Bookspublishingexpert.com Reports & Reviews (1)
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SCAMPULSE
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SCAMPULSE
If you know any contact information for Bookspublishingexpert.com, help other victims by adding it!
Scammer's website bookspublishingexpert.com
Country United States
Victim Location TX 75001, USA
Total money lost $1,500
Type of a scam Online Purchase
These are very talented, expert scammers who afford a tremendous amount of effort in the administrative aspect of achieving anonymity (bank accounts, domain names, email addresses, phone numbers, etc.), aside from all of their SEO and marketing efforts. They have many sites and names — seemingly launching a new one at least every 2-4 months.
Multiple of their sites have their own bank accounts. At least one of them is with Community Federal Savings Bank (CFSB) — a single-branch bank out of New York that appears to have no walk-in services for customers; outsources customer support to the Philippines; and has gotten in trouble with the OCC.
Methodology:
They act like a book publisher. You run into them when you're looking for one.
They have so many search engine-optimized sites that the likelihood of running into one of them is high. They seem to have ongoing efforts in increasing their field of exposure in this way. (So that they don't need to go to the unwary buyer, but instead the latter will go to them.)
The way that they name these sites, on its own, is a well known SEO trick. The name attempts to be close to the sort of search phrase the user might type into a search engine.
Their webpages tend to be high-effort. They try to make it look legitimate. Each one even has its own custom Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions, likely catering to web crawlers for improved SEO rather than a wary buyer. (Copy-and-pasting content would work against the sites' search result rating.)
After engaging with them, everything looks and feels like real business interaction: invoices, project reports, and ongoing communication via phone calls, emails, and text messages. This is so that they can reverse chargebacks with falsified evidence, as needed; however, it has an additional effect.
This gives them tremendous leverage in forming the image of a legitimate business to the buyer, as well. If they can get away with you thinking you received service from a real business, then they seem to prefer that. They even want you to post a 5-star review for them on TrustPilot before their (faked) delivery of work.
Given how much effort they put into each one of these site launches, they're very sensitive about the reviews that they receive. They try to scare you into removing a bad review. Where that fails, they'll try to bribe you into removing a bad review by offering a 50% refund.
They use their high-effort image to intimidate you into thinking that they can take legal action against you.
Process:
Once you begin to interact with them, they do not let go until they can get you to purchase services. They keep trying to interact with you via any communication method you entertain. First they get you on a deal, then they try to get more money from you afterwards.
They only publish your work on Amazon — something that is free. This means that Amazon is the publisher, not them.
They email you fake ISBN numbers that they've supposedly purchased for your work, but if you search for them on ISBN search sites, the ISBNs don't exist.
They provide a book cover that looks like it's been spat out by some free web tool automatically. This is only to be able to help reverse a chargeback later by showing it as part of their proof to the bank, as the bank will not question good faith.
When you request a refund, they refuse. They claim that they delivered to you everything that they advertised, such as the ISBNs and the cover. (They also claim having edited the work, but they do not even try to develop any documentation for that.)
A few days after a chargeback attempt through the bank, the scammers call, email, and text message you to issue threats. At first they try to exploit you emotionally, "I'm in a very bad position right now." Then when you don't give in, they try to scare you by claiming that they've gathered substantial evidence to reverse the chargeback and that their legal team will contact you, as their company "will file a case against you."
Ultimately, it becomes apparent that the entire time they've been working on developing just enough documentation to make you look like you went on to engage in "friendly fraud," if it ever comes to you trying to dispute the payment through your bank. They lie as much as they can when communicating with you, as they are developing false evidence for chargeback dispute. They're not actually trying to communicate with you.
One of their lies to you is that they provided service prior to you making payment, so that you wouldn't have to pay, if you didn't approve; however, they, in fact, require you to make a payment before they deliver anything.
They spread communication with you between emails, text messages, and phone calls. This is so that they can create falsified paper trails against you, while preventing paper trails that would work in your favor throughout the process.
The following is with respect to the Books Publishing Expert site:
Company:
There is no company name, such as an LLC, mentioned in their website footer, privacy policy, terms of services, or anywhere else.
Domain Name:
On their webpage, they claim the company was founded in 2016; however, their domain name was created on 2023-10-11T08:53:39Z (GoDaddy).
Addresses:
Between the website and the social media profiles, different addresses are claimed as their headquarter: one in Texas and another in California. The address stated on their website (150 Iron Point Circle Suite 140, Folsom, CA 95630) belongs to another entity whose webpage claims having started in 2016 and whose domain name was actually created in 2016 (honestreverse dot com).
When inquired about why they charged a 9% tax fee, they claimed because their headquarter is in New York. Additionally, in Google search results for "Books Publishing Expert," the crawlers have left an old description (which seems to no longer exist on the site) claiming the entity as "a prominent name among the top book publishers in Florida."
Phone Numbers:
They use VOIP numbers from Onvoy to call and text message the unwary buyer (415-758-4081, 415-723-6902). One of the two phone numbers shown on their website does not exist (833-206-5143); however, the other is an Onvoy VOIP number (915-944-1841).
Email Addresses:
They use disposable email addresses (@tsderp.com, @ziragold.com) to promote the website on sites like planetadth.com and provenexpert.com, likely for SEO backlinking.
News/Publications:
They used einpresswire.com to publish a promotional article on myfox8.com, also likely for backlinking.
Social Proof:
They try to get their victim to post a 5-star review by sending them the following URL: trustpilot.com/evaluate/bookspublishingexpert.com?stars=5. If the victim posts a bad review, then they send threatening messages. There were multiple bad reviews; however, they were removed by the reviewers.
See the following review site for the associated "Amazon Publisher LLC" for details from other victims, which describe exactly the same things experienced with Books Publishing Expert: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/amazonpublisherllc.com.
Associated Sites:
(1) Amazon Publisher LLC,
(2) Easy Writing Services,
(3) Get Writing Service.
The scammer seems to charge between $500 and $900 at a time for a total of around $1,500. The charges on the banking statement for Books Publishing Expert appear to be diversified between different accounts, such as "Easy Writing Services" (description: "754-5299697 CA") and "Get Writing Service" (description: "650-4201359 CA").
Additionally, the scammer may offer the bank checking account number of "AMZN Publishers LLC" as an alternative payment method (for Books Publishing Expert). In order to reproduce this, complain about the tax rate they're charging you (say that the tax rate in your state is lower and it's not fair that you have to pay that much for sales tax; they might respond with this alternative).
All phone numbers from every one of these 4 scam services are either from a VOIP service or inactive.
Amazon Publisher LLC uses a New York address of an entire city building. There is no such LLC registered with the New York Division of Corporations, based on their online database.
Easy Writing Services uses the address of an entire building in an apartment complex in Florida (The Winston by Windsor Apartments). No company of such name was found in Florida's Division of Corporations online lookup database.
The Get Writing Service website claims the address of an apartment unit in the same apartment building addressed on the Easy Writing Services website. There no such company name found to be registered in Florida's Division of Corporations database.
Trend:
Amazon has filed a lawsuit against 20 similar scammers recently (10/30/2023): Case 3:23-cv-05580. It's possible that the "DOES" mentioned in the lawsuit are a part of the same chain.