As an author, I was severely scammed by Writers Value. VIP , a literary group, an imposter posing as Rebekah Jett from Simon & Schuster called last Nov. 2023. 
She was going to rescue my books and get them printed & on Amazon. In the meantime, I  paid money to have the books printed and published.
 
She was lovely and spent up to an hour on the phone with me. schmoozing me. I double-checked to see if she was a real real person. She is an editor for Simon and Schuster. a beautiful  African American woman.

 
That's who I was talking with on the phone. She talked more and more about how they were going to have me sign a contract with Simon and Schuster. I was going to be part of their family.

 

We were supposed to meet at  a local restaurant. Rather than me traveling to New York City. they were coming all the way from New York to Brattleboro which was 3-hour drive. I was honored. In addition, she was also going to bring many of my books so I could give them to my friends.

 

  I've written six books so she said she was going to bring them when we got together on March 11th. She had previously sent me a copy of the contract and it said March 11th on it so I knew we were going to really meet on March 11th.

 

The date had been previously delayed to be able to round her team up. Some had to be traveling abroad, as they were an international group. It about that time I thought my Rebekah was being impersonated because there was an email that turned from Rebekah's picture on the little thing where it says her name near the email to a blonde a long-haired  woman that I knew the whole thing was a bust.

 

I worried that Rebekah and her team had come up to Brattleboro and I wouldn't have been there. I never heard back from Rebekah so I didn't know if that blonde lady had said something to her like don't email me again or don't call me.  I didn't know what was going on. It just seemed as though some terrible thing had been done to Rebekah and me as far as the time for the signing.

 

Shortly before Mar 11, Rebekah told me it was okay for me to talk with  Bela Bejaria who 
called with an offer from Netflix. I double-checked her authenticity she was on the main page for Netflix. Rebekah had earlier said she wanted to get me in connection with Netflix and here it was.

 

 I got in touch with the Simon & Schuster fraud team because I was concerned about the real Rebekah being impersonated. She needed to know about this because she probably has other clients and then they're being scammed also.

 

My friends asking how I  believed in Rebekah. I said it  was especially because we had such enjoyable conversations. She was very interested in my books and why I wrote them and they had wonderful conversations on the phone.

 

I only discovered this was a scam when I emailed the Simon & Schuster fraud team and they told me that was not the real Rebekah's email and it was not the real Rebekah's phone number and that I had been totally scammed.

 

I next called the Netflix to tell them that Bella was being impersonated.  I thought it was important that these women know their clients are getting scammed possibly as with me, drained of money. I have lost a lot of money and hope to get it back.

 

I called my State Police and they have a file they're working on. My bank has a file they're working on and then I was referred to the Attorney General and I filled out a form for them. 

I was late changing my checkbook account and even later canceling my credit card.  They were able to get even more money from me.

 

I'm telling my story because first of all I feel broken and maybe telling my story will help me heal a bit, also it may prevent others from falling into this same scam.  I'm aware of 2 of our members getting unmercifully scammed. One of our members on here who did get scammed badly and he's kind of backed away just to mend.
 

We are like scam magnets as authors.   Everybody wants to help us publish our book. They want to do this and that for us our book.  I immediately ask them how much it was going to cost. I got a call for an invitation for an interview.  Oh you want to know how much that was going to cost, at least $400.
 

Several years ago I got connected with a group called iUniverse.  It sounded really good at first.  It wasn't going to cost much for books. But they began grooming me.  They would say they had a deal to get an ad for my book in a magazine like Readers' Digest.  They were doing it. One of my friends saw it on there.

 

It was an incredible amount of money and they were really appealing to my ego. My ego has gotten me in a lot of trouble. I don't know if that's part of being an author or not but if you have a big ego beware. So they kept giving me all these offers and the thing is they would divide them into threes.

 

I didn't only have to pay 1/3 of the amount and the following month, of course, I would have to pay the second third but next month now they were going to have another offer for me.   And I will only have to pay half,  so I'm paying for two things this month and the following month. I'm paying for two things.

 

But the next month they had another offer. Are you feeling crazy yet? That's clearly their goal. It's an especially great trap for someone who doesn't do math well. It just makes our heads spin as it just goes on and on ad nauseum.

 

I do not want to make people feel like there's no safe place to get a book published.  I don't know of any but maybe someone here knows a safe publishing company that doesn't charge very much money so that we can all know about this.