Leslie Lomax: Scam Warning

This is the first time this has ever happened to me--but I guess it had to happen eventually. I'm posting this to warn other writers off working with Leslie Lomax, who owns an antiques company called Zelda Antiques. I contracted to work with her in March of this year on articles for a site on organic baby products, sending her a final invoice that month. She has not paid, nor has she responded to emails I have sent her.

My big mistake here was in not getting her address and phone number before starting the project. I've done dozens of one-off small-scale article projects like this without bothering, and it's probably surprising that this is the first time it's happened. So I pass the warning on to you: Don't work with anyone you don't have an address and phone number for.

If I knew where she lived, I could send letters of complaint to the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General's office in her state, at the very least. Now I've sent a letter of complaint to the Writers' Weekly Whispers and Warnings forum, and of course I'm publishing it here.

If you want to help out, post a link to this post on your own site. I'd like the word to get out to as many writers as possible not to work with this person.

I will continue to do Google searches for the articles I wrote for her; so far they have not come up online, but if they do, I'll know where she's located and proceed accordingly. She'll also be using my articles without copyright, since I have a clause in my contract stating copyright remains with me until project is paid for in full.