doubt, because it'll give him and his stans a loophole, but this fits his MO to a T and I actually don't have trouble believing he really is this careless, delusional and stupid.

I have never followed Neo and only know about him through this meme and I've only ever visited sf_d through links from this meme. I don't particularly care about the drama surrounding Neo, but I get why people don't like him and wanted to "out" him for his misogyny. I get it.

But to be honest, I think it sad how much time and energy some people are spending hating him. It's like going after him has become a mission, and you're all turning into caricatures of angry, self-righteous feminists. It's like you've finally found someone upon which to dump all your rabid hate for every wrong that's ever been done to you, and logic be damned, it's going to be Neo.

Looking from the outside in, some of his haters are starting to look just as bad as he does, regardless of how high the moral ground is that they're standing on.

This.

Also, the Amazon Roz Torres account posted on August 29th. Whereas a Rosalyn Torres gave Neo's book a 5 star rating - but no review - on Goodreads on August 24th. Several days before. The same Goodreads site where Neo visibly gave himself a 5 star rating too. This Roz Torres sure doesn't look as if "she" is out to hurt Neo.

Unlikely.

Did you try actually leaving a review? It won't allow you to leave a review until you've made a purchase. That said, I didn't use a "real name", but I don't expect it would be any different.

Here's a cap of my attempt: http://i51.tinypic.com/2zp7d3a.png

Okay, this is honestly the last time I'm going to post about this because it really is a waste of time, but all you would have to do to leave reviews with a phony real name is add an additional credit card with the phony real name to an existing account where purchases have already been made. I just did this and I'm more convinced than ever that Neo did not leave himself the review with his real name. Why? Because I updated my own account with the Gentle Fail name and left a review, and I'll show you screen caps of the process. I've already deleted the review and the name Gentle Fail from my profile because I was paranoid that someone would be able to figure out my real name and I didn't want anyone tracking me down to leave me death threats (lol). Also, I think it's rude to leave a bogus review for a book I haven't read.

Here's one of the preview screen where you see in big letters what name is going to be applied to the review: http://i56.tinypic.com/f39fs7.png There's no way that Neo would have bypassed that screen still thinking that he was being sneaky because Dennis Upkins would have been displayed in the largest font in a different color. So, unless he actually wanted to be caught and proved to be a jackass, imo he didn't leave the review. But you guys are going to believe whatever you want, and you can all have at it. I'm officially done!

Here's a shot of my profile with the review followed by a shot of the book's review page before I deleted the review:

http://i56.tinypic.com/2vcufzb.jpg

http://i52.tinypic.com/ndsi0g.png