Paying For A Review

Woah, woah! Let's pretend I did not see that...

I don't know if I've rambled about this before but- paying reviewers?! What, does fifty bucks earn you four stars? I mean I've known about this happening for awhile but everytime I see something suggesting at such a thing my mind gets blown. 

"Earn a FREE review by doing this~" 

Yeah. Or, you can hunt down bookworms who will gladly do it for free. Hell, there are times where I'm completely taken back by people providing the book to review. I'm not rich, but I don't mind paying for my hobby. And I can get people asking for money to flash an ad of your book on their website- or a trailer, really. You know, like those annoying things on the side of practically every site out there? 

Fine. 

But getting paid to be honest?! Oh and here's one that put me up in flames.

"Please send your book and thirty dollars to -insert address here- and we might get back to you. But we reserve the right to not read your book. Your money will not be refunded, and if we do not read your book in three months you must submit it again with another thirty dollars for us to consider, again."

Not an exact quote, but that's basically what the site said. I don't want to point any fingers here, and while getting paid to read would be awesome, this just sounds... Sleazy, cheap, dishonest, disheartening, the list goes on... I can understand to a point why authors would do this. It can be tough to get someone to leave a review. But man! Just the thought of some person practically taking advantage of that fact irks me. 

Or the other one in which you aren't even guaranteed a review is flat out disgusting. I get swamped with requests for reviews, but you know what I do when that happens? I ask them if I can read their book in a week or two after I've finished reviewing for the authors before them. If it's like a quick needed thing, I try to work out some solution that will make everyone happy. It's not complicated.

Feel free to correct me here, or further explain how this whole system doesn't sound messed up; but to me, this is what it all looks like and exactly how I feel about it.