Okay, so I'm just reposting what I've said earlier in the year again as a separate post because I've found that there is still some unfairness around. 

It seems that the issue is largely over now, I think, and many of the upvote shops have been closed. Though the votes still remain despite them being deleted/deactivated etc. So that's good. But I think that there isn't anyway to actually combat these sorts of behaviours. 

Actually I also realised the shops made accounts not only having the same name but different number, but also a random combination of letters, or strange/funny usernames. They're also easily identified in a story when they either have no icon, or the same icon and largely grouped together over a few pages.

You can easily look up a story's upvote by typing in the story upvote address and put the story's number at the end. 

asianfanfics.com/vote/story_voters/000000

Just replace the number with whatever the story you're looking up is (found when you look in the address bar: ...story/view/000000/...)

Idk. Just bringing it up again as a caution since there are always new users around. And lots of people might not know. There are probably users who wonder "why has that story got so many upvotes compared to subscribers, especially when it's a short story/oneshot?" Or "how come it's a sequel with only a few chapters and has so many upvotes while it's main story doesn't even compare?" These were certainly questions I kept wanting to know about when this all first came about! Ahaha. 

[REPOST BELOW]

I know this is probably a very late response to the current "upvote shops" issue.

And I have to say, I've actually bought some upvotes for my story IGMtaI. Why? I did this before everything became an issue and in my defence, I wanted to find out how the heck they're doing the upvotes. Turns out, obviously, they made many many accounts (which are also easily tell-tale) with the same name and a different number at the end. I also was pretty sad about the ratio of upvotes to subscriber on my story.

There have also been a LOT of stories getting featured after having bought tons of upvotes. 

Many authors have written stories who wish they could get featured and yet can't due to this influx of upvote buying tactics.I'm one of those I guess. Everyone is. Because the ratio of subscribers to upvotes is quite big - most people are reader-only and don't comment or have enough karma points to upvote. 

So the people who do deserve certain privileges of AFF are being pushed aside. Which is sad. 

You also can't exactly take away the upvotes you have received. 

[END REPOST]

(Being unable to remove them also means you can't pretend you know nothing)

So, I hope people don't use such methods to gain popularity. You will gain it in due time. If people love your story, they'll share it and tell others, and before you know it, you've been featured! (At least, I hope so!) 

Or you can always try advertising with your karma points - if you need more, you can always purchase them to help AFF with the app project! It's still a while away, but if more people donate, then we'll possibly have an app sooner than we think! :D wouldn't that be great?

And I totally understand because I've tried... OTL. Advertising is seriously hard! Phew! I just need to keep saving up~ xD

You can also read Korekrypta's excellent blog post that had addressed this : http://www.asianfanfics.com/blog/view/1054593

And that's that for now. :)

Ttyl~♡