Ahem.

[rolanni]

Dear Barnes and Noble:

I am yesterday in receipt of your threatening letter, sent to an address on which the forwarding order has long expired, commanding me to file a W9 before January 22 or face fines and reprisals from the IRS.

No, I am not faxing my social security number to a machine that, for all I know and suspect, dials into the mail room at B&N corporate.

You acquired Fictionwise in March 2009, and could have contacted me any time during the intervening nine months in order to acquire an updated W9; you had a working email address; a telephone number; and a PayPal account direction.

This "emergency" is not of my making; it is of yours, and I will be pleased to explain that to the IRS.

Sincerely,

Sharon Lee

Comments

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

Wow, this seems to be happening to quite a few authors I follow on LJ. Stupid B&N.

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

I believe everyone who has an account with Fictionwise got the letters.

My first showed up on January 13th, threatening fines and withholding if I didn't get the paperwork back to them by the 15th.

Not impressed.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Not impressed.

I particularly like the salutation: To Whom It May Concern. OK, you can put the wrong address on the envelope, but not on the letter itself? Or, if your clerical skills are that bad, you can't do something a little relevant like "Dear Fictionwise Author"?

Clueless and rude.

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

I e-mailed the guy from B&N about this, and he explained that it wasn't just Fictionwise authors receiving the letter, which is why it was so generic (and uninformative).

He sounded like he had gotten stuck with a crap job on this, so I feel bad for him, but there's no excuse for handling it all so badly.

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

Man, they not only dropped the ball, they lost the entire playbook.