Bookseller Scam Follow-up
There’s a new twist to the bookseller scam that I wrote about a few posts ago. According to a April 3 article on the Publisher’s Weekly website, Ingram has offered a refund to booksellers who got duped by the scam.
Just to recap: someone used a fake name, phone number and credit card number to place special orders with booksellers for the short story collection The Shortcut: 20 Stories To Get You From Here To There. The bookseller would then order the copies, but when it came time to charge the customer, they’d find out it’s a fraud. The result was booksellers across the country were stuck with unwanted copies of this book.
In a new twist, however, one of the contributing authors to the book, Kevin Fabiano, has offered to buy the copies of the unwanted books from the booksellers. It was Fabiano’s character’s name, Michael Evers, that was used in the scam, thus placing Fabiano in a susupicious light from the very beginning. Fabiano told Publisher’s Weekly the following:
"Why in a million years would I want to ruin the name of a character I am trying to brand?" Fabiano asked.
He has a good point. I tend to take people at their word and give them the benefit of the doubt. And since Fabiano is offering to put his money where his mouth is by buying back unwanted copies of the book to save face, then I highly doubt he was the one involved in the scam.
However, I still think that someone at Author Identity Press had to be involved – as they’d have something to gain by the books being ordered. A random person off the street would have nothing to gain, except maybe being charged with identity theft (which isn’t really a gain, is it?).
I’m going to reserve judgement about Author Identity Press until more light is shed on the issue. My only complaint is that their website seems a little fishy to me and I wouldn’t submit any of my short fiction to them. But that’s my own personal opinion.
You can read the entire Publisher’s Weekly article here:
Ingram offers refund on scam title
Check out Author Identity Press’s website and judge for yourself:
Author Identity Press
(I find it a little disheartening that they don’t say anything about the scam on their website. No apology, no explanation, nothing. Considering their reputation is on the line, you’d think they would have released some sort of press release)
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