Where, Oh, Where, Have the Book Scammers Gone?

A Literal Literary Loser Looks For Lost Lawbreakers

Those of you who know of my soap-opera background - I wrote the NYT best-selling As the World Turns tie-in, Oakdale Confidential, the Guiding Light tie-in, Jonathan’s Story, as well as The Man From Oakdale, and Soap Opera 451: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama’s Greatest Moments - should understand why I am so fascinated by the ongoing saga of The Greatest Book Marketing Offer Ever. (If you are new here, please read Part #1, Part #2, and Part #3).

When they reached out to me over Instagram, Spring Reviewers Book Club assured me that investing in them was perfectly safe as, if I used Venmo, I’d be able to get my money back if they didn’t provide the services they promised. See screenshot:

I even double-checked with one of the authors they referred me to as a satisfied customer:

As I mentioned, after weeks of back and forth, I finally went ahead and sent them $175 via Venmo for the very lowest rung of their marketing pyramid. (After they very, very aggressively tried to upsell me to the $1000K+ option. (Even my soap-opera love of “what happens next” doesn’t go that far.)

For two weeks, I heard nothing back from them, despite daily nudges. So I took them at their word and filed a dispute with Venmo. At which point Venmo informed me that… their account is no longer active.

But, wait, there’s more! The Instagram account I’d been corresponding with, the one calling themselves srbofficial1 has defaulted to a generic “Instagram user.” And their whole page, with their tens of thousands of followers, and their thousands of likes on every post is also gone. Their two websites, https://bookreviewer.club/ (which they referred me to), and https://reviewerbookclub.com/ (which I found on my own; it features a slightly different price structure, though includes the same authors as the former site, so I can confidently assume it’s run by the same people), are still up. But all the links, to both social media and Contact Us, are disabled.

This, I must admit, fascinates me.

I’d written before about how I don’t understand their revenue model. Spending dozens of man hours convincing me to invest a measly $175 dollars does not appear to be a good use of resources. Certainly not profitable in any sustainable sense.

If the con is that, once they hook a writer into sending them money, they then instantly do a runner, scrubbing their IG presence, their Venmo account, and their website, then that’s just… not very efficient. I at least expect efficiency from my scammers!

That is a heck of a lot of work for not a lot of money. Do they dummy up a new IG account (my teen daughter tells me thousands of followers can be bought for about $10 bucks a pop), and a new website for every potential mark? How time intensive!

On the other hand, who am I to talk? Look at how much time I’ve invested in figuring out what their deal is. And if they think I’m done - well, think again, scammers!

My Venmo dispute is still pending. And I have reached out to the book publishers of the two authors who heaped such praise on Spring Reviewers Book Club:

I figure we have a couple of options, here:

Either these are legit authors whose legit media coverage has been co-opted by scammers who created fake accounts in their name.

These are legit authors who are being paid to promote an illegit scam.

These are legit authors who are running an illegit scam.

I will keep you posted on what I hear from Venmo, from the publishers, and whatever else I’ve dug up. This soap opera is far from over!

In the meantime, I ask that you share this post far and wide in all of your writer and reader networks. Criminals like this should not be allowed to get away with preying on the dreams of aspiring authors. We need to expose them, and everyone like them.

Please help spread the word!