Paul Henderson, 60, was “two hours from death” and spent 30 days in an induced coma and on life support after contracting the virus in March 2020.
Paul Henderson(Image: National Fraud Helpline)
A Scots Covid patient who penned a book about his near death experience with the virus lost nearly £5,000 in a fake publishing scam.
Paul Henderson, 60, was “two hours from death” and spent 30 days in an induced coma and on life support after contracting Covid-19 in March 2020. His organs had begun to shut down and he was given a tracheostomy to aid his breathing after contracting double pneumonia and pleurisy.
When he came round, Paul, who lives in Heriot in the Scottish Borders, had to learn to walk again, and was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder after suffering vivid nightmares and hallucinations while unconscious. Aftercare nurses encouraged him to write poetry or paint pictures about his experience to aid his recovery, but he decided to write a book last year.
The dad-of-two said: “I’m no Rabbie Burns or Vincent van Gogh, but I started to write page after page as I remembered more and more things. I suffered terrible delirium, and the book focuses on the hallucinations that people suffer when they’re in a coma long term.
“I had these horrible dreams that I would not wake up from where lots of people were trying to kill me. There were gangsters chasing me through the streets of Torremolinos, where I’ve never been, and then I was on a conveyor belt going into a crematorium furnace. I can still remember them vividly more than five years on.”
Paul with his book(Image: National Fraud Helpline)
After looking for publishers, he forked out nearly £5,000 in five payments between July and February to a company he found online, who told him they could publish the book and get free advertising on the giant billboards in Times Square.
But when the firm asked for more cash and threatened to publish the book anonymously unless he paid, he realised he’d been scammed. He spoke to other victims who had posted about the company online, and they told him a similar story.
Paul said: “I was really gutted, I didn’t know what to do. I felt like giving up the book, I could not believe I’d been so stupid. I didn’t think I’d ever be scammed so easily. They were so convincing and they seemed to know what they were talking about.
“I was due to celebrate my 30th wedding anniversary this September, and we were to go away on a special second honeymoon to Morocco, but after being scammed we couldn’t go as I had no more money. I felt terrible telling my wife the news.”
Paul, a former lift engineer, contacted solicitors from National Fraud Helpline to recover his money from his bank, Santander, which failed to query any of the payments.
Banks have obligations from regulators to help protect their customers from fraud. The no win, no fee law firm secured a refund of nearly £3,000.
Adam Beach, a lawyer at National Fraud Helpline, said: “We were delighted to help Paul retrieve £3,000. Scammers have no scruples and will take advantage of anyone they can. They will clearly have known the trauma and upset Paul suffered but it didn’t stop them from taking his money.
“With book deals increasingly hard to get there are a number of self-publishing scams about so we would urge anyone to be incredibly careful before sending money.”
Paul’s book, called ‘They’re Trying to Kill Me’, was eventually published in June by a legitimate UK-based publishing company called Michael Terence Publishing, at a cost of about £750.