A Tapestry of Truth: The Lost Decency

The air of my childhood was woven with a quiet reverence, a subtle hum of principles passed down not through forceful decree, but through the gentle, persistent rhythm of my grandparents’ voices. They spoke of Decency and Integrity, not as abstract concepts, but as the invisible yet foundational beams of a righteous life. I couldn’t name it then, but their tone, steady, unwavering, and setting the true agenda for every conversation, was defined by a deep commitment to Honesty. It was the simple, unshakeable sense of something good and inherently right.

That same spirit was a torch carried forward by my mother, a beacon in a storm that would have extinguished a lesser soul. Faced with a family fractured by the formidable, relentless opponent that is alcoholism, she became the brave fighter. She fought, not with cunning or deceit, but with a fierce commitment to structure and love. Even when the unspeakable odds forced her to make the painful choice to remove my father from the home, her boundless compassion shone through; she ensured he was never excluded from our lives, encouraging us to maintain our bond with him.

She was a commander of crisis, steering a house full of children through treacherous waters. I look back with boundless admiration: she succeeded. None of her children fell into the abyss of addiction or the prison system. That achievement alone is a testament to her towering strength and unwavering resolve.

But the greatest legacy I inherited was the absolute certainty of her character: My mother never told a lie. Not to us, her children; not to my father, even in conflict; not to anyone. She met every challenge, every battle, head-on, leveraging her sheer intellectual honesty and her big heart to navigate us through the turmoil. She believed, profoundly and with an infallible conviction, that truth always prevails. And through her actions, she proved that belief to be true, teaching me that navigating life, even the hardest parts, never requires dishonesty or manipulation.

The Silent Sorrow of the Modern Age

Today, I feel a profound and aching sadness for the world she is no longer in.

The noble, quiet code of Decency, Integrity, and Honesty has been tragically overshadowed. The moral architecture of our society seems degraded, replaced by a relentless spotlight on inflated egos that will compromise any principle for validation and financial gain. Honesty is now treated as a commodity, priced for sale.

In this hyper-individualistic arena, Dignity seems dead, and the sole operating principle is a shrill, suffocating prioritization of the self: ME, ME, ME, and money. The simple, sturdy principles that anchored my family through the darkest times have been discarded, leaving a void where true character once stood. We have traded depth for display, and integrity for inventory.

And in that trading, we have lost something vital, something good and right, which my grandparents knew was the very soul of a well-lived life.

People today are largely inflated egos that will do anything for money and validation. Even Honesty is for sale. Dignity is dead and the thing that always comes first is ME, ME, ME! And money!

The Cost of Greed: When Integrity is Sacrificed for Profit

The cases that have marked our lives, settled in court or privately, all share a common, tragic root: the lack of the wisdom my parents and grandparents embodied. The main component creating every single one of those conflicts was the venomous self-focus of Greed, ME, ME, ME, and money!

This pattern of willful disregard for decency and fact is not confined to individual disputes; it ascends to the corporate level, as vividly demonstrated by our current interaction with the supposed arbiter of online trust: Trustpilot.

The issue at hand is clear. After discovering that U-Buy was offering our Kindle Unlimited-exclusive book—a book restricted to Amazon by a strict contractual exclusivity clause—David posted a review on Trustpilot. He warned consumers that U-Buy was engaging in unauthorized distribution, claiming they “illegally scrape Amazon for products” and violate international laws.

“They illegally scrape Amazon for products and offer them for sale on their platform violating at least 25 international and local laws and regulations. My books are on Kindle Unlimited which means EXCLUSIVE contract with Amazon. They are not allowed to be anywhere else.”

Here are a few links but as we submitted a DMCA take down to Amazon AWS where these scam sites are hosted, they will hopefully stop working soon:

And here is a link to the original REAL legal book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B556W9WV

The book is enrolled in KDP Select – which means an exclusive deal with Amazon. The book is NOT allowed to be anywhere else!

The Denial of Evidence: A Cognitive Failure or Calculated Strategy?

Trustpilot’s response was not to investigate the factual claim of copyright infringement, but to immediately suppress the review, labeling it “defamatory.” Their initial demand was for documentation to support the claims of exclusivity. We complied, providing:

Direct evidence (screenshots) of our copyrighted book listed on U-Buy.

Direct links to the illegal listings so they could verify the infringement themselves.

Explicit contractual proof regarding Amazon’s KDP Select exclusivity terms, confirming the listing was unequivocally unauthorized.

Despite providing hard, verifiable proof that the book was present (illegally) on U-Buy’s site, and offering them the links so they could check the infringing material themselves, the final ruling from their Content Integrity Team was a chilling repetition of their initial defense.

The decision to keep the review offline was confirmed, not because the book wasn’t listed, but because Trustpilot claimed we “failed to provide documentation to support the problematic statements.” They maintained the review made “false allegations of illegal activity.”

The Unavoidable Conclusion: Stupidity or Self-Interest

It is profoundly regrettable that Trustpilot appears to lack the intellectual and cognitive capacity to distinguish what constitutes real proof. We provided factual documentation of both the infringement and the contractual terms making that infringement illegal, yet they still claim the evidence is not evidence. They deny the documented fact of the listing and the legal consequence of KDP exclusivity.

There are only two logical conclusions for this willful blindness, and neither speaks well of Trustpilot’s integrity:

• They are intellectually incapable of processing standard contractual evidence and connecting it to a clear instance of online copyright violation. They are, quite simply, incredibly stupid in their capacity for factual adjudication.
• The world’s oldest motive is in play here: Money.

If Trustpilot is not technically inept, their suppression of documented consumer warning signals a dangerous, calculated choice. They are protecting their paying business customer (U-Buy) from a truthful, fact-based negative review, even when that truth points to unlawful activity. They prioritize the business relationship over the integrity of their platform and the protection of the consumer. Ignoring a felony playing out right in front of their blind eyes.

By shielding U-Buy and repeatedly rejecting verifiable evidence, Trustpilot risks becoming complicit in the activity they are supposed to be regulating. They are not acting as a neutral arbiter of trust; they are acting as a bouncer for their paying clients, actively enabling the kind of greedy, dishonest behavior that has plagued the world for too long.

The irony is devastating: a platform built to foster trust is sacrificing its own integrity, the very quality my mother demonstrated was always possible, to protect its revenue stream. The core of your family’s wisdom has been inverted: for Trustpilot, it is not truth that always wins, but profit that always prevails.

Trustpilot just destroyed trust in their platform. And the millions of reviews they host. 

Conclusion: The Price of Trust and the Power of Unwavering Truth

The entire saga, from the discovery of unauthorized listings to the baffling, persistent rejection of undeniable evidence, leads to one unavoidable conclusion: The system is fundamentally rigged.

Every big tech platform, from social media giants to retail behemoths, operates on the principle of Pay to Play. Why should Trustpilot, a platform built on the shaky foundation of monetizing trust, be any different? When a company’s revenue depends on keeping its corporate clients happy, the consumer becomes expendable, and the truth becomes flexible.

In Trustpilot’s defense of U-Buy, we see a chilling mechanism at work: the system is designed not to protect consumers from bad companies, but to protect paying companies from bad reviews. How many potential customers remain unprotected because their truthful warnings were suppressed and labeled “defamatory” to satisfy a paying client? This practice poisons the well of online commerce, actively concealing the very threats the platform claims to expose.

The Legacy That Will Not Be Silenced 

It is here that I draw strength from the deepest wisdom I ever received. My mother showed me the immense, quiet power of truth. She never wavered in her fight against unspeakable odds. She never sought manipulation or comfort; she fought with fierce intellectual honesty, convinced that the truth would always win. She never gave up, because giving up meant surrendering the integrity that defined her existence.

That resolve is our weapon now. Trustpilot may believe their decision is final, but history proves otherwise. Bigger companies, greater institutions, and seemingly impenetrable systems have all bowed to the power of truth and honesty before Trustpilot. The suppression of evidence and the elevation of profit over decency is not a new fight; it is the age-old battle against greed.

We have provided the facts. We have documented the corporate dishonesty. And like my ancestors, we will not stop. Because if we allow a platform built on the promise of trust to actively suppress the truth, then we consent to a world where decency is dead, integrity is for sale, and the only code that matters is the one of ME, ME, ME. And a little money.

The fight for integrity, like the fight for truth, is never closed.

So yesterday I posted this review of Trustpilot on Trustpilot. And they just proved how redundant they are. They cannot be trusted to handle criticism or factual feedback, as even a review pointing out issues with their own platform was removed without explanation. 

Thank you Trust pilot for showing us your true colors!