Do NOT use Britt Phillips, AffordableCovers.com or the WorldWideAdNetwork.com for ebook covers!
I link to a lot of good sites and services. I always promote good sites and
services that I find and use, especially if they’re small businesses. I
think you have to do that. But at the same time, I think I really have to
help people and alert them to scams when I find them too. I really hate to
have to do that. Everyone that knows me knows that I’m easy to get along
with. Unfortunately I’ve had the displeasure of dealing with someone that
turned out to be not just a crook but such an absolutely nasty person that I
really had to put something up for anyone doing research on him.
I sincerely hope that you find this before you use him and aren’t doing it
after the fact because you’ve had a problem. It’s not that Britt Phillips really cost me
so much. I admit that Britt Phillips is cheap. It’s also not that he can’t do a good
job. He probably can in some cases. But in the end, Britt Phillips turned out to be such
an ass (sorry there’s no other way to describe him in this case) in my case,
that I had to try and warn a few people.
Everything seemed fine at first, but after AffordableCovers.com did some work,
Britt Phillips seemed very
eager to push me out the door. I didn’t say anything and I guess I let him
assume it was done, in that I didn’t say anything either way. That was on a
Friday, and when I came back to him on Monday with two extremely small
changes to the work that he did, he demanded $20 just to make two small
changes. Britt Phillips went on to claim that he had deleted the ebook cover
that he made for me, just two days before, so that’s why he had to charge me
an extra $20 because he had to redo two small adjustments.
I clearly wouldn’t go to all this trouble for $20. I’m not hostile by
nature. I actually tried to let things drop a couple times and save myself
the several hours this has wasted. Despite my clear misgiving about his
extorting more money from me to make two tiny changes, I just sent it. But
being the true arrogant ass that (in my opinion) he demonstrated himself to
be, he then refused to accept the money from paypal because he insisted on
having it in a more totally “guaranteed” form. I’ve worked with a lot of
different professionals in building my business over the years, but I’ve
never run into an individual that seemed to turn so suddenly from an
apparently nice person, into someone so totally different.
Worldwide Ad Network, Inc. sucks!
I thought about and considered several things afterwards, but I think that
although they’re certainly circumstantial, they do help to show a potential
problem. Unfortunately I didn’t see this until it was too late, but
hopefully you aren’t reading this after having similar experience, but can
avoid this type of problem.
Ask yourself, why does any successful business take only paypal and not
credit cards. Paypal was recently in news (3/04) for acting like they had
credit card company style assurances but failing to protect the consumer the
way a credit card does. Credit card accounts aren’t that hard to qualify
today for even the smallest company but they do require some accountability,
which I think could be a problem for him. Also why does he require the full
payment up front before doing any work at all. In my case he demanded an
additional $20 after he told me the original price in order to “unlock” the
images. That probably should have been a warning sign but I was very eager
to get it, even though it wound up costing more than he had said it would.
Why would Britt Phillips need to lie about so many things?
Another thing worth considering, is why does AffordableCovers.com go so far out of his way to keep you from knowing his physical location. Britt Phillips goes out of his way to tell you on his website how he has been so incredibly successful at his business that he lives in a 6,000 square foot home. He even used this as his proof that he was more successful than I was so he wasn’t going to apologize or finish the work he didn’t want to. The truth is that the address he lists is a PO Box. It you look it up on a regular search engine you’ll find a wide variety of businesses there at that address, but if you look it up in a good phone directory you’ll find the following results (several different mail box store names and numbers).
Britt Phillips half million dollar 6,000 square foot home is a mailbox at the UPS Store!
Take a look what a little research uncovered about his address...
(Here’s his actual address in case you’re interested too)
(MasterFiles is a great tool by the way. You have to pay a little for it, but it's well worth it. I learned this from some private investigators that use it all the time.)
I am Christian, but it always worries me when people use their faith to try
and prove that they’re a good person. People should know that you’re a
Christian from your attitude, not from things you put on your website.
The truth is that he is putting up the 700 club logo and Feed the Children
logos to create an image that is very far from the truth. The truth is that
anyone with real money realizes that, having money doesn’t prove you’re
better. It’s only people that don’t have money, that think flashing money
and claiming a incredible success and a humongous home prove that you’re
somehow successful.
Here’s a picture of this good “Christian” from his own website. Would
a real Christian wouldn't be flashing hundred dollar bills to try and prove
that he was successful. I also wonder a little bit about men in their
40s with hair so long that they tie it in the back. (He could be
successful, but to me he looks like he would be more at home riding a motor
cycle than donating money to the 700 club or to feed children.)
I have a lot of long emails from him which show my story, but emails are
easier to make up and I wanted to stick to clear facts that are documentable
and aren't subject to liable. Being nasty doesn't prove that he's a
crook though, any more than some of these other things do. But all these
things are clear warning signs but you know I wouldn’t take the time to write
all of this if out if he wasn’t so absolutely nasty to me. And I think
people that are as nasty as he was to me deserve to be talked about.
This all rose out of his refusal to make just two minutes worth of changes
(the only changes I ever asked for) to the ebook cover he made for me.
Unfortunately this type of person may very likely do or say things in
retaliation to me, for writing this out, but if he does, I'll post that here
as well. I'll put just one link to it for now. If he tries to
retaliate, I will probably just add some more meat to this and put more
links to it and post information and links to it on related ebook and
designer forums too. I certainly hope it doesn't come to that, but I need to
make sure he realizes that this page alone will probably only wind up
reaching a couple customers but there are several more things I can do
if he attempts to retaliate against me for telling people about his
attitude.
I made this whole page and posted some of the story here to give people out
there as much warning as I could. Much of this is just my personal
experience and my opinion. Your experience may vary. None of the things I
uncovered alone are proof of anything wrong. But taken as a whole, they
point clearly to the bottom line that is, you should be very careful and use
Britt Phillips, AffordableCovers.com or the WorldWideAdNetwork.com at your
own risk. Things may not be quite as he would like to make them seem.
I don’t know if this is actually his name or not, but here’s his actual
address:
804-897-2274 Simmon Zelma 11812 Blakeston CT Richmond VA 23236-4163
Worldwide Ad Network, Inc., 13146 Midlothian Turnpike, #106, Midlothian, VA
23113 is clearly just a post office box at the UPS store (formerly Mail
Boxes Etc).
Additional links of interest:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff110079.htm - (cached version here)
http://www.robertslaw.org/no.htm - (cached version here) Does this sound like a good honest citizen??!
http://badbusinessbureau.com/reports/ripoff93756.htm (cached version here) Just more examples of people who've been ripped off by this slime ball...
Britt Phillips retaliation: http://ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff109069.htm Have you ever heard about a company posting complaints about it's paying customers? I guess this is just more proof about his attitude and another reason not to use him. You don't want him posting complaints about you.
12/4/06 UPDATE: Brent and I have settled our differences and moved on. He's actually a nice guy and would probably be fun to hang out with at a party. I think I just bumped into him when he was having other difficulties and we got off on the wrong foot. That happens some times with two strong willed individuals. I still use his ebook cover. I needed some adjustment but I got my money's worth. I wish him luck in all his future endevors.
12/19/06 Several years went by and I don't really care
about this or Britt very much any more. I tried to resolve things with
him. Now Britt is contacting my web hosting company trying to
intimidate them to take down this page. I've already had to block him
from being able to call me any more and I've blocked his email address too.
He's threatening to have lawyers sue me. For the record, in my
personal opinion, Britt is clearly a huge ass hole and scam artist, but I
don't want to waste any more time on this or him. So I'm more than
willing to take this page down if Britt just takes down what he wrote about
me. If he doesn't want to or can't do that, that's his choice not
mine.
And to anyone researching him, this is just my humble opinion, BUT YOU'VE
BEEN WARNED!!!