Shining a bright light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes, and pitfalls. Also providing advice for writers, industry news, and commentary. Writer Beware is sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc.

March 9, 2018

Scam Down Under: Love of Books Brisbane / Julie "Jules" McGregor


Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

It's a familiar story.

Entrepreneur sets up publishing company. Publishing company charges fees, but it's not a vanity publisher--certainly not! Authors are just investing in their own success.

But...oh dear. Authors receive proofs riddled with errors and finished books so badly produced they are unsalable. Some receive no books at all. Refunds, if promised, never show up; court judgments, if levied, are never paid. The entrepreneur gets aggressive with authors who complain, or simply doesn't respond to emails and phone calls. Finally the business collapses and disappears, or the owner sells it or transfers it to a third party who refuses responsibility for previous mistakes. Authors are left high and dry.

How often have I written about this?

Well, here's another example: Julie McGregor's Australia-based publishing services company, Love of Books Brisbane, a.k.a. Books Publishing Services Australia. According to this article in the The Sydney Morning Herald, McGregor has reportedly defrauded multiple clients to the tune of four and even five figures. From the article:
Disaffected clients claim they handed over sums ranging from $2000 to $12,000 since 2013 and as recently as late 2016 to entities including Love of Books Brisbane and Books Publishing Services Australia. The projects have ranged from historical research and commercial fiction to travel guides.

Another complainant is a Queensland debut novelist who unsuccessfully claimed a partial refund when the deadline for her fantasy fiction "was exceeded, my manuscript edited with no permission or tracking to show where the edits took place, no finished product and then I had to pay someone else to edit it again from scratch".

The writer says she is still owed $4000 and has not heard a word from McGregor since she was promised the refund in August 2016. At that time, she was not advised that McGregor was a bankrupt.
And that's not all.
McGregor...dealt exclusively with a Melbourne high school whose parents spent $10,000 to produce a cookbook as a Christmas fundraiser in 2016.

The school, which does not want to be named, paid a $4000 deposit raised from local sponsors plus a further $6000 to McGregor's business, Love of Books Brisbane, to print 1000 copies of recipe favourites.

To date the fundraisers say they have not received a single copy of the book, which was to have been delivered four weeks after the supply of artwork and content in September 2016.
Several of McGregor's authors have won judgments from the Queensland Civil Claims Tribunal, although only one author appears to have been paid (and only partially).

Publishing isn't McGregor's only fraud. In November 2017, she was convicted of an elaborate scheme to extract money from local businesses.
[A] Southport magistrates court convicted [McGregor] of three counts of dishonestly gaining thousands of dollars from three restaurants using fraudulent credit cards. She was handed a nine-month suspended sentence for what the prosecution said was a "calculated, fraudulent activity, not once but three times".

Acting magistrate Gary Finger described McGregor as "certainly naive to say the least" for her role in the complex fraud, in which she booked restaurant functions on fraudulent credit cards and then persuaded the restaurant owners to pay for non-existent florists and limousine services. A sobbing McGregor was told she would face jail time if she came before the courts again.
In 2016, McGregor transferred the Love of Books website and client list to Ian Lewis, who is currently operating the business under his own business number and a slightly different name: Love of Books Australia-Wide. According to McGregor, this change was spurred not by thousands of dollars owed to multiple authors, but by "high continuous bullying in many forms...lasting over 3 years by a sacked employee and his associates, along with the take over of the businesses clients and personal details by a greedy commercial operator in conjunction." (You can read a much longer and even more self-serving version of this screed here.) According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Lewis has disclaimed responsibility for reimbursing McGregor's clients.

Although Writer Beware never received complaints or reports about McGregor's company, I did have my own encounter with her. In 2015, she sent me an email with the angry (and mis-spelled) subject line: URGETN ATTENTION REQUESTED.


I always give attention when asked, especially when it is URGETN.


McGregor responded:


Well, that wasn't super-helpful, but I did what she suggested, and typed her name and URL into Google to see what I could see. Turns out that she was indeed mentioned on my blog...but not because anyone had defamed her. I thought it would be good to let her know what I'd discovered.


I wasn't surprised when I didn't get a reply.

Here's McGregor's comment that produced the websearch result:


UPDATE 3/11/18: Wow, that was fast. I got home last night from an event to find two emails threatening me with legal action: one from McGregor, and the other from Ian Lewis--purportedly, at least. Verbal clues suggest that both emails were written by the same person responsible for the posts on this blog devoted to extending McGregor's claims that she, in fact, is the victim.

18 comments :

Daisy said...

This might be the worst example of the Streisand effect I've ever seen. The mind boggles.

widdershins said...

Never heard from again, eh? Imagine that! :D

Ben Jones said...

I feel that this poor woman should be simply left alone ... Obviously she has worked hard with over 1600 authors very satisfied published Australia wide before she was robbed while her family was on its death bed. He care and support showed right through her business life with hundreds of examples.

Obviously if she was left alone in the first instance things would have been so very different.

http://www.loveofbooksselfpublishing.com/2018/03/julie-mcgegor-love-of-books-bullied-out.html

http://www.loveofbooksselfpublishing.com/2018/03/what-happened-to-julie-mcgregor-love-of.html



Ben Jones said...

We need more peace in this world. Not defaming, lies and bullying. Much of this blog post is defaming lies and assisting of bullies.

Victoria Strauss said...

I have a more than sneaking feeling that "Ben Jones", with "his" Blogger profile dated March 2018, is actually the same person who sent me the two cease-and-desist emails (those pesky verbal clues again. Julie, if you want me to believe you're someone else, you might want to take a look at that).

Allen F said...

What we need in this world, 'Ben', is more truth. If someone's stealing from others by promising services for money and then not delivering the services or returning the money people need to know so they won't be taken.

The only bullies I see are those trying to silence what's going on - lest it scare away others that haven't heard that the bully is also a thief.

Edward John McGregor said...


The world is full of negativity and drama

Munro is the biggest bully and scammer. We saw on his Facebook post that he received over 250 books from her then business and sold them.. LOL...

SCAMMER- AND QCAT ITSELF HAS A LOT TO ANSWER FOR- WHEN A WOMAN WITH A DYING FAMILY RINGS TO SAY SHE CAN NOT GO IN TODAY AND THEY TELL HER ITS OK- THEN RULE IN THE LIARS FAVOUR CAUSE SHE DID NOT SHOW UP. . 14 REVIEWS ABOUT QCAT ON LINE AND 12 OF THEM ARE NEGATIVE. SUCH A STUPID GOVERNMENT SYSTEM.

TO not only have your livli-hood stolen from you then be bullied while your family is dying. Doubt many of us could be still be standing.

http://www.loveofbooksselfpublishing.com/2018/03/what-happened-to-julie-mcgregor-love-of.html

Victoria Strauss said...

I'm leaving the above comment in place because it gives a flavor of the hectoring emails I've been receiving since I put this post online. Julie, I see you.

Jenny O'Brien said...

THE SUN HERALD HAS A LOT TO ANSWER TO -NEWSPAPERS ARE FULL OF GOSSIP AND LIES TO ATTRACT INTEREST AND SIMPLY HURT PEOPLE WITH NO REMORSE SHOWN.

FIRSTLY: MY UNDERSTANDING IS: FIRSTLY YOU NEED A CREDIT CARD FACILITY TO PROCESS ANYONE'S CREDIT CARDS.
SECONDLY JULIE MCGREGOR DID NOT HAVE ANY SUCH FACILITY PRIOR TO OR AFTER AT THE TIME OF THE MENTIONED FRAUD.
THIRDLY: JULIE MCGREGOR DID NOT KNOW ANY OF THE PEOPLE MENTIONED THAT HELD THE CARDS NOR HAD ACCESS TO THEIR CREDIT CARDS.
WHAT WOULD JULIE MCGREGOR DO WITH LIMOS AND THOUSANDS OF FLOWERS? LOL...

Victoria Strauss said...

Hi again, Julie. If you want to disguise yourself as an uninvolved commenter, you might want to stop typing in all caps.

Anonymous said...

What do I see here?

Victoria is not only writing comments on her own site but she is also claiming that the comments are written by me.

(Now, this inflates ranking in google, using a name over and over several times. For people wanting to know how to be seen on line)

I have not written anything here for years to date. The writing of the comments is done in such a form that allows Victoria to comment back using my name over and over again: eg: Hi again Ju....

However, I must say that for Victoria to write a comment and then sign my late husbands full name to the comment is most disrespecting and shameful to say the very least.

I sold my domain name nearly 2 years to date. You are now harassing someone else for your own entertainment. You and Dean both. Good luck with that!

Julie

Victoria Strauss said...

Just can't leave it alone, can you, Julie (if that's who you are--the lack of CAPS has me wondering a bit).

John Peters said...

Writer Beware?? Beware of what? So, they stole her hard earned business of many years. Harassed and bullied the f... out of her while her family was dying... Caused contracts in place to pull out over a I’m guessing 3 year period... Leaving her to battle juggling funds with refunds. From what I see she has been out of business now for 2 years to date... This woman needs to get strong and sue all these bastards ASAP. This site is full of harassment...

Anonymous said...

I feel that this Victoria woman has a lot of anger issues and is very unhappy.
I feel she should stay in her own country and leave our country alone.
She writes crap about things she knows nothing about. Only what she reads in papers or on line. Which don't show real facts and is full of hype.

There are always 2 sides to anything. If anyone believes anything they read in the newspapers or on-line they are not very smart people.
It is a sad world where people enjoy, invest and love drama. Especially people who boast and shout other peoples dramas. People hurt. Regardless of what they have suffered.

John Lennon- Imagine

Now, I know you will change my comment. That si what yu do- Create more drama and negativity.

Anonymous said...

Hi- This is Ben Jones - I don't like the fact that you are pretending that I am someone else.

I don't want to be part of your circus.

I regret commenting here. Its all a miserable site to say the very least.

Please remove all my comments above asap.

Anonymous said...

My sister Jenny wants out of your circus too.
Thank you in advance for removing our Jenny's and my comments from your site.
Jenny has contacted blogger and they said to ask you to remove our comments and you should oblige gracefully in good faith.

Victoria Strauss said...

If you can't take the sawdust, stay out of the circus. Give it up, Julie.

Dean Munro said...

Thanks for the great post Victoria. Julie Marie Mcgregor is a compulsive scammer along with her partner Ian Lewis and Authors should definitely steer clear of them. Hopefully they are both behind bars shortly compliments of the Queensland Criminal Investigation Department who have been in contact with me!

Kind regards,

Dean

 
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