ATM fraud can strike the best of us. In this case, it’s struck Diane Duane, whose bank account has been suddenly cleaned out by someone who apparently skimmed her ATM card. The bank will compensate her for the fraudulent charges, but it will take a few days, leaving her without money at the moment to pay the bills that are coming due.

As a result, she is running a store-wide 20%-off sale on her already-reasonably-priced DRM-free multi-format e-books to encourage a quick influx of cash on which she can get by until the bank comes through. Use the discount code DDGOTSKIMMED at the checkout to claim the discount.

If you’ve been on the fence about trying Duane’s work, or been meaning to but haven’t gotten around to it yet, this is a good opportunity to score some savings and help out someone in a pinch. (It’s also a great example of yet another advantage of electronic distribution, as Duane is not having to take a hit on materials costs or risk running out of physical stock to offer this sudden emergency discount.)

If you’re new to Duane and don’t know what works you might like, her Young Wizards series is some great accessible-to-all-ages young adult stuff. The Middle Kingdoms stories (aka The Book of the Five) are similar, but with more mature themes and elements. And though I haven’t read it yet, I’ve been told Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses is a great mystery story of a CSI-style investigation in a fantasy setting.

(Found via BoingBoing.)

4 COMMENTS

  1. I’m sure she’s a great author who really was hit with ATM fraud, but her site uses PayPal, which makes you wait a several days for money to clear. I doubt PayPal can pay her faster than her bank can credit her account with the money…Call me a cynic but it sounds like a smart publicity stunt!

  2. This is why most people with an ounce of common sense have two separate bank accounts with two different banks and have ’emergency’ money in one of them.

    That way you can still get your hands on cash if one bank’s ATM network is down as well!

  3. Don’t most pawn shops hold stuff for collateral in exchange for short term loans? Pretty much any bill can skip a payment with nothing worse than the interest charge. Banks will let you skip a mortgage payment at least 1 time a year. (All this unless you are already in frequent default of course).

    The stats I’ve seen are 25% of North Americans are hit by credit fraud each year. We should all be prepared for our bank accounts to be frozen for a week a year.

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