This isn’t a real post. It’s me venting a little and also maybe letting you in on something that might cost you a lot of money if you aren’t aware of it, especially if you are an author.
Scammers have been taking advantage of authors forever. They know that your books are your babies and you desperately want to find the readers who will love them and that can make you emotionally invested in ways that make you vulnerable to people taking advantage of you. Here are a few recent and not so recent scams to be aware of, including one I got close to falling for myself:
THE PAID PODCAST SCAM: This one consists of someone wanting you to be on a well-known podcast (or facebook live, etc) where you’ll be getting $3000 just for participating. This is the first red flag. You don’t get paid for being a one-time guest on a podcast. I’ve been on tons and I’ve never been paid. The scam is that it seems very real and the assistant just wants you to get on a zoom for a “tech check” and then they need to take over your screen for something or have you download something and then they have access to your computer. Or sometimes they need to see your instagram analytics or have access to your facebook so that they can promote the podcast so you can get paid, but really they just go in and change your password and blackmail you for access, or more often use your platform to sell crap. They can also use your video image to create AI videos of you. Bleh.
THE PUBLICITY SCAM: This one looks like a lot of different things but starts with a very complimentary email and an offer to share your book with their enormous bookclub or group of readers. They reel you in and then ask if you’ll send them money for something. A typical one is “We’d love to have you come to (WHATEVER STATE THEY KNOW YOU WON’T TRAVEL TO) but if you can’t make it you can send us $300 for snacks while our giant group discusses your book.” Or maybe they’ll ask for a gift card from you so they can buy some of your books to give out for pre publicity. It’s not real.
Even more upsettingly, this scam is ramping up because scammers are using AI to write these emails and so people are getting tons of them and they’re becoming more sneaky. I literally just got one that went on and on and on about the incredible and complicated themes in my latest book. Except that the book they mentioned was written by a different Jenny entirely. And it was a picture book. About golf. An actual line from the email: “So tell me, Jenny—when you wrote this book, did you know it would feel like this? Like sunlight and nostalgia woven into one gentle lesson about grace and joy?” *sigh*
THE COMMENT SCAM: I get this a lot in my blog comments but I’m starting to see it in my social media comments. The scammer writes a program to use AI to send comments that seem very related to the subject your writing about and then adds a link to whatever they’re trying to get traffic to. They will eventually get slicker but right now they’re often obvious. Yesterday I got one on a post where I was talking about how I was worried that the nervous blinking tic I’ve developed will be too distracting for people when I go back on book tour and I got this comment: “JENNY LAWSON’S CONVULSIVE EYE TREMORS ARE HYPNOTIZING AND BAD CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THIS GAME FOR RELAXATION JENNY.” Awesome.
Slightly related, a lot of romance scammers are on facebook and will leave comments on your posts or on other comments on your posts saying how beautiful you are and asking to be friends. They aren’t real people. Block them.
THE FAKE BOOK SCAM: Some scammers will create books that look similar to yours and then put them on Amazon so that people might accidentally buy theirs. Really though, theirs is “a summary of Jenny Lawson’s book” and is about 5 pages long and completely wrong. People will also use your name to publish their book in the hopes that people will think it’s yours. Grrr.
THE PUBLISHING SCAM: There are a lot of people who look like real agents or publishers and ask the world at large to send them stuff. Is it possible that some of them are real? Totally. Is it also likely that some of them are trying to use you? Sadly, yes. An agent should not ask you for money. Same with a publisher. (Unless you’re self-publishing, in which case there are a lot of well-known and reputable places that people have depended on for years that have good feedback.) Publishers get paid when you get paid. Same thing with agents. Don’t send your manuscript to a publishing company that doesn’t have happy past customers. You have no idea what they’re going to do with it and if they suddenly publish a similar book that is just yours that has been slightly rewritten with AI you’ll have a very hard time proving it. In fact, if you’re submitting something to a publisher or agent just send them the first three chapters and a proposal letter. If they like it enough they’ll ask for the whole thing and then you have proof that they were interested in it in case they do try to steal your idea later.
THE DEAD UNCLE SCAM: This is not a book-related scam but my mom just called to say that she got a letter in the mail that a distant uncle of ours had died with no children and a $10 million dollar life insurance policy with no beneficiaries and all she had to do was retain the lawyer who was sending her the letter. Luckily, she realized this was a scam (who is paying premiums on a life-insurance policy with no benefits?) but I’m mentioning it here because a lot of us have told our grandparents to avoid phone and internet scams (DON’T CLICK ANY LINKS, MEEMAW) but written letters might seem more legit, especially when the dead uncle has a similar name to actual distant relatives and now you can send this to them to warn them.
THE FIGHTING ROBOT SCAM: This is less about getting your money and more about getting online hits. There are a TON of AI robots on social media who are created specifically to fuck with you. They are often created by political groups who want a ton of people all saying the same stupid thing so that it trends and so that people fall for it. Sometimes they even create fake profiles of people on the other side of the aisle and make them say extreme things so that everyone gets mad at them. Sometimes their bots will fight with other bots and that thing will trend and you’ll think, “Wow, I guess people really do hate (whatever they want you to hate)” when really it’s just robot fights. And then we spend time fighting with robots about things that are just a purposeful distraction. Take a deep breath. Talk to real people. Do real things. Focus on making changes that are real. Your time, energy and peace of mind are precious. Protect them.
There are also a lot of people who get paid for interactions and will purposely post inflammatory bullshit just for attention and money. And if you comment telling that person they are an idiot it tells your algorithm that this is something you’re interested it and suddenly all you get are idiots. If I follow you I will see the stuff that you’re replying to and so if I’m following a lot of people who are yelling at hateful idiots I will have a timeline full of hateful idiots, but if you comment on someone who is doing incredible work then I’ll see that and that will be promoted to the timelines of everyone. Grow what you want to see and what you want others to see.
One thing that really opened my eyes recently was my threads trending page was filled with book drama and it gave me this idea that threads is sometimes toxic for writers but then my kid showed me their threads trending page and it was completely different. The major news stories were the same of both our trending pages but they were getting none of the writing stuff I was getting and it made me realize how easily siloed we become and how easy it is to think that something is all anyone is talking about but may not actually be how the rest of the world is seeing things.
Sorry if this has typos. I’m about to go to Nowhere Bookshop with Hailey for the Haunted Adult Book Fair which starts tonight (COME!) and we have to put on our costumes.
Know of any other scams that I missed? Leave them in the comments.
Yikes! This is all so sad and unnecessary.
I’ve received a bunch of emails recently from alleged book marketers who love my book and seem to get the vibe, but can’t answer questions directly or provide a website/testimonial/anything legit. They promise to get me on podcasts, in book clubs, and in viral social media campaigns. This started after advertising on bargainbooksy.com.
I’ve been swamped with the book club and marketing emails for months now. The first couple I took seriously and responded but now I just mark as spam and block them. Although one made me laugh. It was requesting one of my books for an “intellectual’s book club.” Listen, I love that book more than my non-existent children but it is not even remotely intellectual. LOL
Lee and Tod Goldberg are always writing about stuff like this. If you don’t follow them, you should. They are funny guys and you would like them.
I ***soooooo*** wish the Trending and For You pages would go away. Personally, I never look at them, and just look at the people posts whom I deliberately follow. It helps a TON. Bluesky is great for letting you curate your own lists. POOF, a feed of only those you want to see. I kind of gave up on Threads once Bluesky arrived.
Thank you…just, thank you! Scammers suck and it is exhausting weeding through and around them. Sadly, with the help of AI, they are getting harder to spot. This is wonderful advice. Thanks for shining a spotlight on these assholes!
Back in the early 1960s, my mother was one of the relatives of someone who died in Texas and they had to divide his estate among all relatives because he left no will. She got a few thousand dollars just in time to use it for a down payment on a house. So it’s not always a scam.
Just got off the phone with the latest scammer. Mad male with authoritarian voice claiming that I missed the sailing of the cruise ship from Houston. Of course I would have to pay anyway but he’d take care of it with my credit card.
There seems to be a constant stream of scams, more than ever. I can’t refuse to answer unknown numbers since my mom is in a care home and employees often use their own phones. So I’ve started listening to the scammers, taking note of what techniques they use, how quickly they become threatening and any background I hear. One call had women talking in a foreign language in the background.
Assume they are all scammers and have some fun with them.
I have been receiving multiple emails of praise and wise insight into my next cell “Circling Butterfly”. Thankful I got multiple because that made it far clearer that it was a scam than if I’d just gotten one. So painful to get such praise knowing it’s all AI lies…
The bots and scams are so realistic now. It’s bad. I have to really be discerning with things. Big hugs!
This is incredibly helpful but also makes me incredibly sad.
Thank you for sharing, I work at a bank and is so sad how often people fall for scams. Also yes on only commenting on the positive things not worth fighting with strangers on the internet
I just received my first phone call the other day telling me that my immigration paperwork was not complete. I am 58 years old and was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Needless to say they were happy to sit on the phone and confirm all of my personal information which after I laughed at them and told them I was a citizen and hung up on them. I had to call my mother to tell her to make sure she did not answer any such questions on the phone. If she got such a call.
TYPING IN ALL CAPS IS ALWAYS RELAXING JENNY. But seriously, the AI bots in comments drive me crazy. Can you imagine having such a crappy life that you live to stir up trouble on the Internet? It boggles my mind.
I highly highly recommend creating a “spoof” email through duck.com to scan for trackers etc and not give out your real email. It’ll then forward your actual email sans trackers (and tell you how many they removed).
Additionally, a spoof phone number through Google Voice.
I get a ton of book group scam emails, but for some reason, half of them can’t use their LLM prompts correctly and name books (that they love! omg, the passion, the writing, the absolute craft that I’ve mastered!) that I have not written. Sometimes they use one book title in the subject line and another in the message.
I guess my complaint here is that so many scammers are inept and take no pride in their work?
(The other half produce such glowing reviews of my actual work that I’ve started keeping them to use in marketing campaigns.)
For any other authors out there, it’s worth keeping an eye on the Writer Beware blog so you know what new scams are brewing.
Scam.
Facebook post from friend who is sadly downsizing [auntie] who [insert bad outcome]. Send prayers.
Please buy this stuff. DM only. Give me a deposit so I can hold the item for you.
So annoying to say the least
In person scam: if your older parents can afford to have stay-in-place in-home care, there are terrible people who purposely work for these agencies just to cozy up to the elder client, convince them they are more reliable than their children, convince them their children only care about them for the inheritance, and then proceed to take “loan” after “loan” after “loan”. If the elderly client writes the cheques willingly according to the law, there is no way to help them. Living this sadness right now. My mom won’t barely talk to me because she thinks I only want her money. The police have told me this is happening regularly now to senior citizens. Sigh.
I got the “let’s split this huge unclaimed life insurance ” letter TODAY. The paper was cheap with a wide gray vertical line (bad ink cartridge) and the deceased was referred to both as “Mr.” and “her.” Yep, sending them my banking info ASAP…..
My father-in-law fell for a scam to “make his book into a movie”. I forget why he needed to send them money, but he did $1,000 (maybe more) – I’m thinking it was for marketing or setting up the deal. His book was a self-published but on Amazon about the history of American Holidays. He was so excited to have it made into a movie. He even mentioned it in his Christmas newsletter. It was a horrible moment when he told my daughter that someone had approached him about making his book into a movie and she just casually said “oh that’s a scam Grandpa, I hope you didn’t send them any money.” He had. He said that he vetted it and pointed her to their website. It was all Lorem Ipsum infill text past the front page. It was really sad to see his face drop when she checked it out for him. They did do an “interview with him” and my husband sat in on it to make sure that they did not ask for more money.
There should be a special place in hell for these people.
Thank you, Jenny! Are you the real Jenny?
“who is paying premiums on a life-insurance policy with no benefits?” Me, apparently. At one point during a financial check in I discovered that my life insurance and retirement funds had no beneficiary. I designed one and a backup at that time. The guy wasn’t too worried about it*, said it happens a lot.
*I live in a community property state and am married
I worry about my mom falling for scams. She’s fallen for a few, including one that said you are being investigated by the FBI for child porn and all your devices are being monitored so you can’t call/email anyone about it but they can help protect up to $25K of your funds by transferring them into a special account. Her Norton kept blocking the download, so mom borrowed brother’s girlfriend cellphone to call me to ask how to bypass Norton. They hung up once they realized she was going to call someone else. Then mom called 911 to say that she needed to talk to the FBI guys who were watching her house because she couldn’t make the money transfer and she lost the guy on the phone. They transferred her to a counselor as they thought she was paranoid (people watching the house, FBI, money transfers). The girlfriend called me and I had her unplug the computer, went screaming over to her house, scooped up mom and went to the bank. She had to get all new Visa credit cards and banking cards as she “confirmed” her Visa card numbers with them. I took the computer to a reputable place and no spyware or control ware got downloaded. Um… I also thought it was a POS, but GO NORTON!
Not author scam related but I work for a bank and we’re currently at this moment dealing with the fallout of the latest fraud call from scammers spoofing our number and pretending to be us calling about fraudulent charges on their card. The caller ID shows our name and phone number and they have just enough basic info to be convincing. Customers have given out their card numbers, SSNs, and their log in credentials for their online banking. Please please PLEASE don’t give out your personal info to someone who has called you unsolicited! Even if it looks and sounds like your bank. Don’t feel bad for telling them that you’re going to hang up and call back yourself. If it really is your bank, they’re going to be GLAD you took the security of your account and info seriously! And always call your bank at the number on the back of your card or your statement. NOT whatever number they leave in a message.
Wow! Don’t think the world is really much crazier, but our technology sure makes it easier for some people to spread their shit around more. Be careful out there!
There are a couple of people that I follow on Instagram that the scammers love. They create similar profiles (with stolen photos) and follow you and ask you to follow them back so we can have private conversations. SCAM!
Lots and lots of texts, messages, emails about a purchase, a return, a problem with your banking or PayPal or eBay account, etc etc.
Do NOT click on them, no matter how legit they look.
Go to the actual real website and do not click on “sponsored” pages for that business on Google, even if they say they are official, they’re not.
Often the legit website is the second or third Google search listing after the “sponsored” or so called “official site,” that doesn’t say “official” on the search listing.
And look up the actual businesses’ physical address location to make sure you’re contacting the business from the correct phone numbers.
Or get the phone number off your bills or statements from the business.
And always double check the web page info or app for typos or other errors, that’s a warning sign.
With AI, scamming just got much easier to do and much harder to detect the fakes.
Assume almost everything is fake online or on your phone if someone calls or texts or emails you and asks for any personal info or money or crypto.
And if anyone asks you for money, and/or and tells you not to tell anyone, they are scamming you.
Your children or grandchildren are not in prison or the hospital or in the hands of kidnappers and need money, AI can steal their voice and image from their social media pages and make fake videos and recordings and pretend they are the real person. So get off the internet, don’t use any phone numbers that you get from an email or text or message or to your cell phone, and call or text your child or grandchild directly from the phone number you have for them in YOUR contacts, and get the truth directly from them.
And never ever let anyone convince you to buy crypto from anywhere to give them. It’s a scam.
Call the police to report it. Go to your bank to ask them about it.
And don’t let customer service people transfer your call to another location, people have been scammed by legitimate employees working for these companies who do a Google search to find contact info for a third party and get confused about which is the legitimate contact info themselves, or sometimes purposely transfer you to a scammer for a share of the scam. It’s the wild, Wild West out there, and very little regulation to stop it.
I don’t do social media myself, because it’s filled with bots, trolls, algorithms, scammers, targeted data to catch and keep you locked into using their website or app, and rabbit holes to get caught up it, social media is going to be the downfall of society, civilization, and humanity.
That comments thing is becoming more and more intrusive. Social media is full of wolf traps.
My parents were scammed by clicking a link that then took control of their computer and faked like it was Apple, gave them a number to call for tech support who then tried to scam them out of $30k to fix the computer. My parents went to the bank, took out the money to them take to an ATM to deposit before my mom came to her senses. The whole time the people were on the phone just harassing them to get the money but very convincingly having the right answers to all of my parent’s questions. It was very scary
my “favorite” is: copy and paste so Facebook can’t use your words against you and it mentions some fake law
Thank you! I hate scammers and I’ve fallen for the tricksters more than once. It makes me hate myself. Not good.
My friend, author Nicole Flockton, just got an email that offered to have her books read by 2000 people for reviews. And that she didn’t need to pay them, but it was customary to tip them $15-$20 per person, per book. That’s $40k for one book.
Also, Amazon scammed me out of 2 prime memberships I didn’t authorize, and refused to refund me, so I opened a case with my bank, they refunded me the $280 immediately and Amazon lost. Always call your bank and open a case if you have a weird charge.
Thank you for discussing this. There are SO MANY scams now, and like you said, “thanks” to AI, they are starting to sound much more legit. Our lives are lived electronically in so many ways, including ways we have no choice in (automatic payments to phone carriers, etc.), and we’re more and more vulnerable, and it’s really scary but we can’t do much about it. No more Nigerian princes bemoaning a weird situation, with even weirder grammar. What do we do now that everything looks legit? I have no idea. One scam I fell for: I often go to a webpage of an online (clothing store I like, and have bought from before, no problems. Then one day I see an ad for one of the pieces of clothing I’d been admiring, telling me now it’s on sale. The same photo and store name and everything. I click, and absolutely everything looks legit and normal, the same webpage as I’ve used before. I buy the item. It never arrives. I email the store (which is in the US, fortunately). They tell me that item hadn’t even been in stock anymore when I “bought” it, so it must’ve been some sort of online scam. I had “bought” it via my Paypal, so I had to go through a million levels of hassle to get a refund eventually from them. Later I found out that it’s possible for some wily scammers/hackers to put up a temporary webpage that looks virtually identical to a real one. I don’t know how, and I also don’t know how we are supposed to avoid this sort of thing. There are many, many more that, even as an intelligent, careful person, I’ve been tricked with or tried to be tricked with, and it’s exhausting.
Thank you for the reminders. Were there always so many mean and shady people out to just make a buck? The internet is crawling with them. It’s like turning over a rock but these are in your face. Getting harder to know what is real! So go enjoy Real people, in a beautiful and Real place of your own, with your beautiful kiddo. BTW, what did you decide for costumes? Love.
There are cross stitch books out there that are formatted like mine, shaped like mine, imitate my voice and the authors are—actually not authors but just publishing companies. I’ve seen two so far. It’s like zombies or something. Apocalyptic zombie personality snatchers.
It’s truly depressing to think that there are people out there whose only mission in life is to trick people. I can’t even imagine how soulless one needs to be in order to thrive in such a scenario.
Luckily I’ve invented a simple hack to root these out every time, just click here! –> buy,ScammStoppr2025,info\legit\index,html\bank-account-transfer-info,js
First, I do think you’re beautiful and I do want to be your friend, and think we could totally hang out and almost have our sh&t together, but not quite.
Second, my dead uncle has an inheritance of $10 million. But to get it, we have to go to his haunted mansion and stay there overnight. You in?
I’ve noticed a lot of internet bots try to make you angry so you post profanity or angry comments and then they report you trying to get your account blocked. There were a lot of them on Twitter and I suspect some were created by Twitter itself.
We all like to laugh at how badly the scams are written – I mean, yeah, nobody is going to pay for life insurance if they have no heirs! – but it’s important to remember that scams aren’t written badly by accident. It’s on purpose.
Mass emailing everybody is cheap, cheap, cheap. Hooking a sucker is cheap, cheap, cheap. But reeling them in is labor, and labor costs money, so they prefer to weed out everybody with the brains to figure out they’re getting scammed (or, barring that, the family to do it for them).
It’s really gross, far worse than if the scams were well-written and targeted everybody evenly. They’re only going for people who’ll fall for them.
I once got one of the romance scammers on FB. Because I was in a mood, I replied to ask how they knew I was beautiful, since my profile picture is a photo of my husband’s headstone. They actually deleted their comment. 🤣
But there is also the scam that “my daughter thinks she’s a They”—and we should all refer to her as a “they” from now on. Scams come in many forms.
There’s sadly a lot of scams going around now related to your house Deed, for those of us who are homeowners. One offers to get you a copy for $300 or whatever… (You can usually get a copy for free online)
Another one is after you buy a house, there’s publicly available info that scam ers can include in letters about mortgages or taxes etc to make it seem more legit.
Ugh. Thank you for this. I get so many scam texts lately.
I’ve known high profile instagram accounts who have been victims of that account takeover scam. It’s scary. 🙁
I’ll pass along this post to family and friends as a reminder to be alert.
A few years ago my Mum received a telephone call from a man telling her that her computer had a virus, and that he needed access to it to rectify the problem. She listened to him as he explained the problem, making little comments as though she was convinced by him. After a few minutes of this, she interrupted him to say “Well, you know, that’s funny, because I don’t have a computer”. Needless to stay, he didn’t try to convince her further! She still doesn’t have one either.
Lots of phone call from company who want to help me with my taxes or want to help me with the warranty of my car small problem for them I don’t pay taxes. Being old and poor and never had a car and on line a company tried to pass themselves has JC Penny with beautiful boots from Coach being less that 20 dollars ! So I called JC Penny and told them all about it since then I never saw that advert again
Thank you for doing this.
Only way to fight this inform your state government to do something. Enough people complain they will.
Other famous authors are getting the same.
Predatory publishing is affecting the science sector. I was plagiarized.
AI is starting to sound like people. It shouldn’t be used.
I’ll post a few more when I get a chance
My 95 year old mother believes every letter sent to her for donations, is solely intended for her. I continue to remind her she is on a mailing list. Not sure I’ve convinced her.
I’m tired of all the “Feel good” stories on FB – AI generated, I assume — somebody in some unnamed town does something nice and then others start doing something nice and yea! it’s all good. Or a trucker breaks down in a town and one person brings something and then someone else brings food and then someone gets the part or whatever. These stories – no town name; the trucker doesn’t call his kids; the person is pretty alone until they start getting everyone doing good deeds or listening to kids or whatever. My assumption is once enough people share the post it will be edited to be something totally different. Or they are gathering the “likes” to spaham the frends or something. When I point out they are fake I usually get the “who cares?” reaction. I say if they are fiction they need to be labeled as fiction. Seems to be a losing battle.
After reading one I thought, “Oh look, there’s another.” I read that one and thought, “Another?” When I saw one after that I went directly to “WTF??”
I suppose at least I’m cured of any desire to win recognition or fame. Thanks Dr. Lawson!
The scam I’ve noticed lately is on Facebook marketplace, while trying to find a good deal on a couch. They are so convincing, even giving real addresses. The red flag for me though is the “deposit” to hold it. Nope. If I’m that poor I’m searching for a used couch on FB marketplace I’m sure as hell not sending someone a deposit via venmo or cash app.
I write fanfiction and the occasional fiction story or essay piece. The sites I post my work on have been absolutely flooded over the past year with art scammers. They contact you and gush over your work with the obvious help from AI…they use a lot of terms like “worldbuilding” or “cinematic” and they basically C&P the same comment on every single piece they run across. They ask you to commission them to create “artwork” for your story/s because they’re so sure it’ll look even better as a manga or comic or webtoon. The artwork they offer is stolen from other artists and they don’t realize/don’t care that you can’t make a profit on fanfiction due to copyright violations. The sites boot and ban them as soon as they’re caught, but they turn right around and create new accounts.
I used to fire back at them but now I respond back with nonsense. I’ll pretend they’re a spy that’s contacted me and I’ll give them instructions for the rest of their mission. Or I’ll tell ’em since they PM’d me, that means we’re now besties, and I’ll give them a whole list of favors I need done. I figure if they waste my time making me read their commission requests, I’ll waste their time by making them read my nonsense. I know they HAVE to read it because they don’t want to miss the possibility that I might’ve agreed to have them create art for me.
I live in a senior community and ALL the local banks and credit unions are aware of those who prey on the elderly. And they do all they can to stop the scammers. I was thrilled and delighted when they questioned me about wiring money to family abroad. An even-older friend said to her grandson, calling from jail at 3:00am: “Of course, sweetheart, I’ll do everything I can…but when did you learn English?!” [he hung up]
My mom almost fell for a scam when looking for a kitten online. I was going to pay the shipping but they told me I needed to pay the whole thing. I made sure to tell my mom so she didn’t pay. Then they wanted money via Zelle but it was not set up they said oh I didn’t realize send it to this phone number (it was different from what they were texting me) I did it also was not set up. I canceled both transactions and then looked at the website closet. All the testimonials had em dashes — a big red flag as most people don’t use them or know how to and will use a – instead but ChatGPT LOVES them. Then I did a reverse Google image and found the SAME EXACT KITTEN on a Reddit image of someone asking if it was a scam it felt too good to be true. But that post was from 5 months earlier I told my mom all the things I found. She texted the guy asking if he was scamming her he said no. I told her to block him. He was also using ai to generate other images of the cat and ai videos to sent to my mom to “prove “ he was not a scammer.
Thanks for this, Jenny. I knew the emails that I was getting were up to something, and I deleted–but it’s helpful to know what they are after. Thanks for the intel!
I’m a journalist. “Annette” reached out with a too-good-to-be-true writing opportunity. Someone wrote about it here (exactly how it happened to me):
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/copywriting-con-how-i-almost-fell-tricky-freelancer-scam-susan-greene-wafue/
I always thought of myself as savvy to these kinds of scams until recently when I almost fell for one. I am on an athletic booster board for my kids’ school, and I got an email that looked like it came from our president. It asked me to send money to a vendor via Venmo. It mentioned another board member by name. That’s what got me.
The transaction ($455) via Venmo failed, and so they sent me a Paypal account to send it to, which also failed and was flagged as a possible scam. That’s when I looked at the email more closely and noticed though the email name was the president’s name, the actual gmail address was a random string of characters. AND the email started with “Hope you are well,” which is not at all how the booster president talks.
I was so embarrassed that I almost sent them the money. But what to go, Venmo and Paypal, for flagging it. It turns out, the scammers got the board member names off the contact page on our booster club website, which I have now locked down to only signed-in users. Wow. They were good.
Thank you for this post!
The scam on Facebook with a fake lost dog or person, usually in a specific community’s lost and found or community page. People share it left and right and then the OP changes it to whatever scammy bullshit they have and now it looks like you approve of said scammy bullshit cause you shared it. If there is no way to comment on the original post, it’s almost guaranteed to be a scam. Oof. This one pisses me off so much cause it takes seconds to find out if it’s actually a legit lost child, etc.