April 2003

(if you drop in here straight, you need to read the previous parts first to get the whole picture. Start reading with Poetry scam(s), Part I.)

An interesting development...
After I received that e-mail from Noble House Publishers I started my own little investigation. I never got any reply to the e-mail I sent them, as expected, but I still wanted to know what was going on.
I sent an e-mail to a dozen poetry and literature sites which have scam-warning lists on their sites. I got a reply from Writersweekly and winningwriters.com, both telling me that they had received already a number of complaints about them. From Preditors & editors I also received an email. They hadn't heard of them before, but were interested in the matter and wanted to check things out.
I checked from the English Chamber of Commerce if I could find an entry of Noble House Publishers, but it gave me no record of any company by that name. Strange!
But I had other sources to check! There were three addresses given on the Noble House Publishers' website, and one of them was in the Empire State Building in the U.S.A. So I boosted my phonebill with calling to the U.S.A. I got the clerc on the phone and I asked him if he could put me through with Noble House Publishers. He couldn't, but he gave me a phone number to call that was supposedly theirs. I called the given number, but then I got the Empire State Building's service. The lady told me that there wasn't a known phone number on that address and that the address was merely a mail-forwarding address. No one there. Strange!
And through www.register.com I checked the who-is info on the Noble House Publishers' website. The website was registered by a company with the name "Watermark Press". Does that start ringing any bells?
Registration date of the site was February 10th, 2003. That's a bit dubious, because why would a publishing company, which claims to have 12 years of experience in the publishing business, get a website only in February 2003? Especially in the publishing business the internet is of such an importance that you would want to be rather one of the first to have a website than one of the last, or what?
I checked with the Better Business Bureau, but on the site I couldn't find any record of Noble House Publishers. Not that I would trust their vision so much, since they have ILP listed as "good". I also tried some other institutes, but I couldn't reach them at that point.
Then I tried to get in touch with ILP, since I suspected them of forwarding my information. I called them four times within a three hours period, and on all occasions I hung up after being put on hold for 20 minutes (I wonder how much money they get from people who call their lines).
I guess I'll try that again at a later point. I do want to know if they ever heard of Noble House Publishing and I'm curious what they will say about it.

TO BE CONTINUED! Continue with Poetry scam(s), Part IV.