Initially I was contacted and recruited…
Initially I was contacted and recruited heavily by Jimmy WIlliams of Kindle Avenue. I did not contact Kindle Avenue via their web site as they claimed.
At first their was an issue with their software. It was not compatible with my Mac computer. Eventually we found a program that worked. ( Word- shouldn’t they have known that from the onset as professionals?)
Then their was an issue that I was only receiving one edited chapter per week of my 188 chapter manuscript and that was unsatisfactory as at that rate it was going to take very long to complete the edit.
Then suddenly Mr. Williams was mysteriously gone and I was assigned to Sutton Brady. The chapters began getting edited much quicker, however full of errors. It became very time consuming for me to hunt down the errors that they missed and I began to wonder if the manuscript was being edited at all. I requested several times that the edits be done in a different font color, so I could see what they were editing. I also asked for feed back on the manuscript. As I was told that all three edits were included in my contract; Copy Editing,Developmental Editing and Proofreading. After many requests regarding the font color and the feed back and the constant errors I verbally gave Sutton Brady one last chance to fix things, informing her that we would not have this discussion again, and that I would take action if things did not improve.
After seeing no improvement I disputed the charge on my Visa card without giving them notice. I was very disgusted after six months and nothing was completed. The contract reads that the process would take 4 months and we were nowhere near completion.
After initiating the dispute I received a call from Danial Smith, Creative Project Manager Informing me that they were going to give my project top priority and that I had his word that there would be improvement, and the project would be completed by Feb 10th. He asked me to stop the dispute. I tried but it was too late. He told me not to worry that, they would not respond to the dispute and the money would be reinstated into my account. He then asked me to re issue the payment since we were going to continue working together. Taking him at his word, and knowing that I could not dispute it a second time on Visa, I paid him the $949 again through my Discover card. However, they DID respond to the dispute on Visa, sending a bunch of nonsense that was not true, because although work was done, nothing was completed, and what was done was unsatisfactory. In fact, some of the information that they sent I had never seen before such as logo’s and web site design.
Daniel Smith once again gave me his word that it was a miscommunication between him and his finance department. He assured me that he would initiate a credit to my account and that it should post in about a week. It did not. He told me to wait a bit longer, which I did with no results.
Finally Mr. Smith tells me that the credit was rejected by my bank, and that he was going to re-issue it. He sent me a copy of the refund via e-mail. The date on the e-mail was Jan 28th, a Friday. One day prior to the final date I was able to respond to the dispute and therefor missed my opportunity.
Once again during a recent phone conversation Mr. Smith informed me that he once again issued the credit. But later called me offering to pay for a “lifetime” ISBN # worth $1,500 and offered to wipe out my remaining balance of $1,400 for advertising if I agree to forfeit the $940 balance. Which meant he never issue the credit. I was leery because I was certain that ISBN #’s did not cost that much. After agreeing, I did some research and as I suspected there is no such thing as a “lifetime” charge of $1,500, when in reality an ISPN# cost $125 for each one, or you can buy them cheaper in bulk. Once purchased they are for life. In fact after further research I learned that Amazon offers them at no charge.
Mr. Smith is a conniving lier who deliberately dragged out this transaction so that I was unable to respond to the dispute. As of today he has been paid a total of $1,896. $948 from Capital One Visa and $948 from Discover without as much as a refund.
My advice, don't deal with this fraudulent company.
February 11, 2025
Unprompted review