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(C) 1995 by Richard S. Brown
All rights reserved.
Torchlight Exposed!!!
By Richard Shaw Brown
THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!
Warning to all devotee authors; our company has recently been swindled by the above named Iskcon related business; Srila Prabhupada always said to call a thief a thief, so here is what happened in a nutshell...
In 1995 we published a costly book on Vedic Gemology (dedicated to Srila Prabhupada) named "Ancient Astrological Gemstone & Talismans." Besides writing the book my company also published the book, including all costs of photography, design, paper, printing, etc.
During Kartik of 1995 we were in Vraja dham with Mukunda Goswami who introduced us to Advaita Chandra (aka Alister Taylor) of Torchlight Publishers Co. in L.A., California. Maharaj was pushing for me to let Advaita Chandra distribute the book, and he guaranteed Advaita Chandra's honesty and integrity.
Advaita Chandra agreed to distribute the book and asked us to ship to him 2,700 copies at our own expense. So all the costs and expenses of the books we sent to Torchlight were paid by our company; Torchlight made no expense. Torchlight was to distribute the book, and after paying us back our COSTS, then we were to split the profits, 50/50*.
Well after 5 years of being avoided, we were cheated outright: Advaita Chandra did not return the books, he never paid any profits or royalties, and he still owes us $10,000 of our own costs. In fact he has never given any excuse. We finally hired an international collection agency to try and collect this debt, but Taylor managed to avoid this by declaring "personal bankruptcy", and then re-opened his company as a Ltd Corporation in order to avoid paying us back and to continue his business. He still sells our book, even now. But we are not allowed to contact him now that he has hidden behind personal bankruptcy.
If any devotees are doing business with or are thinking of doing any business with Advaita Chandra of Torchlight, please be warned, WE WERE CHEATED, and so may you.
THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!
Thank you.
Richard S. Brown
*PS Documentation in hand.
