If you’ve received this email, beware: it’s a phishing scam.
![Invitation to submit your book for the 2024 Best Indie Book Award.
Dear [redacted]
This notice aims to inform you that The Alliance of Independent Authors has partnered with BIBA (Best Indie Book Awards) to give ALLI author members a 95% discount on participating in the 2024 literary contest. Best Indie Book Award® (or BIBA®) is an international literary contest recognizing outstanding achievements by indie authors.
Authors are encouraged to submit their books for the 12th Annual Best Indie Book Award Contest on or before May 30th. Use the referral link below to submit your book, all genre(s) categories have been paid for by being an ALLi author member.
https://allianceindependentauthors.booksaward.org/[redacted]/Official_Entry.html
kind regards
ALLi Support Team](https://writerbeware.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/BIBA-impersonation-scam-solicitation.png)
The Alliance of Independent Authors has confirmed to Writer Beware that it did not send this email, which I’m told was received by both ALLi members and non-members. The scam solicitations are personalized with writers’ email addresses and names, and the “Official Entry” link at the bottom is also personalized (which is why I’ve redacted part of it).
Note the fake email address (ALLi’s real email is @allianceindependentauthors.org). The scam domain is just 8 days old:
The Best Indie Book Award (BIBA) is a real award program that is currently accepting entries. (Full disclosure: I’ve critiqued it in the past for its high entry fees, which of course make the scammers’ 95% discount offer extra-appealing.) Clicking the link at the bottom of the solicitation email takes you to a fake entry form (the real one can be seen here; you’ll notice that BIBA has posted a scam warning). Here’s a snippet of the fake form for comparison; except for the entry fee line below the author images, it’s identical:
Authors who fill out the fake entry form (which I did using an alias) and click the “Proceed” button wind up here:
Clicking “Proceed” again takes you here:
There you have it: a phishing scheme to empty your bank account. You may also, in filling out the entry form, have attached a full file of your book. I haven’t yet heard about scammers stealing and illicitly publishing manuscripts, despite many questions from writers who are worried about this; scams that target writers are really only interested in their money. That’s not to say it never happens, though, and regardless, it’s obviously a bad idea for a scammer to get their hands on your intellectual property.
If you did go all the way through the payment process, contact your bank immediately and let them know you’ve been defrauded. They’ll place a fraud watch on your account, and issue you a new debit card.
How else to protect yourself? In this era of solicitation scams, not every out-of-the-blue offer you receive will be a scam, but so many are that your first position needs to be skepticism. Check the email address–is it actually the address of the organization the email is purportedly from? Do a websearch to confirm the organization’s web address: does it match whatever links appear in the email? Are there any warnings posted? Reach out to the organization and ask for confirmation.
And contact Writer Beware. I may have heard something, and if I haven’t, I’m always interested in finding out about scams.
Self publishing scammers in this scam gang ->’NY Publishers’ ‘New York Book Publishers’ ‘https://www.nypublishers.co’ ‘nybookpublishers.com’ stole total 1,887 dollars from me. When I sent money for self publishing my debut novel, they promised as they correct grammar & language and design book cover and do marketing my debut novel well. But, it was 100% lie. (I could notice that a few scammers have used fake names with many email addresses.)
For 8 months! The first manager kept delaying first process – editing process – correcting grammar & language becuz English isn’t my mother tongue – for 8 months! literally, he didn’t edit the manuscript at all! Becuz already 8 months passed and still no sending edited manuscript, with anger and shock, I asked him many many time to edit! And when he sent the manuscript, I was more upset becuz he just rearranged lines of pages, and didn’t edit grammar & language at all! So I reported this scam to the company many times and asked refund or new manager,
and after many many reporting, I barely received a sorry email from vice president Jim Banister, and he promised me as he edit and manage my debut novel ‘please trust me, blabla’ ‘I can make it to bestseller blabla,’, so I trusted him. But, AGAIN! it was 100% lie AGAIN! after two months still no edited manuscript! so I asked him many many times AGAIN to edit! AGAIN! But, when I received it barely AGAIN, it was roughly edited becuz they used AI! Besides, they skipped many pages!
ex) ‘she took to the wood’ -> they changed this sentence to ‘she took me to the wood’ although she/herself took to the wood with no one! they literally changed like this. A dress -> a dresses, and the rest parts were too incorrect and roughly edited, too becuz it wasn’t by professional editor, they just used artificial intelligence and skipped the many pages becuz they never wanted to edit the manuscript rightly at all! Besides, they intentionally red marked on many correct sentences to pretend as they edited the sentences!
So I reported this second scam to the company and asked refund, but, they insulted and mocked me, -> ‘you instructed many things and we did them well,’ -> it was reports about their scam, they insulted and mocked me like this ‘instruction’.
Besides, they hurriedly replied like this-> ‘so here’s the conclusion, the project is over, we close this, bye.’
Although ‘refund is 100% possible when the customer doesn’t satisfied,’ and ‘the price is for entire process ->from editing, book cover design, marketing, advertisement, promotion to selling’ were both on the contract and the sales employees’ email,
they didn’t refund and still refuse to refund! and also refuse to reply!
I sent the contract and email both to the scammers two times and expressed my fury many times AGAIN, but, becuz they’re scammers stealing people’s money, they still refuse to refund! and also refuse to reply!
I reported this scam to FBI and waiting for their help to get back my money and damage compensation, you although other self publishing authors sell books and earn money gradually after around 5 months, for total 10 month! the scammers didn’t do anything the first step editing! and althogh the contract and email both revealed that refund was 100% possible, they insulted and mocked me, -> ‘you instructed many things and we did them well,’ -> it was reports about their scam, they insulted and mocked me like this ‘instruction’.
Besides, they hurriedly replied like this-> ‘so here’s the conclusion, the project is over, we close this, bye.’
Although ‘refund is 100% possible when the customer doesn’t satisfied,’ and ‘the price is for entire process ->from editing, book cover design, marketing, advertisement, promotion to selling’ were both on the contract and the sales employees’ email,
they didn’t refund and still refuse to refund! and also refuse to reply!
So don’t send your money to the criminals! the scammers are stealing money from innocent people!
New Your Book Publishers. I completely believe they are a scam! Her story matches mine except they were /are going to make a series and movie from book! Joke! I’m gonna have to chime in with you on bc the other! Keep in touch Mina!
I got that email today. Thank you for your work in keeping us safe from scams.
Thank you so much for spreading the word Victoria and for all you do to protect authors.
Wow… thank you for the info!
So, from my analysis of this to see where the red flags are:
They only take debit cards but have the VISA etc symbols there indicating they do, in fact, take credit cards.
That’s likely something to watch for.
My bank debit card is a VISA, so I don’t think that’s necessarily a warning sign.
“We only accept debit cards” means “We don’t want to draw the all-seeing eye of Capital One/Chase/Citibank/Wells Fargo et al.”
Fraudulent credit card charges are stealing, for example, Capital One’s money. Once you report that charge as fraudulent, you are legally liable (in the US) for, at most, $50. If it’s a significant amount of money, rather than eat that loss, Capital One will bring to bear its considerable powers to a) claw back their money and b) prosecute the thief.
Fraudulent debit card charges are stealing money from one person without the resources of a megacorp. Depending on the timeline of reporting the fraud, you may be liable for the entire amount, and it’s extremely unlikely your local police department will do more than take a report. Consequences are much less likely for the thief if they exclusively target debit cards, so that’s always a red flag.