Poetry Scam
The dream of every artist from painter or poet is to create something that communicates to others. For a writer, publishing a successful piece is a joyous dream reserved for very few. Poets are perhaps some of the most courageous writers. It takes a lot of guts to put your rawest feelings into words and distribute them for all to see.
As a writer, I was horrified to find out that there is a HUGE scam that targets us. As a security guy who is always researching scams, I am not surprised that there are scams targeting writers, but I am amazed that there is one that is doing so well.
There is a poetry scam that legally swindles people out of their money. Its called poetry.com. Poetry . Com is not a URL that you’d associate with “scamâ€, so it is easy to see why many might be attracted to this wolf in sheep’s clothing. So how does poetry . com scam people “legallyâ€?
Poetry . com actually misleads aspiring poets into thinking that they have won acceptance into a poetry book. The catch is that you must BUY the book to be put in it. Unfortunately, these poets, hungry for a break go for this. What they need to realize is that poetry . com offers the SAME thing to EVERY one who writes them a poem. That is how they scam you.
Poetry Scam Steps:
1) Poetry . com advertises the prize of being published to all the best aspiring poets.
2) They send ALL who submit the same letter of acceptance:
a. It is my pleasure to inform you that after reading and discussing your poem, our Selection Committee has certified your poem as a semi-finalist in our Open Poetry Contest.Your poem will automatically be entered into the final competition held in Spring. As a semi-finalist, you have an excellent chance of winning one of 70 cash or gift prizes. You may even win the $1,000,000 Grand Prize.
3) Poetry .com Offers to publish the poets work if they pay X dollars.
No matter what you write to them, your reply will be this.
It is my pleasure to inform you that after reading and discussing your poem, our Selection Committee has certified your poem as a semi-finalist in our Open Poetry Contest.Your poem will automatically be entered into the final competition held in Spring. As a semi-finalist, you have an excellent chance of winning one of 70 cash or gift prizes. You may even win the $1,000,000 Grand Prize.
i have been victim of an online poetry contest hoax, organized by poetry.com. i entered a very personal poem and did not expect to have any response so far. of course i felt very excited when I received a letter of acceptance full of praise. a french native who writes in english, i felt so proud of my accomplishment. so i accepted to buy two copies of the book my poem was going to be published in, and even payed to have a short bio published.
My husband was suspicious, but did not want to hurt my feelings, and eventually let me buy the copies of the book, one for his mother, the other one for us. in the short bio, i wrote that the poem was a tribute to my father-in-law who recently passed away. my two bright and creative children were so proud of me. This happened a week ago. i have been calling my credit card company to try to put a stop payment, but the transaction has not been registered yet. it was only yesterday i realized all of this was a scam from clicking on an internet link. I am horrified by the idea that a an intimate, well-crafted poem might appear online, among a lot of trash. I feel violated and humiliated. I want to get the poem they stole and tainted, back, and to be able to submit it to serious and reputable publications.
Anastasia
Waltham, Massachusetts
U.S.A.
Poetry.com poetry scam, I entered a poetry contest online, it was to my own standards and to other poets and writers’ standards a good poem So I did believe them when I received their quite outrageous letter of acceptance, and of course agreed to buy two copy of their book, payed an additional fee to include a short bio. This was a week ago. Owings Mills Maryland
www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/284/RipOff0284117.htm
Comments (5)
So do you think NOBODY gets the prizes?
I recently submitted two poems to Poetry.com., and still didn’t get an acceptance email.
There is no way they can charge me for something I didn’t order, right?
So you think their is a lot of trashy poems on poetry.com.
I wonder if you think the three I wrote are trash?
Let me know my E-mail address is davidnathanielryback@yahoo.com
To see the poems I have written go to LuLupoetry.com type in David Nathaniel Ryback
I'm just a common person from Carlbad,NM
well I have sumthing 2 say 2. I also submitted over 200 poems 2 poetry.com, and lulu poetry, now I cant access any of them. Theres quite a bit of raw emotion in all of them, I guess I was ripped off 2!
D Loca Lessire
I cant even pull up my poetry on lulupoetry!
11/8/2009
I am still waiting for an anthology from the International Library of Poetry that should have been delivered years ago. Before some penny-pinchers decided to scream "scam", the poetry organization delivered fine volumes which I would buy or not if my poetry was accepted to be published. Many people don't care to accept the publisher terms and see their own poem in print alongside many other peoples' poems, and that is their option when submitting original poetry — but to start-up some kind of political machine that slams the companies into a noncommunicative state can't be the way to protest a business-method that does not demand anyone's poetry or participation.
Idle cheapskates who hop on the first scam-screaming bandwagon that comes along should think about how a legitimate publishing experience has been fouled-up among others who enjoy poetry contests and publication participation.