Beware the new scammers

I’m going a bit off piste here with an issue that has become of increasing concern

I’m going a bit off piste here with an issue that has become of increasing concern and I feel warrants a warning to my fellow authors and other creatives.

The Nigerian princes who could not access millions of inherited dollars without your help – and a few thousand dollars of your money - seem to have disappeared. I suspect that many are now still living off their ill-gotten gains but clearly the scam was so widespread that even the most naïve internet user became wise to it.

Now though, attempts to purloin my money seem to be more subtle and I have been approached by half a dozen fraudsters over the past few months with compelling stories related to my books.

Indeed, interestingly, I nearly fell for one until an excellent intervention of my bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, who warned me that the bank to which I was sending the money was frequently involved in scams.

The first of these approaches was the biggest in terms of the amount of money but possibly the least convincing, and I only went along with them to see where it would end. It started with an email from ‘Vince Perez’ claiming to work for a production company in New York called Woodside. This is a real company but which does not employ our friend Vince. He approached me saying that he felt my book, On the Wrong Line which is on rail privatisation could be turned into a drama that would attract a Hollywood producer. I rather enjoyed the ridiculous nature of the plan – could they not have chosen a more likely book of mine?

When I told ‘Vince’ that this was the least likely book of mine to interest a movie company, he was not put off. Instead he phoned me several times, and eventually came up with the killer offer. For $15,000, Woodside would make a trailer and promotional pitch about the book and hawk it round Hollywood. When I wrote back with a laughter emoji, Vince disappeared back into the shadows.

A few weeks later, I was then told my book Fire and Steam had been selected as one of the books to be part of a world wide promotion scheme, ‘’the world in 80 books’. Again, this is a phishing expedition hiding behind a legitimate name. There are various book schemes involving 80 books but the one suggesting my book was being considered was a scam. They were asking for $350 to promote the book and there is an online warning to the effect that it is a bogus operation. Indeed no legitimate organisation would approach authors in this way without offering proof of their legitimacy.

There have been several others offering to promote my book on various obscure TV or radio shows which again ask for money for production fees. Of course, I normally get paid for appearing on TV and radio, not the other way around, though when I am promoting a book I obviously do not receive a fee. But no self-respecting programme ever asks the contributor to pay.

Then after rejecting numerous similar offers, I was approached by ‘John Rooney’ of the History of Ideas Group, Cork. Again, this seems to be a legitimate organisation whose name is being employed by fraudsters. This time it was The Liberation Line they wanted to feature, and they sent me a lengthy and clearly AI generated summary of why it was a great book. I would feature in a Zoom call and members of their 1,100 strong group would discuss the book. He sent me a list of questions which were vaguely apt and then kept on badgering me for my ‘voluntary’ contribution. Again, the group seems to be genuine but Mr Rooney may have an appropriately Irish name but I suspect he is no more real than those Nigerian princes. But I thought for the sake of $90 I would give it a go to see if they produced anything worthwhile. But rather oddly, the account was in someone’s personal name and was with a mysterious bank I had never heard of.

But the excellent Royal Bank of Scotland fraud team had, and took the trouble to first block the payment and then get me to ring them so they could explain their concerns. They told me that the bank had been associated with numerous scams and ask for details of how I had been contacted. I agreed to block the payment but even then ‘Rooney’ did not give up. He was not aware of any difficulties with the bank until I had alerted him and it would probably be much easier now if I could click on the pay invoice tab in my account. Dream on Rooney – he must have spent at least half a day dreaming up all the long emails, even if he did use AI, all for $90 though probably he would have tried to get more from my account.

Anyway, as they used to say on Hill Street Blues which older readers will remember, ‘be careful out there’.

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