By Ruth Thaler-Carter
Category: Marketing/Business/Social Media craft
I’ve been getting a lot of spam lately, and the latest batch is relevant to the CWA: three identical messages supposedly from our recent president, saying “… The Board is requesting your help to cover an immediate administrative charge due today, as our primary accounts are experiencing temporary processing delays.” It was a scam. There were no “temporary processing delays” or any other such issue, and even if there were, no CWA officer or Council member will ask members to pay for association matters. (Nor will other associations that you might belong to.)
Also related to our membership are offers to purchase membership lists from the CWA (and various other associations). Again, just delete. The CWA doesn’t sell our membership information (and neither do any of the other associations I belong to). Membership directories can sometimes be scanned for sending junk like this, which is probably why we sometimes get these phony offers.
Most often, recent spam messages are about books I didn’t write and/or with a different person’s name in the body of the message — the author of the book being targeted. Usually lots of flattery about how great, inspiring, beautifully written and deeply meaningful “my” book is and how deserving of greater visibility, sometimes offering to make it part of a book club or a social media platform, sometimes pitching publicity services. As colleagues have said, wouldn’t it be nice if these effusions were genuine and could be used as reviews of our books (the ones we’ve actually written, that is)?
A CWA colleague said recently that she was contacted by an organization that promised to get her book into library book discussion groups. Same junk, different angle.
My favorite so far is one that started with “Can I be honest with you?” I really, really wanted to respond with “Can I be honest with *you*? You’re an idiot.” It took all my effort not to do so. It wouldn’t have made any difference; it would just have confirmed the my eddress was legit and opened the door (or mailbox) to more junk of the same.
My guess is that if you followed up and paid one of these scum to do whatever they offer, they would disappear with your money. A recent New York Times article confirmed that suspicion.
Equally laughable are messages gushing enthusiastically about my wonderful writing voice and asking to start a conversation about my writing process and inspirations. I’m not sure what that scam is, but there must be something. I’m guessing such a conversation would turn into a pitch for some kind of service that, if paid for, would never happen.
I’m assuming that many, if not all, of these messages aren’t even from real people but from bots or AI programs of some sort. Interestingly, most of them are well-written, especially compared to the usual run of spam. The language is almost identical from one message to another, so either they’re generated by computer or someone is selling the language and the eddresses to send it to.
With all of these messages, there’s no point in responding with “No,” “Do not contact again,” etc., especially if they are from bots. Responding to this junk only confirms having a “live” eddress and opens the door to further intrusions. Most of them don’t have Unsubscribe options, but if they do, those links are probably risky as well. I mark them as Junk and clear my Junk mailbox daily.
If you receive anything that seems iffy, please free to contact me or post to our groups.io group to confirm your instincts. Scopes.com is a great resource for checking the validity of what looks like rumor or disinformation.
I was pleased to see that the Social Security Administration (SSA) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are looking after consumer interests and providing resources to identify and protect against scams: On March 5, the SSA and its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) will lead National Slam the Scam Day.
Common scam tactics include saying there’s an unexpected problem with your account; offering a prize or government benefit increase; pressure to act immediately; requesting payments by cryptocurrency, gift cards, gold bars, cash, or wire transfers.
Report suspicious activity related to Social Security, go to oig.ssa.gov/report and other concerns to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (reportfraud.ftc.gov). Visit ssa.gov/scam for more information that could help you stay safe.
Being informed and cautious about potential scams and spam is important to protecting our identities, reputations, and cat-writing businesses, along with our associations. If something seems iffy, it probably is. Sadly, we have to keep our radar up and ever-vigilant against these intrusions.
Key Takeaways to Protect Yourself Against Spam and Scams:
- Be skeptical of urgent financial requests sent via email or messaging platforms.
- Verify unusual requests directly through official channels before taking action.
- Never assume legitimacy based on recognizable names or titles alone.
- Avoid engaging with unsolicited offers, particularly those involving data or contacts.
About the Author:
Ruth E. Thaler-Carter (www.writerruth.com) is a longtime freelance writer/editor who shares her home with Skitter, “the world’s best cat.” She is chair of the CWA Blog and has been a CWA conference speaker, secretary, and blog poster.
Writer Beware is another good resource to search for these scams. I recent one they posted on FB is one where the writer asks you to scan a QR code and set up your own QR code (which cost money, of course). They had very specific information from this author so it was scary.
My suggestion? Don’t scan QR codes, they can lead to viruses, mining viruses and ransomware. The same goes for links in emails. Even for this one, I went to the home page and then to the blog rather that clicking on the link. I’m paranoid about these things. If you don’t want to go that far, at least just copy and paste the link, but never click on a “tiny” link (I think others are called “bit” links) which purport to shorten the web address so they don’t have to type out the whole thing. But who types them out these days? Can’t they just copy/paste?
Be careful out there.
Very helpful article. Thank you, Ruth! – Mewla Young
I get something along these lines daily. Some of them still tempt me with wily words but I would rather err on the side of caution than get scammed. Thanks for the reminder.
Here’s an example of the phony association payment request scam. If you receive this or anything similar, do not respond; just delete.
Supposedly to:
< Robbi Hess >
Not an official CWA address, and Robbi is not president.
Subject: Cat Writers’ Association, Inc.
Text:
< Good Morning Ruth,
The CWA will never ask members to pay for association expenses. Ever. By any means.
Robbi is not president, and even if she were, that isn’t how she signs messages.
Stay safe, everyone!
This information is ESSENTIAL! People do not like to feel they are being rude but this is all AI bots, not real people.
As Social Media person for the CWA I sometimes receive these emails saying ‘we need you to confirm XX so we can get payment from XX’ usually sent with the President’s name! I was startled but smelled a rat and deleted!