Give the scammers credit, they know they will scam somebody. If you unfortunately are that person, there are some steps you can take to reduce the damage, according to the FBI and cybersecurity experts.
Report the payment to your financial institution
If you’ve spent money, immediately report the scam to whichever legitimate company or agency is in charge of the personal information you gave out. For example, if you gave your credit card to purchase a service from the scammer, immediately contact your credit card company and bank. They may be able to prevent the transaction from going through or can reverse it. If you used a credit card issued through your bank, the bank likely will reverse the charge once you report fraud, but watch your card to ensure there are no odd charges on it. Be prepared for this to be an inconvenience to you, though you may have to be issued a new credit card with a different number.
Secure evidence immediately
You should save everything. Do not delete emails, direct messages, or text threads. Keep a detailed timeline of events and phone call logs. In addition, document financials. Gather all proof of payments, including canceled checks, wire transfer receipts, or credit card statements. All of this will help authorities target the criminals who defrauded you so they can stop them from committing future scams. If you’re lucky and the scammers can be arrested, this evidence will help in their prosecution.
File official complaints
Begin by filing a report with your state’s attorney general’s office. Because scammers frequently operate across state lines, report the fraud to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at the federal level. In addition, submit a fraud report to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). You can contact local police, but unless the scammer is in their jurisdiction – and he probably isn’t – there’s little they can do.
Share the information with fellow writers
Doing so may be embarrassing, but you can get back at the scammers by preventing them from harming other authors if you are proactive:
• Write an article about the experience for your blog or website.
• Post the article on all social media. Add the hashtag #bookmarketingscam to it.
• Share the article with industry watchdogs such as Writer Beware.
The truth is that once you’ve been scammed, you probably will not get your money back, even if arrests and convictions are made (and that happening is remote at best). Accept your loss as a lesson learned and move on – but only after you take action such as filing complaints. Only when governments are made aware of this seriousness and vast extent of the problem will they take action. Your silence merely helps the scammer.
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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.
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