An update about WriteFoxy Nuts & Bolts
PLEASE READ. Nuts & Bolts will continue, but with a delay.
Hi lovely WriteFoxy followers
Firstly, please forgive the delay in getting the remainder of my WriteFoxy FoxyNotes Nuts & Bolts series posts to you. They will still happen and will be with you soon. I’ve included a recap at the end of this post of all the published posts in the series so far.
Secondly, an explanation for the delay.
For the last five weeks, I’ve been dealing with a scam that has caused issues across my Substack and Ko-Fi accounts. (NB: Ko-Fi is a ‘buy me a coffee’ virtual tip jar service for creatives and also allows me to have a shop as well as posting stories and snippets of new writing. I’ve been posting Ideas Bank PDFs in my shop of each of the Nuts & Bolts topics since I began this series.)
WHAT HAPPENED TO ME
Basically, I was targeted by a money-laundering scam, where thieves use stolen credit cards to set up tips and monthly donations on Ko-Fi. They do this to test if the cards are still active, making small payments of £5 and £10 that they hope the real card owners won’t notice. They then demand refunds to be sent to different bank accounts in countries where the exchange rate is significantly in their favour, so they effectively steal more money back.
Over a twenty-four-hour period, my Ko-Fi was spammed with these types of donations. I reported them and cancelled as many of the multiple monthly donations they’d set up as I could. But they kept coming. In the end, the only way to stop new ones frequently appearing was to remove the ability to receive tips and shop payments, effectively closing my shop and tip jar.
WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW
What this means is that I’ve had to stop using Ko-Fi altogether. I can’t risk any other scammers targeting me. So I’m sorry to say that I can no longer offer the PDFs of my Nuts & Bolts Ideas Banks that all of the posts in this series have stated were available.
The aftermath of the scam is slowly being sorted out and the rightful card owners are being refunded. But it’s been a complete nightmare. It’s cost me money in fees and taken hours to deal with, even though none of this is my fault. To be completely honest, it’s made me want to stop offering anything online.
I moved my WriteFoxy Foxy Notes to Substack from an email newsletter provider that went bump and took my entire subscriber list with them. Now, Substack is now proving problematic, most recently renewing subscriptions in error and then refusing to offer refunds (which I’ve battled to rectify).
WriteFoxy Foxy Notes are supposed to be an easily accessible resource for writers, sharing what I’ve learned over seventeen years as a published author. Fun for me to write and share, and hopefully helpful to you. But the problems of the last five weeks have taken me away from my actual job of writing and made it difficult to share anything with you.
WHAT ALL THIS MEANS FOR YOU, AND FOR WRITEFOXY…
For the time being, I’m keeping WriteFoxy Foxy Notes here, on Substack. So nothing will change. And the Nuts & Bolts series will be completed, with the remaining six posts appearing, one a week, from next Monday (4th May). After that, I will review the situation and let you know what I plan to do. Thank you so much for your support thus far and please bear with me while I sort this out.
In the meantime, here’s a recap of the Nuts & Bolts series posts so far:
Please ignore the part in each post that references the Ideas Bank PDFs in my Ko-Fi shop.
Thank you again for your support and understanding. I hope you find what I post useful for your writing, which is all I want WriteFoxy Foxy Notes to be.
Many thanks,
Miranda
Oh what an absolute nightmare. I'm sorry you've had to deal with this. Hope you find a solution.