Covid victim from Scottish Borders lost £5,000 in self-publishing scam

Paul Henderson, 60, was “two hours from death” and spent 30 days in an induced coma and on life support after contracting the disease 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, 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, starting in June 2024.

“I’m no Rabbie Burns or Vincent van Gogh, but I started to write page after page as I remembered more and more things,” said the father-of-two.

“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 Torremelinos, 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.”

After looking for publishers online, he handed over nearly £5,000 in five payments between July 2024 and February 2025 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 company asked for yet more money, 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.

“I was really gutted, I didn't know what to do,” said Paul, who lost his mother to Covid a few days after he came out of the coma. “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, enlisted the help of solicitors from National Fraud Helpline solicitors, a trading name of Richardson Hartley Law, 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 said he was delighted to get his money back.

“It was my first time getting a book published, and you don’t know what you pay, but I didn't think it would be £5,000. It’s a lesson learned.”

The book, called They’re Trying to Kill Me, was eventually published in June, this year, by a legitimate UK-based publishing company called Michael Terence Publishing, at a cost of about £750.

For fraud prevention and scam recovery advice contact National Fraud Helpline.