Poetry Scams On The Internet

Poetry scams on the Internet have been rife for over 10 years now and scam type poetry websites have been appearing and disappearing all the time. The most popular type of poetry scam online is when a company stages what they term something like an “International Poetry Competition”. A potential victim sends the company their poems and in return they receive an email full of flattery and complimenting the artist on what a great poet they are and how they have been chosen by an expert panel of judges and that they are now something like a ‘semi finalist’.

Poetry scam artists then ask a payment fee for the poet to have their poems published on a page of their own within the company website. In addition some con artists will even ask for more money for a book that the poets work is featured in along with other winners. Soon after another mail may be received asking for a payment for a cd on which all poems that were good enough have been included. All these emails are false and are scams to con people and excited poets out of their hard earned money.

These poetry schemers rely on the law of averages, it’s a numbers game for them. The more people they get to submit their poetry to, the more chance they have of conning people out of their cash through flattery and outright lies.

If you are a poet and thinking of submitting your work to an online company that makes big promises and claims then be very cautious. If you want to test the waters then you could always write an amateur type poem and submit that first before sending any of your real work and see if you receive any dubious looking emails of flattery. There may be a few genuine websites around that are completely legitimate in wanting to help you publish your poems or get noticed but just be cautious as there are still many of these poetry scams on the Internet floating around.