Tag: scammers

Amazon Users: Beware!

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Amazon users, beware of fake emails! 

This morning I checked my email and had one of those “Oh NO!” moments when I saw an email from Amazon saying that my account had been put on hold. 

It’s a good thing I have trained myself to breathe deeply twice before reading such emails again to see what the problem is. 

It would have been easy to click on the link they gave me and do as they asked, but I’m glad I didn’t. The email looks completely legit, but it’s a scam. 

Three things gave it away: 

  1. I haven’t ordered anything, therefore there is no payment due that could have caused the problem. 
  2. The name of the department is incorrect, although deceptively close.
  3. The email address this came to is not the one associated with my amazon account. 

Had I clicked on the link and done as the email asked, I would have virtually signed my life away to whoever sent the email. 

My standard practice is to never click on a link in an email from any company, but rather to sign into my account normally to check and see if there is a problem. 

It just goes to show how important it is to read carefully and think before click!ing!

Why Readers Should Be Paying For My Books.

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Further to yesterday’s post about illegal book sharing sites, I thought it a good idea to state plainly where my books should— and should not—be found. 

My books are all available on reputable ebook sites: Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Google Play, and the like. 

They are not legally available anywhere for free. 

As I have openly stated previously, I do not believe in making my books available for free, nor do I accept books for free, because I strongly feel that authors should be paid for their work just like everyone else. 

Creating something excellent takes time, energy, and commitment. When a creator asserts their copyright and other creative rights over their intellectual property, it is their legal prerogative to place a purchase value on that work.

If a work of art, a book, a song or a movie are worth enjoying and owning, they are worth paying for. 

Indeed, I find the concept of someone claiming to be a lover of books, yet avoiding paying for a single one, hypocritical to say the least. 

To prosper by catering to those people? Despicable.

Indie Authors: Don’t Let The Scammers Win

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There has been quite some consternation among Indie authors over past months in various ways that dishonourable people have found to scam the system and get quite rich selling books that are not what they should be, particularly on Amazon, or who steal others’ books and make them available on pirate websites, or plagiarise and “rebrand” them as their own work.. 

Understandably, those who put a lot of effort into writing and publishing excellent books find such situations discouraging. It’s hard to be upbeat about what we do when others seem to “win” with shortcuts that are plain wrong. 

As I commented in yesterday’s post on integrity and ethics, it seems as though the floodgates have opened to allow all sorts of deceitful behaviour.
It’s hard to know how to respond.

What honest writers must not do, however, is quit. 

It’s up to us to keep on creating fantastic stories and poetry for the readers out there who crave excellent books. 

It’s up to us to hold our heads high, proclaim “I write every word of my books!” and then show the world what we’ve got. 

In short, it’s up to us to show the cheaters and scammers how it should be done. 

Nobody but honest and hard-working authors can restore the faith of readers in Indoe and self publishing. The only way to do that is to maintain a premium of quality in the books on the shelves in stores, libraries and homes all over the world. 

We may have to work harder, smarter and cleaner than ever before. Still, we’ve had to do that in order to give traditional publishing a good shake, and we’ve certainly achieved that. 

We Indies have so much to offer. We have each other for support and an entire future that is yet to be shaped ahead of each of us.

I refuse to quit. I refuse to let the scammers win. Who’s with me? 

Is Integrity Too Much To Hope For?

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I have posted a couple of times in the past week on issues of integrity and ethics in the Indie Author community.

There, and in life in general, it seems as though having integrity is a little less fashionable than it used to be.

These days, it seems that people are more often driven by their hunger for money or power or fame and, as a consequence, having integrity is a less fashionable than it used to be.

What a sad state of affairs.

It’s no surprise, though, that fewer and fewer individuals value integrity as it used to be valued, when they see politicians, global corporations and even national leaders getting away with telling lies, taking or paying bribes, cheating the system and taking little or no accountability for these actions until forced to. If it works for the rich and powerful, why not the little guys?

This is no justification whatsoever. Just because someone else does it, doesn’t make it right. And just because they appear to get away with it doesn’t make it a viable option to shortcut the road to success.

In some ways, integrity matters even more now than ever, because people are finding new and clever ways to cheat and deceive others which often have significant consequences for many. Globalisation and technology have opened a floodgate of opportunities for legitimate businesses and scammers and pirates alike.

In a world where there is precious little to rely on, we need to be able to know who to trust. We need to be able to take someone at their word, to assume a contract will be met, to get what we pay for, and to know that the liars and cheats will be punished.

If nobody stands up to them and insists on standards of behaviour and ethics, it’s only going to get worse.

Integrity is not too much to hope for. In fact, it is an imperative that we should all take very seriously indeed.

Integrity should be something we value for its own sake. It’s a quality we should not only strive for, but teach and expect our children, our friends, and our companies to do likewise.

It does seem that it’s always going to be the regular folk who set the standards for those “above” them.

Nothing will change, though, unless those who still value integrity and honesty demand them of those who hold the power and make the decisions.

Only when the majority – and I do believe it is still the majority of people – who value integrity assert its importance and hold it up as the yardstick of acceptable behaviour can we hope for anything different.