Aaronhodges said:
Ok based on the latest information about the scammers using fake/duplicate books to get the promo codes, I have a new theory. It might be related to boxsets after all. I know I didn't really keep track of which of my subscribers received which codes, but I'm willing to bet a few that only got one or two of the books of my trilogies might have also asked for a code for the boxset when it came out. That would essentially mean the same person was redeeming different codes for the same book.
Even considering this, I doubt it was more than a handful of people since I offered each of the books individually long before the full trilogy came out in audio.
I don't think it's that because some people don't have boxsets and also some had never even published an audiobook or given out codes. But I've been meaning to post some further information. I'm now in this very interesting FAcebook group, which is mostly the narrators talking but authors are welcome.
This scam with audiocodes is so big now, I can't believe it. So the narrators are constantly receiving messages from Rights Holders (RH) offering them jobs to do these short books. They tell them that if the book comes in under 3 hours, which is the next jump point for a higher royalty, that they need to speak slower so it's three hours minimum.
One I just read about was someone offering 7 books to narrate at around 3 hours each, which would equate to 21 hours total and they wanted to offer them $550 for the lot. They also said that there will be errors in the text and could the narrator just correct errors as they narrated. So, this even at $50 per finished hour, should be $1,050. Then the RH tells them that they could join their team and there's plenty more work. They even ask for the narrator's codes to use.
In this post, the other narrators told this one to run for the hills, that this was a scammer, and that the other give away is that the RH's English isn't great. Several mentioned that they'd received the identical message and the one thing they all had in common was that they were narrators who were either new or had just updated their profiles, so in a search apparently at the $50 rate, they come up first. So the scammers are looking for inexperienced people to get their foot in the door to do these narrations.
Another narrator commented that they had an author back out of the narration after they'd done it because they'd lost their codes. Now why would you back out when you can still sell the book? And another asked if the narrator could redo their title and pen name intro as they needed to create a new ACX account and switch it over. Clearly they've had their account pulled down.
One narrator said that a book they had narrated has been held up for 6 weeks now because they are under investigation and then a bunch chimed in to steer clear of books around the 3 hour mark, that that will send a red flag to ACX. Now I've put up two books in the last few months that are novellas and they are just over 3 hours. However, they've been ebooks for years and I have many novels in audible and as ebooks. But it could be an audible close to the three hour mark might be a red flag.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has a three hour audible.
These scammers are just cockroaches. The narrators call them code farmers. Just makes my blood boil. They were in the KDP pot and probably are still there and now they've been in the ACX pot and seem to have been for a while. And they're teaching others to do it. And we get caught up in their scam as innocent bystanders. Not to mention, we are losing money from the pot to non-legitimate 'authors' and code farming downloads that aren't even real listeners.
On another note, I haven't heard back from the executive service person who was investigating my issue with codes, so I'll follow up today. Anyone else got news?
