Episode 49: Authors Who Argued with Us Before, During, and After Getting Scammed

Have you ever found yourself in the following situation? Someone comes to you to ask your opinion about some decision they are trying to make. Maybe it's dating or marriage advice. Maybe it's something about their career. Perhaps it has to do with some large purchase they want to make. You give them excellent advice based on your expertise, along with facts and logic; not emotion. Then, they go and do the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you advised. You wonder to yourself, "Why did this person ask for my advice in the first place!?" Kind of makes you want to slap them upside the head, doesn't it?! Well, we suffer this experience on an almost-weekly basis. Authors write to Angela Hoy, who has been exposing scams in the writing and publishing industries for 28 years now. They ask: "What do you think about this publisher?" or "What do you think about this marketing service?" or “This company wants me to pay them $75K to make my book into a movie!” As we've said many times, there are so many scammers out there now, they literally now FAR outnumber legitimate businesses! Ninety-nine percent of the time, Angela will do the research, and discover that the "business" an author is looking at is indeed a scammer, and will advise the author as such. Most authors thank Angela and are very grateful to her for saving them from making a huge mistake and losing LOTS of money. However, some authors' responses simply baffle the mind. Some will argue that, to them, the scammer's website looks legitimate. Some argue that the person they have spoken to on the phone or traded emails with sounds SO professional. Some are even dumb enough to tell the scammers, "Angela from WritersWeekly.com says you're a scammer." Then, the author will literally come back to us and argue that the scammer PROMISED them that they are not a scammer! (Don’t EVEN get us started on the “money-back-guarantees” that scammers put on their websites. Authors actually think those false statements will protect them later!) We've even had authors ask for our advice AFTER sending a scammer money, and then they send even MORE money after we warned them that the company or individual IS INDEED a scammer, and explained exactly what our research revealed! Listen to this episode, and you will be shocked at the psychosis that some people suffer from. It's almost as if they WANT to be scammed out of their money! It always leaves us asking that infuriating question: "Why did they ask us to research that ‘company’ in the first place?!" Listen to this episode, and you will, like us, be scratching your head…or pulling your hair out. Don't miss it!!