Argh. There are a ton of scams going around in the literary world right now (and I know because I get at least 10 a week myself) but one of the latest scams is coming from someone pretending to be me. INFURIATING.
Basically, fellow writers are getting an email from me saying that I want to partner with them on marketing their book or picking it for my book club. This is a scammer who is going to ask you for money or for your passwords. I will never ask you for money for anything. In fact, if you get an email that seems even vaguely professional and well-written I promise you it’s someone pretending to be me because I am full of rambling nonsequiters, profanity, typos, and I am afraid of email and of contacting people in general.
The scam is usually someone sending a very long email saying how much they love your work and then after you respond they will ask for money for refreshments for the book club or for “basic administrative stuff” or other things. And if you say yes they will ask for more. Or they will say they want to partner with you to collaborate with you and they’ll use that to get ahold of your socials and then blackmail you for them back or sell them to places that promote p0rn. Or they’ll say they want to do a paid podcast with you on facebook live but first they need to meet with you online to make sure your computer will work and then they will take it over and change your passwords. It sucks and it happens constantly and it gets more sophisticated every day.
These are often made by generative AI (THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE) so millions of these scams are sent out with a touch of a button. That’s why you’re seeing them more and more. One of the easiest ways to see if you’re being scammed is to look carefully at the email the offer is coming from. The one pretending to be me is thebloggesss (with three s’s) @gmail.com. Most professional offers will come from a recognizable domain, so if someone emails you and it doesn’t come from the domain of the person contacting you (like mine should end with @thebloggess.com) then that’s something I’d personally delete immediately.
Other AI things to be aware of? The incredibly prolific pity-advertising video showing an artist (often a marginalized person) crying while another AI person throws their “hand-crafted” product on the ground and laughs at them. The infuriating or inspiring stories on facebook and threads that are really just aggregators made up by AI for engagement and if you look at their profile you see it’s not a real person and says something like, “COLLECTING THE BEST STORIES” or some other bullshit. Entire accounts that are just bots made to attack or to say terrible things intended to affect your political thoughts or exhaust you by fighting with them. I’m sure I’m missing some (and feel free to leave them in the comments) but this is just a little post to tell you that you are not alone if you’ve been scammed and to be careful out there because there are suspicious robots everywhere. Avoid the robots and fuck generative AI, my friend.
It feels important to note that the official “it will come from this domain” is @theboggess in the post, which is exactly the kind of mistake I would make. And probably why no one responds to my real emails.
(Omg, I am the worst. ~ Jenny)
Is it genuinely you @theboggess.com? I mean, you don’t sound like a bog dweller the majority of the time. Unless it’s because you’re bogged down with work? I don’t have any socials other than email, but I also write them with typos!
That mistake authenticated you! Thanks for the post.
I hate being “bogged” down (LOL) by all this AI nonsense. Sorry you have to deal with this kind of b.s., Jenny!
AI can eat my shorts.
The stupidest. Ever.
I hesitate to point out that that first image is almost certainly created by generative AI. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, from my perspective. Every tool can be misused. Adorable cicada does not pose a threat.
(NOOOO. It’s fucking everywhere. ~ Jenny)
AI has ruined so many things in our lives and is filled with scams, hallucinations, misinformation, missed information and lies. I asked Google the same question slightly worded differently and got 3 completely different answers with no overlapping info, none of which really answered my query accurately.
Then today I was trying to do a search on Amazon, and got lots of random unrelated stuff and duplicate listings for my search, which isn’t helpful, as it meant I had to scroll repeatedly through crap I didn’t want multiple times to find stuff I did want, and didn’t find an item that when I searched a different way I found. AI slop is the worse!
And then I got an AI scam phone call on my landline and then and AI scam text on my cell phone.
I hope and pray that our government puts in regulations on AI to protect us from this nonsense sooner rather than later. I’m almost ready to go full analogue and move to the wilderness and have no internet connected technology of any kind in my home or in my life.
If you don’t already own theboggess.com, you must buy it immediately. 😂
Thank you for this post. I get TONS of trash emails every day and spend most of my time “reading my email” by deleting almost all of it. I like your advice on how to deal with these and I’m sorry you have to deal with so much yourself, as a popular and well-known writer. Sh*tbirds all of them!!!!!
I feel it’s relevant to say here that I did really enjoy reading The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister that you recommended a while back. Thank you!
Thanks so much, for this information. It is a brave new scary time in our history with new ways of interacting safely and creatively. John B
fk AI
So very sorry scammers are targeting your reputation and your friends and followers. Thank you for sharing this and being so transparent!!
Hope they fail in their attempts to scam anyone!
Take care!! Thanks for using humor even in your warnings… you are so precious!! I love your works!! You make life more fun just by being you!! ❤️❤️❤️
I immediately sent a link to this post to my friend. She’s an author and we visited Nowhere a few years ago, so I could easily imagine this very thing suckering her and her partner in. Thank you for giving so much good information!
But Jenny! I just sent you $100K for the privilege of having tee and trumpets with you and Purrcy! 😉
AI is ruining everything every day!! Sorry you had to deal with this, Jenny.
As noted scamming is much more sophisticated these days. Used to be poor spelling/grammar would provide a clue that the email wasn’t valid but with AI plus carefully designed/curated backdrops much harder to do these days. My go to is to go the the official website & check if they have anything regarding any possible scam we get. And talking to household members to find out if they ordered something or agreed to something before I delete:)
Ugh, the “it’s me, I need gift cards” email scam is everywhere now. The scary part is how convincing the cloned writing style has gotten. Thanks for the heads up, definitely forwarding this to my mom who always falls for these.
I’m still trippin’ balls over the weird AI that randomly chose one of my posts here as the perfect one to rephrase in strangely florid language and then re-post here, in the same comment thread, like just a few down. I was going through the thread to see what else had been posted, and there was my post, but not. I seriously thought for a minute that I was losing what’s left of my mind.
No matter where it comes from, I liked the Scream With Us bug so much that I set it up as my wallpaper. The Vulcan saw it and was absolutely tickled by it ALL DAY. I think his gummy had just kicked in.
Your Pal,
Storm the Klingon
I haven’t gotten any scam emails from fake you, but I get (and I kid you not) between 20 and 30 a week. It’s awesome. * insert eye roll *
You can’t fall for scam emails if you never check your email!
great
Scammers are not the bane of my existence… the more I think about it, I seem to be the bane of my existence.
This sucks. I get scams daily telling me they love my book. I tell them to go straight to hell.
That sounds like such a stressful situation, but the title definitely makes it clear why checking the sender and email details is so important.