Phishing Schemes Target Writers

It is not altogether uncommon for Aimee Suzara to receive an invitation to speak at a writers conference. The successful Filipino American poet and playwright has performed as a spoken word artist across the country, including at Mount Holyoke College, Stanford University, and the University of Miami. So when she received an e-mail in July from someone purporting to be an employee of a major book publisher, asking her to take part in a virtual conference to “encourage people looking to become new writers,” there was little reason for her to suspect it was anything more than a new opportunity. “I do get invitations to perform or present from people I don’t know,” Suzara says, “so it wasn’t completely out of left field.”

Still, there were “yellow flags,” she says. For one thing, the individual did not address her by name; instead the sender addressed Suzara with an impersonal “Hello.” Furthermore the eight-sentence message did not include a link to a website for the event, which was supposedly scheduled to take place six weeks later, and an internet search for the conference yielded no results.

The e-mail she received was, in fact, a scam—one of the many schemes circulating on the internet that are designed to trick recipients into sending money or sharing private information, schemes that in the last year, it seems, have increasingly targeted writers. This past summer dozens of writers reported receiving e-mails claiming to be from major publishers, including “Macmillan Publishing” [sic] and “Soho Press Publishers” [sic], inviting them to be a part of a virtual conference, for which they would be paid for their participation; $1,500 was the frequently promised fee. Some writers reported that they were sent a contract that appeared legitimate, with the logo of the company at the top, along with a request to send a $450 money order for video equipment—funds they were told would be reimbursed. If the writers send the money, of course, they never hear from the scammer again.