Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Warning! Another horror story

One of us has had yet another unfortunate experience with getting ripped off by a publisher.

She wrote for a new magazine called Chandler Residence, which hired her to profile a luxury home in Chandler. Publishers' names are Rick Purscell and Tim McIntire.

Here's an excerpt from her e-mail:

"I must admit, I thought it a strange time to be starting a magazine geared to homeowners, but what they hey, the gig paid $500 and was right up my alley."

Well, they never paid her, and it turns out a few of the other people in the loop knew of Rick and said he has screwed writers for a couple of decades now. He used to publish Ahwatukee Monthly and apparently sucked it dry, closed the doors and took off. One person said he owed some writers thousands of dollars, and no one has ever collected from him.

An excerpt:

"He knows exactly how to set everything up so there is no way to touch his personal funds and there are never any funds or assets for the company.... One of his editors hired a private detective because he owed her a big chunk of change and even though she got a court order for him to pay and tracked him down, she never got a dime. "

So let this be a warning to other writers not to work with these slimeballs.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This guy's been around a long time, starting up new magazines, only to leave writers without pay. Before AM, he was publishing the Ritz Carlton magazine, I believe. Years ago. I met a travel writer on a Florida Press Trip who got ripped off by this crew. Slimeballs is a nice way of putting it.

Sorry these guys are still around, and I bet they are...somewhere.

Jackie