Post #2213359

2026-03-13 00:33 UTC

Buckle your seat belts. Someone just tried to pull one hell of a scam on me. It began with an email I received on March 2nd. The email was from RB (name withheld), an editor at Pan MacMillan in the UK. She began by referencing a specific and somewhat obscure story thread from my one year run on writing Birds of Prey for DC Comics. She went on to sing my praises, talk about interest in the Jem memoir, and mentioned many other highly specific works and aspects of my career. She talked about how my work might align with Pan MacMillan’s graphic novel and non-fiction catalogues. The final kicker was when she ended the email with a friendly quip about the number of my cats, something I’d just written about on my MoggyBlog FB page. I was fairly stunned, not by the praise, but the extreme detail and specificity of the approach. I’ve seen plenty of samples of scams sent to authors that are always a bit vague and might mention one book title at most. This went way beyond that. Which is why I failed to do the absolute number one smart thing I would normally have done – I didn’t look closely at her email address. I saw that it said macmillan and left it at that. I did look her up on the Pan MacMillan website and saw that she was a real person. We exchanged a couple of emails and she strongly wanted me to have a literary agent. I’ve never needed one in the past and have always operated with only my entertainment agent. She was quite insistent that I needed one and recommended an agent named CD (name withheld) as someone she had worked with closely and had the right sensibility for my background. She gave me a personal email address for him, to “ensure he prioritizes your message”. I checked out this agent and saw, once again, that he existed and was with a reputable UK agency. I found that the agency had a couple of co-agent associations with agencies in the US, including one I knew, the Howard Morhaim Agency. He looked legit. So I did the thing -- wrote him an introductory email, and we’ve been exchanging a daily email every day for the past week, including on weekends. He was all about my “legacy”. We discussed specific projects, and he relentlessly pushed me to get something called a Dynamic QR code to create a Digital Author’s Bridge. I had never heard of such a thing, was only familiar with regular old static QR codes. We went back and forth on it a lot until I finally understood what he was talking about. It sounded like a good idea, but when I researched them, I found they were rather pricey to obtain and maintain. I wanted more info on what his agency contract would include, what his commissions were, how he handled ancillary rights, the usual business items I would naturally want to know. He kept on about the QR code. His relentless push on the QR code is when I began to suspect something was off about this whole situation. I pushed back harder and he finally gave a minimal amount of info on commissions, and kept pushing about the QR code. He insisted that we had to put that in place BEFORE signing a contract, or as he called it, a Letter of Engagement. By now, the many little red flags grew into a Big Red Flag. Had I paid more attention to the fake email address in the very first message, that would have been a Big Red Flag right there, but I missed it. Mucho stupid on my part. The red flags piled up: • RED FLAG: insistence on doing this QR code before signing a contract. • RED FLAG: not providing standard agent information about a contract or even wanting to discuss it. • RED FLAG: the fact that the layout, structure, and phrasing of his emails were extremely similar to the RB emails, right down to the constant use of 3-bullet points as selling points. • RED FLAG: a total lack of feedback to a creative project I proposed and instead simply accepting it without comment. No agent worth his salt is going to accept a quarter-page pitch without having feedback, opinions, wanting to know more, etc. • RED FLAG: the constant push-push-push to get this blasted QR code before anything else. • RED FLAG: ending nearly every email with the promise of a “global roll-out”. Of what? I had yet to write any of the things we were discussing. When I began looking over the exchanges from the beginning, it seemed unlikely to me that “RB” would have done such a deep, deep dive into my work and background to include the specifics she did, not to mention reading my MoggyBlog. I mean, sure, it’s flattering, and it massages my ego, but I’m realistic. Which left the notion that all or much of this was created using an LLM. If so, it’s the most nuanced one I’ve seen. It would have had to scour the internet for references to my work, such as articles, reviews, interviews, my amazon author page, and so on, then compiled it into a convincing email without including hallucinations or false references. If so, it represents a huge advance in the ability to scam authors and is therefore a significant threat. If not, if it done by a person(s), they sure put one hell of a lot of effort into it. During this process, I consulted with Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware. She gave me the official email for CD. I sent him an email in which I forwarded one of the last messages from “him” with a query. I received an automated reply that he was at London Book Fair and out of touch for email. The reply included the name of a colleague, so I sent the same email to her. She confirmed that the messages did not come from CD and appreciated that I brought it to their attention. I’m trying to get a valid contact for RB, so I can warn her as well. Meanwhile, fake CD’s next message went on about how his QR code set-up was so much better than other sites because it was free and permanent. RED FLAG. And it would integrate straight into my Amazon store to my author’s page. RED FLAG. And for the umpteenth time, he ended with a variation of “Once we have this simple link live, we can sign the formal agreement and get the global rollout moving immediately.” RED FLAG. I played this out a bit longer, very carefully, because I couldn’t figure out what the ultimate scam was here. However, the mention of amazon store integration made me wonder whether I even had an amazon store. I have a page that lists all my books. I don’t know whether that’s actually a store. I certainly don’t make any money off it, but I guess it’s meant to be my “store”. Looking at my author’s bio on the amazon store, I suddenly realized that the reference to the number of cats was actually pulled from there, NOT from my MoggyBlog. By a bizarre coincidence, at the time I wrote that bio I mentioned a sixth cat possibly joining the horde. And very recently, I wrote almost exactly the same thing in the present. Different cats, different places, but so alike that it’s no wonder I assumed RB was speaking of my present situation, not the past. I wrote that bio in 2018 shortly before the fire. After the fire and losing everything, being homeless and whatnot, I completely forgot this page and bio even existed. I haven’t looked at it since then. I see where much of what was referenced came from there, including an off-hand comment about a ridge from RB that had puzzled me. In the bio I mentioned we lived on a volcanic ridge. That clinched that the material in RB’s emails was drawn from this seven-year-old bio on amazon, treating it as current. The last email from the hoaxer is again about tying a QR code to my amazon store. All this effort is to gain control of my amazon store? To do what, create a horde of fake AI books with my name on them? To steal digital assets from me? Those are the best guesses I can make. I sent an email today that will show the hoaxer I’m aware of the scam. We’ll see whether they bother to respond. I’m posting this in detail to alert other authors and to lay out how the scam has proceeded. I would love to hear from anyone that has had a similar scam run on them. Take care out there. Please spread this far and wide. #MarxToot #writers #writersofmastodon #scam #writing

Replies (25)

@AskPippa@c.im 2026-03-13 01:24

@christymarx@beige.party May I copy this and share with some author friends?

Open ##2263515
@DrSuzanne@ohai.social 2026-03-13 01:27

@christymarx@beige.party that is wild! I get scams for academic writing and such but they’re all super generic from mailing lists. I wouldn’t be so hard on yourself though. These people are professionals and quite good at what they do. I did enjoy the part where the cats came into the picture. Every good scam needs a cat. Or six.

Open ##2263519
@lor@goingdark.social 2026-03-13 02:41

@christymarx@beige.party a perfect example of social engineering, glad you busted them!

Open ##2263520
@J3317@allovertheplace.ca 2026-03-13 03:17

@mcourcel@allovertheplace.ca @christymarx@beige.party oh geezis

Open ##2263521
@f@a.farook.org 2026-03-13 04:45

@christymarx@beige.party It's interesting the kinds of scams that seem to be proliferating in the LLM age. I have had at least three scammers pretend to be successful authors and chat me up on TikTok. Each time, I went to the author website and checked to see if they mentioned a TikTok account. If they did, it was easy enough to figure out this person was a scammer. If they didn't mention a TikTok account, I contacted them via their website. One responded back almost immediately and confirmed that the they are not on TikTok. I responded back to the scammer saying "X" (the person they were pretending to be) says "Hi" and they doubled down trying to convince me they were real 😛 The other person did not respond but their website also had so many issues — non-existend Facebook page, non-working contact form etc. and now I'm not even sure if their page is legit. But I do know that the person on TikTok is a scammer since they followed the same script that the others did ... It's a wild, dangerous world out there and has gotten even wilder with LLMs where people think that they can impersonate anyone with a sample of their writing. All we can do is let everybody know about these as much as we can, I guess.

Open ##2263522
@Fragglemuppet@fandom.ink 2026-03-13 05:51

@danielaKay@mastodon.cloud @christymarx@beige.party I should've put that in the original post. It was in a reply. Sorry.

Open ##2263523
@fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk 2026-03-13 07:29

@christymarx@beige.party that's horrific. it seems as if a Large Language Model makes this sort of highly detailed, targetted attack ("spearphishing") easier. We could all be at risk, in that case.

Open ##2263524
@JigmeDatse@social.openpsychology.net 2026-03-13 07:30

@christymarx@beige.party Man... I'm impressed. I've never had a vaguely "doing some work here" scam. I mean, maybe the odd, "did a quick scan of a website, to get an email address..." Of late, that info, is for a dead website. Like very long time dead website. Not certain that it actually is vaguely looking at some source, or if it's pulling info from some place that had no reference to the website. Or maybe a link to it.

Open ##2263525
@realn2s@infosec.exchange 2026-03-13 07:47

@christymarx@beige.party Thank you for sharing. And good that you detected the scan ✊🏻 For me working in security it's very helpful to read reports like this to understand the common patterns. I'm always happy if the attempt gets foiled even if that means the final goal of the scan stays somewhat unclear.

Open ##2263526
@WeirdWriter@caneandable.social 2026-03-13 08:55

@christymarx@beige.party This is actually very common now, which is why I wanna recommend that for any public bio that appears in multiple places, I actually would recommend keeping it as vague as possible while leaving the details for things such as your website or in interviews. This of course won’t stop the LLM but the more sources they have to find, the more tedius scamming you becomes. Waste their time and money. Every scrape costs tokens, which costs money or power or tech resources. Even if they use a local large language model, those still cost money and resources to host

Open ##2263527
@pq1r@tech.lgbt 2026-03-13 12:28

@christymarx@beige.party If it's all LLM, maybe send them some messages that will burn through their tokens. Like attaching public domain books.

Open ##2263534
@Ehay2k@mastodon.social 2026-03-13 20:49

@christymarx@beige.party Thanks for sharing. Glad you did pick up on the red flags! Sadly you will not be the last person to be targeted with this level of attack. Adding @briankrebs@infosec.exchange in case he hasn't seen this.

Open ##2263539
@simon_m@infosec.exchange 2026-03-13 21:18

@christymarx@beige.party They probably want to inject their own affiliate link using the qr code and a redirect to earn money through amazons affiliate Program. Is there a way for you to obtain such a code to check?

Open ##2263540
@asg@writing.exchange 2026-03-13 21:51

@christymarx@beige.party Wow! That's a twisted one. About the endgoal... Scams are often all about money, and you said that Digital Author’s Bridge thingy was pricey. So my guess is that finalizing the process would put the money in their pockets. Other, more nasty possibilities: - asking for personal information during signup, and using it to steal your identity; - asking for bank details, then using them to grab more money from your account. I'm just glad you figured it out before it got that far.

Open ##2263543
@janeishly@beige.party 2026-03-14 00:16

@christymarx@beige.party I was at the London Book Fair this week too, and there was a *lot* of discussion of this type of highly tailored scam (during the week I even received one myself, with information culled from my profile on the main translator platform).

Open ##2263544
@yunchtime@wandering.shop 2026-03-14 03:10

@christymarx@beige.party sorry you had to go through this! glad you stopped engaging with those sleazebags.

Open ##2263546
@bougiewonderland@freeradical.zone 2026-03-14 08:09

Paging @AdaraAstin@supervolcano.angryshark.eu and @Catvalente@wandering.shop in case you hadn’t come across this ☝️☝️

Open ##2263547
@tito_swineflu@sfba.social 2026-03-14 13:42

@christymarx@beige.party What was going to be the scammer's total haul if they got you? My wife is a published author, but it's not a lucrative profession. She has gotten a number of remarkably detailed scam emails, and I'm always confused about the pay-to-labor ratio in these scams. There aren't that many writers. There are vanishingly few with enough money for this sort of hyper-targeted attack. Even with an LLM, it will still require more work than seems worth it.

Open ##2263549
@karlauerbach@sfba.social 2026-03-14 16:13

@christymarx@beige.party Businesses are under an increasing burden of AI generated scams that are well constructed from what must be archives of old deleted emails and other business materials that one would think would have long been trashed. In other words, the world of AI generated scam is seemingly doing a great job of recycling old material to create a quite believable form of super-spear phishing.

Open ##2263551
@tknarr@mstdn.social 2026-03-14 20:18

@christymarx@beige.party The scam is based on the "dynamic" part of the QR code. If you use the scammer's service (something they'll push you to do) they can change the URL the QR code sends people to without any action on your part or any way for you to stop them. Probably they'll change it to a server they run that installs malware and then forwards people on to Amazon, using your name as bait to lure people in to have their machines infected.

Open ##2263552
@pelavarre@social.vivaldi.net 2026-03-14 22:12

. @christymarx@beige.party Yes and Are you really here with us? How can we ever know? Can we know you posted this story yourself? It didn’t come from someone else impersonating you? Would you ever also mention it at https://christymarx.com/ ? If you’re really Christy Marx, then that’s yourself speaking twice, doubly loud. If you’re impersonating Christy Marx, then that’s the doubly skilled look of impersonating equally well in two places How do we all pull together to build strong defences? Got thoughts?

Open ##2263556
@Iveyline@mastodon.nz 2026-03-15 04:50

@christymarx@beige.party Another example of how AI is "helping" humanity. NOT!!!

Open ##2263557
@PamelaBarroway@mstdn.social 2026-03-15 07:06

@christymarx@beige.party This is completely bananapants. I'm going to share with my writer / author clients, many of whom have books / bios on Amazon. (I'm a freelance biz editor.) Thanks again for sharing.

Open ##2263558
@stephenwhq@mastodon.social 2026-03-15 09:32

@christymarx@beige.party I wonder if it would give access to your bank details. In which case the payoff would be obvious.

Open ##2263560
@msokolov@fosstodon.org 2026-03-29 17:04

@christymarx@beige.party I just got an email today that reminded me of this post. The "person" writes with interest about my career including various factual details and wants to find out more about me. I have no idea where it's leading, but your post gives me a clue - thanks for sharing, I'm forewarned

Open ##2263561