FriesenPress review: scam 10

FriesenPress should have been banned from this publishing industry of North America.

They are simply fraud, scammer.

I pathetic is this? I understand this.

This author submitted a complaint through the Better Business Bureau (BBB) on April 25, 2013. The business was notified of this complaint on April 26, 2013 and responded in good faith to the Better Business Bureau and the consumer on May 2, 2013. The the consumer did not respond to the reply which was forwarded by the BBB. The complaint has been closed, as the BBB has assumed the author's lack of response indicates it is resolved from his perspective.

We take great pride in how we stand out in this industry as a leader from an ethical perspective. Our knowledgeable staff offer valuable products and services employing an honest, needs based approach. We are transparent in our communication and operation and we are proud of what our authors have to say about us. We regularly update our author testimonial page to share with you what our client's are saying about us. http://friesenpress.com/about/testimonials/

We also take great pride in providing our valuable staff with an outstanding work environment. Outside the fact that we met all of our contractual obligations to Mr. Helal, we could not allow him to continue his abusive behaviour with a 4th employee, after he abused 3 staff members, both verbally on the phone and by email, to the point that they refused to deal with him any longer. This type of behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

I didn't accept the fraudulent and deceptive explanation from FriesenPress that passed over to me by BBB and on the same day, I replied to BBB and asked them to get RCMP and/or any law enforcement agency involved in this case to investigate further how FriesenPress added so many errors in my manuscript and wanted $1484.00 to clean them up. I took it as a sabotage, a crime.

And abuse! I was taunted for my ACCENT by Ashley Patton over the phone, and it was so hurting that I added a paragraph on accent and it's punishment in my upcoming fiction.

I asked Ashley so many times for the Vice President's phone# to talk and ask the reason for this sabotage and bad treatment and I was not given. I was badly behaved. Is it because I am a Muslim immigrant? I wonder does FriesenPress have any different attitude for the Muslims?

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---- On Mon, 07 Jan 2013 10:01:19 -0800 Mohammed Helal wrote ---- to FriesenPress

Ref: How and why the mistakes (the mistakes that I did not make in my manuscript) were added in the PDF file?

Hi Ashley

We had a long conversation on Friday afternoon January 4th about the mistakes/errors were added deliberately in the PDF file which, now I believe, a deliberate act of like a 'sabotage' by the highly educated professional editor(s) when the management of FriesenPress is chewing its thump. These simple mistakes are so disturbing for me that I couldn't write a single word in last few days. And to get the set standard and professional services as per the agreement that we signed seems to me a far cry at least for now.

Could you please find out the reasons and/or the person who committed an act of 'sabotage' in my fiction by adding all these silly mistakes of around forty and more in my count. I don't like to publish this novel with all these mistakes (Please see them below and more coming).

And FriesenPress's quality of work now has rattled my hope, expectation and dreams. These types and number of mistakes in a book being published by an established press is simply outrageous.

Hi Veronique (The sales rep who sold the package to me) I know you are busy at selling. Could you please help Ashley find out how and why the mistakes (that I did not make in my manuscript) were added in the PDF file of Death of a Taxi Driver? Ashley said that this editing is final, now it is going to the final stage of prinitng. But I don't like to publish the book with around forty to fify silly mistakes which couldn't be fixed by the highly educated professional editors of FriesenPress. as per contract that we signed.

Ashley: I am trying to fix these problems with a broken heart and when done I will upload in FriesenPress on this Friday or Monday and please tell the Editor show some respect and create another PDF file and send me to proof read-and sign off. I like to emphasize that it is not standard copy-editing and with these added mistakes, if FriesenPress publishes the book, FriesenPress will bear all the liabilities.

Regards,
Mohammed Helal

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I sent another email to
Ashley Sent Jan 7, 2013

First I like to know how and why all these mistakes added to the PDF file Death of a Taxi Driver.

This is my only one concern now. Please tell your manager that I wish I could bring a criminal charge against FriesenPress.

Regards,

Mohammed Helal
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But then the manager called me and he appologized over the phone for the bad and inapproiate behaviour by his employees (please listen to the phone call) and changed the author's account officer and the editor. I asked to cancell the agreement but he assured me that he would personally take care of this file and clean up without any cost and then appologised again for creating a mess in my manuscript. This is a committment from an organization. So I decided to stay with FriesenPress.

Please note that: when I was not given any vice president's phone#, I was angry but later I understood I was intimidated, misbehaved and trapped. I kept myself quiet.

Then again they broke the term deliberately in April 2013 and I wrote to FriesenPress for putting 440 words per page with a trim of 5.5x8.5, which made the pages cluttered and irritating for the readers.

"Then tell me why all the full pages have more than 370 words? Around 330/340 words per page are acceptable. You must have the guts to tell me why there are so many words in each full pages? Why I was not informed of it before as per the agreement I signed.
And how many times I went through this type of inappropriate business practice in the past by Friesen Press. All counts here is greed and gluttons, right?

General conscience dictates 100% accuracy is not possible to give every page 325 words, at the same time, gross violation of this estimate by a big margin for all the full pages is not acceptable either, at any counts.

I am fed up with you guys. I understand this is the culture of this organization."
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I copied and pasted seven emails to prove my case to BBB in my reply to the deceptive explanation from FriesenPress for further investigation.

Today, I sent another email to BBB to know what happened to my second email?

Remember FriesenPress is a member of BBB.

I have all the PDF files and emails with the sabotage by FriesenPress. If any law enforcement agencies, law-firms or human rights watch-dogs like to investigate, I will be more than happy to assist them.

Liar's abusive mamma has bigger and louder mouth.

My experience with my account manager Ashley Patton was far different than that of the complainant Mr. Helah, and occurred during the same year as his complaint. I was treated with nothing but professionalism and respect throughout the process of publishing my first novel Fallen Angel Of The Highway, by both Ashley and the staff of FriesenPress. Plus Ashley was quick to correct some missing free promotional services that had inadvertently been keyed improperly into my account by my original account manager. In my content editing done by the FriesenPress editor, there to were "welcomed" changes in my manuscript which included, spelling, proper sentence structuring, omitted words/sentences/paragraphs. Not being a trained editor myself, I placed my trust in the FriesenPress editor (and staff) which afforded me even a better novel than I began with. I truly have been left believing that FriesenPress was there to help in my success as a new author, and that they gave me everything I had paid for, and then some. I will be publishing three more books through FriesenPress in the near future as they are surely worthy of my business and support.

My apologies to Mr. Helal for misspelling his last name as in my haste I hit the H key rather than the L and did not catch my error prior to submitting my comment. The website does not seem to have provisions for me to go back and edit.

I wish to publicly apologize to Mr. Helal for inadvertently misspelling his last name in my previous post.

Gary, congrats. Few things here:

1. Please read all the posts and see why I was treated bad: I mean who you are and who I am.
The same Ashley laughed at my accent and broke 'my heart'.

2. FriesenPress must do some good business for their survival because their parent company Barnes and Noble had 40 million dollar loss last year.

3. "Cool blooded crooks" must be honest periodically to set some good and glittering examples in public. Purpose: more business for survival.

I know how much I was fleeced by this bad, heartless self-publishing company.

Plus you are extremely lucky that they didn't add errors in your manuscript.