My son, Ben, has started a company to provide money transfer services. It uses crypto to transfer money almost instantly. He has built a lot of protections into his app. Unfortunately, the crypto business is full of scammers. He was invited to a podcast and found out it was a scam.
Similarly, I sold the last two copies of my book, Dupe ‘em and Dope ‘em. The doctor who bought them said his patients loved the book. My books are currently out of print. I used the Lightning Source International, the first print on demand printer in the industry. Now they are being slow to return my emails. I decided to look at my options. It has been over 20 years since I started publishing. Things have changed a lot.
So, today I looked online. I found a slick web site. I chatted online with someone. I almost paid an invoice but decided more research would be prudent. I went to Grok and found out it was a scam. Here’s the deal. It looked like Barnes and Noble. The name of the company is barnesandnobleselfpublish.com. Looks like there are several companies with barnes and noble in their names.
Carolyn Jackson had written The Spirit of Reiki and we were looking for a way to publish it. Several publishers turned us down.
I saw an ad for a machine that would create a paperback book from a pdf. I called about the machine. I was told they weren’t going to make it because they had won a lawsuit against Lightning Source. Then I saw an announcement in Barnes and Noble looking for authors. We submitted a different book, Moments of Wisdom, A Guide to Self-Counseling. It was mostly blank pages. The idea was to answer the questions to help yourself. It was printed. We didn’t do a good job of marketing it.
I called Lightning Source International and they told me that they only worked with publishers. I asked what is a publisher? I was told publishers had ISBN numbers. I found out Bowkers sold the numbers. I formed a publishing company and bought 10 numbers. That is how we got started.
So, now I’m looking at options. I’m giving LSI a little more time to respond.
The idea behind this post is: How do we know if we are being scammed?
When Ben tried to do the podcast, the “zoom” link wouldn’t work. He was asked if he wanted to allow the publish (supposedly zoom) to alter the computer. The name of the company was not zoom. The company name was on the request to alter the computer. I looked it up. It was a Russian company.
In my case, I signed into my X account and used Grok - the X Ai.
I tried just using Google and doing searches. However, it was impossible to tell. The company had some good references. I’m not taking a chance on a company that builds its business by fraudulently using a successful name.
It is so difficult to find truth these days. Do your research.
As for these posts, I try to do my research, so you don’t have to.