HE once credited it for the success of his pranks. Now troublemaker David Thorne has fallen foul of the community that championed him.

"The fastest and easiest way to feed anything, true or stupid, to the internet machine is through Reddit," David Thorne once told news.com.au of the social news website where users post links and then vote them up or down.

It turns out that it's also the fastest and easiest way to complain about poor customer service.

And the customer service under attack is Thorne's.

Several Reddit users complained this week that after ordering and paying for Thorne's book The Internet is a Playground, it never arrived.

They also complained that Thorne hadn't replied to emails asking where the book was.

Then the whole thing turned nasty.

Someone connected to Thorne's website allegedly began revealing the postal addresses of people who had complained, which some users took as a threat to stop causing trouble.

Cue widespread outrage and web forum flaming.

People began taking screenshots of the offending posts, uploading transcripts of supposedly damning email conversations with Thorne, saying what a tool he was and so on.

The whole thing became intense enough for Thorne to issue an apology on his website about the unfulfilled orders.

"In July, we received several complaints regarding our distributor and we ended our relationship with them," he said.

"As such, 116 orders out of 9,846 units were not delivered."

Thorne said a falling-out with the distributor meant he had been unable to find out which of the orders had not been shipped.

"The problem was identifying which 116 of the 9,846 it was and we have had to wait for those people to contact us," he said.

"While I appreciate that there are some people upset by these minor delivery issues, I can assure you that the plan was not to steal 116 people's $22.95 and live like a king."

However the apology came with a kiss-off. About 30 seconds after loading it, readers were directed to a Rick Astley video.

Update: Thorne told news.com.au the person who revealed customers' postal addresses no represented his website.

"Kim posted the shipping information of *2* people who stated they had not had orders shipped. She no longer represents 27bslash6," he said.

He also said he had helped fuel the drama and that book sales had increased.