Publishing scams - what you need to know
The majority of publishers are reputable, providing valuable services to businesses. However, a small minority will resort to dishonesty. Rogue publishers can make huge sums of money by inducing victims to pay for adverts in publications that do not exist, or are not what people are led to believe. Although financial losses to individual businesses are not often large, the tactics used by rogue publishers (particularly when chasing payments) can cause nuisance and, on occasion, genuine alarm or distress.
A typical rogue publisher will consist of little more than a telesales team armed with a pile of telephone directories and other publications containing advertisements. Smaller businesses are often targeted and operatives use deliberately misleading patter, often carefully scripted, to sell advertising space in various types of publications - wall planners, diaries, yearbooks, crime prevention or drugs awareness booklets, etc. Costs usually range from about £100 to £1,000, depending upon the size of advert. Sometimes it is claimed the publication is being produced on behalf of some reputable or worthy sounding cause, or that proceeds will go to charity.
In reality, some of these rogue publishers produce nothing at all and, although some may produce a few token copies of the supposed publication, these are not circulated in sufficient numbers, or in the right areas, to be of any practical benefit to the advertisers.
As with most scams, prevention is better than cure. The more that people know about such operations, the less likely they are to become victims.
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