AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Book Festival is alerting authors and vendors to a fraud scheme in which scammers are posing as festival representatives and charging fees for participation.
The festival said it has become aware of multiple attempts to solicit money from authors and vendors using communications that falsely claim affiliation with the annual event. The Texas Book Festival does not charge featured authors to participate, officials said.
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Fraudulent messages have been sent from email addresses not ending in @texasbookfestival.org, including Gmail accounts. All legitimate festival communications come exclusively from @texasbookfestival.org addresses, and vendor payments are processed only through the secure Stripe platform via invoice.
The festival said it will never request payment through Zelle, Cash App, PayPal, wire transfer, gift cards or similar services.
Vendor applications are accepted only through the festival’s official website, texasbookfestival.org, officials said.
The festival also cautioned that while exhibitors may feature authors at their assigned booth space, it is against festival policy for exhibitors to resell or sublet any portion of their space, including charging authors for placement.
Anyone who receives a suspicious communication is asked not to respond, click any links, or submit payment. Suspected fraud can be reported to bookfest@texasbookfestival.org.