Published 1st Oct, 2024

By Tola Owoyele

Daniel Fidelis, a Lagos State-based writer with the pen name Davy Fidel, has accused Rhonda Chieduch, a Canadian book publisher, of holding on to his $441.48, being outstanding payments for the services he rendered as an editor.

In an interview with FIJ on Friday, Fidelis said Chieduch hired him for the role in October 2022.

“My employment with Rhonda Chieduch, the CEO and owner of On The Way Books and More that is situated in Alberta, Canada, started on October 13, 2022,” Fidelis said.

“October (2022) was the month she made the offer to me via Messenger to work with her in editing and proofreading jobs.

The Book Sale Agreement Between Fidelis and Chieduch.

The Invoice Fidelis Sent Chieduch for His $441.48 Payment.

“She also persuaded me to be a part of her team as manuscript editor, just as she planned on continuing in her role as the organisation’s CEO.

“At first, I was reluctant to accept the offer. But after having a second thought, I did.”

Some of Chieduch’s Interactions with Fidelis

Fidelis told FIJ that after he accepted the offer, he spoke to the Canadian publisher.

He said that he would like terms both parties had just agreed to to be documented.

“I remember I told her there should be an official contract signing of this offer and the job I wanted to do for her,” said Fidelis.

“In response, she said signing contracts was not necessary. She also told me that there would be no problem. After we had that conversation, work commenced. She then went on to add my face to the company’s brochure just to make it known to the entire world that I truly worked with her.

“In the course of working for her, my previously published books were also marketed on her organisation’s website.”

Fidelis told FIJ that the mutual understanding reached by both parties led to Chieduch’s decision to market his books on her organisation’s website. This also led to the signing of an agreement between both parties.

“She sent a contract document to my email address and I signed it,” Fidelis said.

“I also sent 25 copies of my book to On The Way Books and More, to her address in Canada. It was the marketing agreement that gave rise to an offer she presented to me.

“The offer stated that I would edit a client’s book that contained more than 95,000 words.

“It was also stated in the contract that I would be paid 500 Canadian dollars for the job, but the payment would be made in instalments.

“When I started the job, she paid a naira equivalent of $219.43 to my naira account. This was after I protested several times, demanding for a part of the payment to be made to me.

“Since then, however, she has refused to transfer the balance payment of $441.48 to me and I have completed the job.

“Now, this payment is excluding the social media managing role I took up for the organisation aside from my job as an editor.

“Ideally, she was supposed to pay me another $400 for the social media role.”

The invoice FIJ saw showed Chieduch should have paid Fidelis 500 Canadian dollars for editing and 400 Canadian dollars for advertising. 900 Canadian dollars was $663.09 at the time.

CHIEDUCH BLOCKS FIDELIS ON ALL PLATFORMS

Chats Showing the Period Chieduch Blocked Fidelis

Fidelis told FIJ that when the Canadian would not honour the agreement they both had at the very beginning, he threatened to leave On The Way Books.

“When she refused to honour the agreement we had, I threatened to leave On The Way Books,” he said.

“Any time I demanded for payments to be made to me, she would come up with different kinds of excuses. She even once told me that she had a credit card issue. This went on till she eventually blocked me on Facebook, accusing me of “bringing down her company”.

“Prior to the period she blocked me, when she noticed I was firm in my demands, she started saying she didn’t owe me money. She also went back on her promise as regards the social media manager role saying she had said she once told me she won’t pay me for taking up the role.

“She made this claim without backing it up with a single evidence. This was clearly a false allegation.

“She even threatened to have me arrested if I continued to demand for my money. That message was sent to me via her husband’s Facebook messenger. That was after she blocked me so I won’t have access to talk to her.

“She did all she did because she doesn’t want to pay me. I also feel that was the reason she blocked me and refused to respond to my emails.”

Fidelis also pointed out that Chieduch has refused to respond to all the emails he sent to her concerning the sale of his books.

“She has also refused to give me an update on the sale of my books,” Fidelis said.

“Apart from her refusal to me what she owes, she has also not given me any update on that.”

CHIEDUCH REACTS TO FIDELIS’ CLAIMS

When FIJ sent an email to Chieduch for a reaction to Fidelis’ claims on Monday, she responded to it two hours later, stating the following:

“Davy practically begged me to hire him as an editor. I told him that he could work on one book so that I could see how well he did.

“After that, Davy started advertising my company on social media. I even told him that was not his job and that he wasn’t supposed to post anything unless passing it by me.

“I never hired him as an advertiser; he just assumed he could do the job and be paid for it. I already had a marketer and Davy used the marketer’s ad and re-posted them.

“Again, this is not the job I hired him for. I have exposing to him that you can’t just decide that you are going to do a job and get paid for it (sic).

“Davy was happy working with me until I told him I could not employ him any longer due to the difficulty of getting payment to him. The only way I could pay him was by a bank transfer and my bank told me if I sent him any money they would not insure my money for the time it took to make the payment (sic).

“I wanted to make sure Davy was paid and agreed to the conditions and sent Davy the amount we had agreed on for his editing work. The bank said they would only do this one thing as it opened the bank to risk of fraud. Even though it out my account and the bank open to fraud I still insisted on sending it to be fair to Davy (sic).”

In the response Chieduch sent, she did not talk about why she blocked Fidelis on all platforms. She did not also deny the fact that she owed him money.

She, however, failed to mention when she would pay what she owed and also make other outstanding book sale payments to Fidelis.

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