PubbyReviews of pubby.co

I've been using Pubby since August and up until mid November, all seemed to be fine and I have managed to get a fair number of reviews. However for the last few weeks it seems that my account is 'frozen', I can't 'up' my books for reviews, despite having accumulated a lot of snaps. I have been emailing/ using the chat function nearly every other day and have not heard back. At all. Very disappointed with the customer service (or lack of it), as this is a paid service and I even paid extra to have verified purchase reviews. Sadly, I wouldn't recommend this site.

I do not want automated replies can you get a human to reply the below as I am paying for my service. Seems like no one attends to Trust pilot reviews either! I am frustrated with the $4.99 limit for verified purchase reviews. It’s completely unrealistic for fiction ebooks, which is typically priced higher to cover costs and make any profit. As an author paying $20 a month to Pubby, I find it unacceptable that I can only get unverified purchase reviews. I at present can give out free PDFs for unverified purchase reviews. Or eBooks must be priced below this threshold. My fiction book cannot be sold for $4.99 or less without incurring losses, and this defeats the purpose of paying for a Pubby service that cannot accommodate standard pricing models. Pubby should allow verified reviews for books priced higher than $4.99 say it at the joining page for transparency, or at the very least, provide more flexibility in their rules to ensure authors get real value for their $20 per month investment. Unverified reviews alone are simply not worth the cost of $20 I pay you. Please reconsider this policy to support authors like me who are working hard to sell quality fiction at a sustainable price point. Can you open up the price range to accommodate both my books? I am keen to get a custom reply as soon as possible, as the automated replies have been quite unhelpful the past two days.

If I could put 0 stars, I would. This is a scam! I paid for a verified review and I got nothing more than an unverified 5-star note without any comment / written piece. This is a massive Scam. I wish I checked their low reviews before I purchased anything. This is not fair that she can continue this way, scamming people. She is not responding to my emails anymore since I asked her to explain why I did not receive a verified written review, which is what I paid for. I feel for people who lost much more money than me. DON'T USE PUBBY.

This is the absolute worst review service. I used it extensively for a long time and after a year or so I began losing many of the reviews I had received from it, which cost me money and a lot of time. I requested they refund me what it cost me to purchase the books I had to review for the ones I lost and the owner Kristen Forbes refused to respond. I asked her for the contact information of their Lawyer and she wouldn't even provide that and she Banned my account now. She seems extremely inexperienced in running a company, from the many times dealing with her. I had contacted my Bank to get a chargeback but they can only go back so far for a refund. And I completely agree with the extremely negative reviews of Pubby on here and other sites regarding similar problems and how horrible their customer service is. I am really surprised that she has Bruce working for her, and that she promoted him to Customer Service Manager, as he doesn’t know how to handle customers and shouldn’t be working for any company. There isn’t any point in using this service as many of the reviews you get will eventually be removed. And there is enough competition that people can find much better alternatives to use instead now then.

They claimed that for a small monthly fee, they would be able to provide your book to interested readers for free, which would generate genuine reviews. I understood that I was paying people to read my book, but in the early goings, this seemed worth it. BUT--after I subscribed, they revealed that I'M THE ONE who has to provide reviews in order to GET reviews. So, I'M PAYING THEM TO DO WORK. I'm supposed to review books. When I canceled, they took a YEAR'S worth of my money and fought tooth and nail with my bank. THEY THEN CANCELLED MY SUBSCRIPTION AND KEPT THE MONEY. I PAID $240 for absolutely NOTHING. So, instead of getting any reviews--I lost $240 of hard-earned book revenue. My bank never refunded the money due to some policy on Pubby's end. STEER CLEAR.

I asked repeatedly for guidance on how to write reviews for others and getting reviews for myself. The answers were long in coming and were confusing. Eventually I gave up waiting (and paying). The best way forward for authors is 'social media cooperation' for giving and getting reviews. Pubby's model does NOT work.

They blocked my account out of nowhere claiming I have created duplicate accounts. Never did. Of course they kept my money which was payed in advance for a year. They NEVER reply to emails or other forms of communication. Avoid unless you want to be scammed.

A few days ago I was considering paying for the premium program, just before finalizing it warned that there would be no refund, so I never went ahead with it. A few days later I discovered I was $339.79 Canadian on my credit card. I tried to contact support but received no response. I read the reviews up here, they seem to be a family business and not a large corporation so I'm willing to erase this review once this issue is resolved. I don't mean them ill, and wish they succeed, but I honestly never went through with the subscription so I shouldn't be charged.