Appelley Publishing

Victim Location 22406

Type of a scam Sweepstakes/Lottery/Prizes

I am not sure this is a scam, but like another person who has posted here, I have my doubts. My 6th grader came home from school with an invitation to enter a "poetry contest". She entered, by submitting her poem online. They indicated that they would be announcing winners in the late spring. There are cash prizes promised (maximum $500). In the meantime my minor child has been receiving emails from this company, telling her that she can purchase a BOOK from them, a compendium of the poems received, including hers. Now, several months later, the cost of this book has dropped dramatically. The web site, meanwhile, is nothing BUT this contest, and a few links to a New York Times list of good kid’s book. They are not a publishing company (or if they are, they haven’t done anything else, including not apparently having a 2016 contest). The web site just raises red flags all over the place and I just don’t trust it. But I can’t find any useful information… Note that below the age of intended victims does not go young enough. In this instance a middle school student was targeted. While the parent would be out the money, the scam was directed at the child. If it is a scam.

Victim Location 45840

Type of a scam Sweepstakes/Lottery/Prizes

I’m not entire sure that this is a scam but it sure looks like. This is a contest sent by our school where 6 graders enter their poems and based on a context then the school/teacher/students can receive monetary prices. A letter was received by my child informing her that her poem was selected as one of the finalist but that due to the publication date they select a few chosen ones that are really interesting. Of course the point is that you purchase this book with your child’s published poem. I don’t know if there’s a change that we’ll receive any book after all, but it’s even more likely that the context is fake. This publishing company "Appelley Publishing" doesn’t have a phone number, the address is a PO box, and their website contains nothing other than this context (which by the way the dates are different than the letter sent home as per attached). So this company has never published anything at all. Second, the flyer that came to the schools is listed as "Scholasticpublishing.org" which is where it takes you to Appelley. The real scholastic publishing company doesn’t have this website or I can’t find anything in their website for this ".org" site. There’s no reference whatsoever to this context or Appelley or anything like that. I’ve searched the web and facebook and this company hasn’t published anything at all. This seems to be happening all over the country with different schools. I’m going to contact our school and ask their opinion but this may be something you can look into since it’s all over the place.