Possible Spam/Fraud

[April]

Hailey wrote: "Hello everyone. I recently received this comment from someone named Sheila Martinez on both my second latest Goodreads blog post and my "Ask The Author" section:

WARNING:STOP ALL YOUR PROMOTIONS ..."

Yes, I got this as well. Interesting that it's all in caps except for the book titles. It's a copy and paste operation. They just fill in the blanks.

[Gail]

Gail wrote: "Julianne wrote: "Hi, I'm new here but I received at least four threats from a Ben Whittaker and a Wendy that if I didn't stop promoting my book on Good Reads then my book would vanish in 24 hours a..."

What dreamworld are you living in? I quit using Goodreads to advertise anything years ago. Mostly I use it to copy reviews posted on the site

[Nigel]

This scammer is still going. Some people are so useless at achieving anything positive in life that I suppose they have to resort to this to make a little bit of money. It must be an awful lot of work for almost no reward, but some people value one cent earned by cheating somebody as being worth more than a thousand dollars earned from honest work, it is just a defect in their character.
I have set my emails to junk anything even remotely like this and report it as abuse. If you do this, do remember to check your junk folder from time to time in case something you actually want ends up in there too. As for the laughably threatening post put on here this morning from some fake identity or other, who cares! If you get one, look under the poster's profile and there is a greyed out option to report it, click on that, follow the directions, and let Goodreads sort it. Don't let the low life bother you.
The absolute worst that can happen is that you won't want to feature your book on Goodreads for a while, which isn't a big deal, and you might have to report a fake review to Amazon, but they are brilliant at dealing with scams like this and will be very helpful, so don't let it spoil your day.

[Gina]

Nigel, I reported 3 fake trolls this morning on here. I've been dealing with these scumbags periodically for over 3 years now. Since I turned off my Ask the Author, they send their stupid threats to my email addresses, where I promptly block them. I really wish Goodreads would crack down on this rubbish and do more than kick them off. A few days /weeks later they create new fake accounts and it starts all over again! It's tiring!

[Lee]

Had a few from Sarah and a few others. Best thing to do is ignore them

[Gina]

Ignore them, yes, but report them as well.

[James]

A few months ago, I fell for what I thought was a legitimate crypto investment platform. The site looked polished, the support was responsive, and everything seemed real, until the moment I tried to withdraw my funds. That's when it hit me: I had been scammed.

I lost over $12,000 in USDT. I couldn't sleep for days. I felt stupid, ashamed, and honestly just hopeless. I reported it to the exchange, filed complaints, but everyone just said the same thing: “Sorry, nothing we can do.”

Out of desperation, I started reading forums and stumbled across someone who had mentioned ExpressHacker99. I was skeptical, I’d already been burned once. But I figured I had nothing else to lose, so I emailed them: expresshacker99@gmail.com.

To my surprise, they were transparent from the start. They explained the process, didn’t overpromise, and gave me updates as they worked on tracing the funds. Long story short, they actually helped recover a portion of my lost crypto. Not everything, but enough to give me closure and prove that not all hope was lost.

If you’re in a similar situation, I genuinely recommend reaching out to them. I know how dark it feels after getting scammed, but help does exist. Just be careful who you trust again.