Clarification from Books Butterfly
Hello,
I did not see a thread here regarding Books Butterfly (similar to BookBub and BookGorilla) so I thought I would post my experience.
I bought the Platinum 100 ad package for $170. My credit card was charged and after one week of them ignoring my emails about when and where my ad would be place (I know my ad has not been placed because there had not been an increase in sales*), I had to file a dispute with my credit card company to get my money refunded.
*I placed a $5 ad with another promo company and I sold 27 books in one day so I know my novel is worth purchasing.
Maybe others have had better luck with Books Butterfly, but in my opinion, I would avoid them at all costs.
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Hi M.
We have very few disputes or chargebacks so I'm pretty sure I know exactly which author you are. Actually, there's no other chargeback in all of Feb so we know for sure. Here's what happened and hopefully that reassures you there was no bad intent from our part
A) You purchased a package on Feb 3rd
Please Note that you did not specify any dates. Which means you were OK with us assigning dates. You also did not email us any date request or email us asking to set any urgent dates.
Here:
Email: [Redacted for Privacy Reasons]
Slot: Paid Platinum 100
Date:
Date End:
Book: [Redacted]
Tag:
Referrer Domain:
http://booksbutterfly.com/
B) A confirmation email was automatically sent to you. This is sent from our server so this is FIRST SENDER. It is sent as soon as you purchase.
B2) After you do the purchase you are taken to a Payment Success Page. Another indicator that payment has been received and everything is fine. Did you not get this page either?
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C) On Feb 6th you emailed saying you did not get an email.
I have absolutely no idea why the confirmation email did not reach you
D) On Feb 7th you wrote in again that you received no email and that you were worried
E) We emailed you on 9th from one email account.
Here is forwarded email on Feb 9th. This is SECOND SENDER
From: Abhishek Singh <
[email protected]>
Sent: February 9, 2017 2:38 AM
To: m
Subject: Re: Sight Lines ad
Hi M
We received your payment.
thanks for writing in. Yes, we can run your book. We'll email you dates and terms within a few days
thanks
Abhi (Books Butterfly)
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F) On 11th we scheduled book and emailed you dates. This is 2nd email from SECOND SENDER
Here:
From: Abhishek Singh <
[email protected]>
Sent: February 11, 2017 1:01 PM
To: m
Subject: Re: Sight Lines ad
Hi M
We've scheduled this for Mar 1st to 7th. Sales Mar 1st to 8th. In Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo stores. My invoicing team will email you terms within a few days. Just wanted to give you a heads up that dates are set
thanks
Abhi (Books Butterfly)
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G) later that day the scheduling team emailed you terms. This is THIRD SENDER. AT this point you have been emailed from three separate emails and emailed 4 times
Here:
From: "Books Butterfly I Final Fantasy LLC" <
[email protected]>
To: m
Sent: February 11 2017 11:59 AM
Subject: Paid Platinum 100 Slot Request
Hi M
thanks for writing in. Yes, we can run your book.
ETC
ETC
ETC
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H) When I checked Paypal after not hearing from you for a few days there was a chargeback. There is option for disputing a chargeback, which we did not do. We just assumed you had changed your mind and instead of asking us for refund, for some reason you had done dispute instead
Important: We did not contest your chargeback which would have held back your money for up to 60 days. We assumed you wanted to cancel and approved the chargeback. Which is a $25 charge to us. You could have emailed or done a Paypal claim which costs us nothing
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I) I've not received ANY response to any of your emails. Yesterday I found this forum thread at AbsoluteWrite where you are implying we tried to steal your money or something. And unfairly recommending other authors to stay away
J) I can understand that if you bought a slot on Feb 3rd and if the confirmation email for some strange reason didn't reach you, that you might panic. However, you had the option to
Email Us
Start a Claim on Paypal
or some other less extreme measure
K) I'd politely request that you consider the situation
You didn't specify any dates or tell us it was urgent. You left dates completely blank
You're saying you never got the confirmation email. That can happen. However, after payment there is confirmation of payment success. Which is indicator enough that we have received payment.
6th and 7th you emailed us
We responded 9th and by 11th scheduled your book and emailed you
Some time in between you started dispute
3rd is Friday
4th, 5th are Sat, Sun
By 8th (just 3 working days, and just 5 days in) you are on the forum claiming we stole your money.
You didn't even give us a chance to set up things.
L) Now I'd request you to kindly remove this post or update it to correctly reflect the situation. We get a lot of slot requests. Sometimes it takes a few days to respond. When an author doesn't specify dates AT ALL, like you did by leaving dates blank - Those slot requests are treated with less urgency.
Within 3 working days of submitting your slot request you had started a paypal dispute and started writing forum posts claiming we stole your money
Is that fair?
This is defamation and slander and it's not right.
You are claiming
- a week, when it's 3 working days
- no responses to your emails. It takes a few days
- that we tried to steal your money. The promotion was scheduled for Mar 1st to 8th. You did chargeback sometime around Feb 8th
- recommend authors to stay away. You left the date fields completely empty which implies complete flexibility on dates. I can understand if you had either set Feb 5th, 6th or asked for urgent dates. You bought the slot on Feb 3rd with dates completely blank which we took as a signal that you have flexibility and it's not urgent
Please update your forum post or remove it. You're being very unfair. Yes, the delay on our part was bad. We get a lot of slot requests. You didn't select any dates so we made a bad assumption that you would be flexible on dates and not miding waiting a bit.