Author Beware - Share This With an Author You Love (Copy - Paste with Credit - Repost)
Getting Stalked by BooksButterfly’s Abhishek Singh
It’s 2018, and I’ve had two more instances: another investigation of my use of work equipment that exonerated me against false allegations of misuse, and reporting my article to Medium.com as harassment. I expect this to continue, despite not having done anything wrong. This was a review of the services I received from this business, and what came of the interaction with the business.
The following article is about the relentless stalking of myself for daring to publish a review about a book marketing company that scammed me and other authors out of a few hundred dollars. No doubt he will scour the internet and find this, and report it to Medium as defamation. But the fact of the matter remains, his site scams authors out of money, failing to follow through on the promises he makes. He will then lie and threaten his way free of any review that paints his business in it’s true light.
He even got to my website hosts legal team, and convinced them that this article was libel. Slander, libel, or defamation are not founded in the truth, and there is plenty of evidence and witnesses to what has been done by this individual.
DO NOT USE BOOKSBUTTERFLY! Avoid them. Unless you want to suffer these consequences.
is a scam. I will say it outright.
(Please see updates from February 2017 below, because this person is now cyberstalking me because of this article, and the truth dropped in it).
Do not use them to promote your book, you’ll end up sorely disappointed. The person or persons with whom you’ll have correspondence are additionally rude, and will refuse to send a refund. They will then proceed to lie to PayPal, as you need to use them for payment, and PayPal will believe them. I turned them into the New York State Attorney General’s Office for Internet Fraud. Unfortunately, as an advocacy office, they cannot lodge a suit or remove them from the internet without further evidence, and you hiring an attorney, but please contact them if you have already been scammed, because the more reports, the more room they have to move.
I and other authors in one of my genres banded together to sell a bundle of our works to promote ourselves to readers. You got 9 books and one short story for $0.99. It was an exciting opportunity featuring top authors from around the Western World—award winners and best sellers. I was honored to have one of my books included with this esteemed group.
Having pooled our resources, we chose from a handful of the multitudes of promotion sites out there. Books Butterfly was unfortunately one of them. They all have a similar look, so the bland page wasn’t really a warning sign. If you google them, there’s not much information, but you can tell that others have been googling their name and scam. (I chose to write this article to help those wondering, so they can make the best decision for their promotion.)
When it was evident that another bundle that the coordinator of our set had put out was not doing well at all with Books Butterfly, the coordinator cancelled the order and asked for a refund, based on their policy which you can view here:
As you can see, refunds are awarded on a pro-rated basis, which is very understandable. However, the individual(s) we dealt with refused to allow this, claiming there was store credit only. He also said we never requested a cancellation, yet I have the email from our coordinator and him confirming. Neither did we misrepresent the price of our bundle, the only thing that could disqualify us from receiving such a refund, according to the sites own policy…
I won’t show you the rest of his emails. They were insanely rambling and rude (the other authors experienced the same). The person coordinating our bundle was unable to get through to him either. He told her that she didn’t send the attachments as asked, which she did, because she also sent them to us. I’ve left off the invoices on purpose.
We reached out to our respective state attorney generals and other consumer bureaus to investigate. The people at Books Butterfly lied about the incident, claiming we were trying to extort money from him, and remained ludicrously belligerent and stubborn. How does one extort their own money from someone who is stealing it? By telling them to stop stealing from them, of course! He also said I threatened him for warning that I would take these steps to aid in winning our case, a right consumers have when they’re defrauded.
Is this an isolated incident? No. Several people replied to my posts about this, in Facebook forums, that they had heard the same from other authors. Buyer beware. Share this with a writer you love. Steer them away! He cannot guarantee any sales at all, and won’t honor his own policies.
This week, I also found out that the person from Books Butterfly dug up my personal information, and claimed that I was using time and equipment at my job to further my book business. He literally tried to get me fired for speaking out, for turning him into the AG, and for trying to get my funds back when he failed to follow through on his promise. He stalked me. This just went to plaid.
The original posting was made back in September of 2016. Several authors have written to thank me for this warning, and still others commenting that they have experienced similar issues with the business. They’ve remarked on the unhinged behavior of the proprietor. Up until now that would be considered hearsay in court. That was until this afternoon, when I checked my email to find not one, but two emails from “Abhishek” attempting to reopen his email war with me. Keep in mind, all the proof points to shady business practices on his part. I laid out every bit of evidence that I had in my possession above. Now, he wishes to continue the slander of my colleagues with accusations of greed. One cannot be greedy for their own money. It simply doesn’t work that way. Below you will find a copy of both emails sent to me today, clearly seeking to harass me and my colleagues, SIX MONTHS LATER.
I think the article has been making headway. That is the only explanation for him to lash out again. It also provides me with something I can go to the Attorney General with to lodge a complaint, again. If it continues, I would be within my rights to lodge a harassment complaint and seek damages.
I’m still laughing about how we’re ‘greedy’ over the payment we made–our own money. That is just the best part.
Today, I woke up to find that this person reported my post on LinkedIn and had it removed. He claims that it was defamatory and slander. All I shared were his correspondences with myself and other authors. I gave an honest review of my experience and that of the other authors involved in the problem. Now, he’s emailing my site builder. Reporting me to my day job (a position that no one knows that I hold outside of those I work with and family, and I made the mistake of divulging to him that I work for state contracts, in order to make him understand that I UNDERSTAND the legal issues he’s getting himself into, and should just refund our money for failure to follow through on his business promise—and he got the wrong office by the way. Still, it got back to my office, as was his wont). Here is the threatening letter that my colleague at this site received. She will be calling the police forthwith, and happens to be in Canada, too. So, hopefully, the Canadian authorities can manage this and stop the cyber-stalking.
As you’ll see below, he’s using a different email, but gives his full name.
I am well within my rights, American and Canadian, to write a review and divulge this experience to others. It’s only slander if there is misinformation, which there is not. I have shared actual emails sent by this person. Yes, PayPal failed to find in our favor, but they refused to hear the case, as well. The organizer of the box set did all that she could, but Mr. Singh lied his way clear (as proven by the screen captures included above).
Stay tuned! I’m sure there will be more. Keep your fingers crossed that the Canadian authorities will nip this in the bud. In the least, he’s crossed a line with a member of a Writers Federation of his own country, and this will reach more authors, preventing them from getting involved in such scams and dealings.
There comes a point where one should cut their losses and just do their best to prove the bad review wrong, by providing the best service possible to their customers. Stalking and harassing the reviewer, past customer, just shows a lack of business sensibility, acumen, if you will, and that there was indeed a problem here on the part of this individual. I won’t be the last person to give a bad review, and to expect otherwise is unrealistic, especially with this kind of service in store. Do what you promise, and you’ll have no issues. Am I right?
If you carry anything away from this review, readers, take special note of this close up of a screen cap included above. MONEY BACK GUARANTEE was in the Books Butterfly policy, and that is what was asked for. He chose to refuse it, despite us having met his parameters. That was not his money, clear and free, until he earned it by filling the promise, the guarantee. Who’s greedy? Yeah. Exactly. Don’t let this happen to you.
February 20, 2017, received a response from LinkedIn. Don’t expect social media to help you fight harassment and stalking. In fact, my experience, and the experience of many who undergo such abuse, is that sites will reprimand them as if they’re at fault. Victim blaming is a serious problem that often keeps victims of abuse trapped, and allows the perpetrator to continue their campaigns of harassment and stalking unhindered. I will await to see what LinkedIn has to say about my response. My suspicion is that they will treat me as a problem and attempt to cut me off. In that case, I will add them to the complaint to the NY State Attorney General.
Remember that you have rights. You have a right to review a business about your experience. You have a right to share that with others, free of harassment. It is not defamation. If a business comes back at you, they’re committing a crime. You should document the interaction and publish the evidence with the original review as I have done here. Social Media fails if they punish you for that and you also have a right to lodge a complaint against them for that.
