Since authors must maintain an online presence and many receive scam messages, I’m addressing online safety today.
On impulse during a recent trip to the library, I checked out Keanu Reeves Is Not in Love with You by Becky Holmes. The author relates how she communicated with scammers and victims in this lively and well-researched book. The book focuses on romance scams; but the advice applies to all social media cons, and other sources confirm her findings. Though the text is littered with profanity, I recommend the book for a deep dive into romance scams. For instance, I learned:
Why are they scamming?
For one, the lifestyle is glamorized.
Second, some of the scammers are being trafficked. Lured to a foreign country with the promise of a legitimate job, they arrive to discover they must cheat others or they will be punished.
Third, some scammers hate the people they’re conning. A letter Holmes quotes, written by a Nigerian swindler to a British woman, says, in part, that they resent the colonists he calls “white reptiles” who exploited their country and stole their resources. Their hatred is so deep that they hope their victims become brokenhearted and homeless. The letter also refers to the con artist’s involvement in the occult, which the book maintains is common.
How are they scamming?
A message beginning with “Hello dear” or “Hello Beautiful” should not be answered. The moment you do, you may be susceptible to an abusive relationship. The con artist will court you so you’ll fall in love and will do anything for them, then be demeaned and harassed if you don’t send money. Once you run out of money, they don’t care if you beg, borrow, or steal. To them, depleting your funds is not an excuse.
Under no circumstances should you send any money or gift cards to anyone you’ve never met. Scammers rely on victims who do not understand overseas laws and careers to convince people to send money for fake situations that would never happen and imaginary fees.
Which brings me to …
If a friend or family member suddenly starts asking to borrow money and won’t tell you why, investigate. If this person is involved in an internet scam, you’ll be tangentially a victim as a lender because your friend will never receive the funds to repay you.
Suspicious message? What now?
Scammers hoping to rip off writers are likely to promise business propositions that have no way of being profitable for anyone but the scammer. If you are concerned about a message, forward it to your literary agent. Do not click any links. Often, we can discover information that may not be easily obtainable to most authors. We should be able to help you discern who’s legitimate and who isn’t. For instance, I recently vetted a person for an author and confirmed that he is a genuine Christian businessman. I had the connections to do so, whereas the author did not. I’m always happy to help my authors be safe online.
Additional note
Soon after I wrote this, I received the following message on my Facebook wall from “Stephen Townsend.” I’ve never been in contact with him, and I didn’t correct the grammar errors contained in the message:
Honey it me Our base camp was under attack and many things were being destroyed by ISIS. I lost many contacts so I’m not making use of the other account so just click on this my current profile and send me a direct message or a friend request thank you….
I read this out loud to my real Honey, who said, “You are popular in Nigeria.” I maintain that my money would be popular in Nigeria. However, they’ll never find out.
I clicked nothing. I reported the message to Facebook, then deleted it. I doubt Facebook will respond since technically, the message probably does not violate what they call their “community standards.” However, if this happens to you, I recommend you also report and delete it.
Don’t come here looking for romance,
already got a wife,
and if you choose to take the chance,
I’ve got a Bowie knife.
Don’t write and ask for money,
’cause I got none to spare,
and, you know, it’s funny
that you don’t seem aware
that I am quite hip to your game
and won’t be taken in.
Your approach was really lame,
and also steeped in sin,
’cause getting past your clumsy lies,
I really am not into guys.
Andrew, your poem made me laugh! Thanks for sharing!
I laughed out loud at this…
As a woman, I get too many “Hello, beautiful” messages, but they don’t realize I do have “a Bowie knife” of sorts. So much truth in your humor. Keep it up!
My sister was scammed for two years by a guy from Houston (supposedly). We’d tell her he was a scammer, but she wouldn’t listen. She even bought a wedding dress because he’d promised to come for her. Even when we showed her the pictures she had of him were stolen from a business man in Hungary, he had an excuse which she believed. Here are some signs: The guy is usually on an oil rig, his wife is dead, his child is in a boarding school (or in this case watched by a butler–who has butlers these days?). His first question is “How was your breakfast, angel?” (it’s intimate, and he doesn’t need to use her name so he can use it with everyone). He never talks to the scammed woman; he just texts. He always promises to come for the next holiday, and then something comes up like a burned arm or a lack of oxygen after falling in the sea.
When my sister finally realized he was a fake, she gave up, and she died a year later. I wrote a fictional account of her story, entitled, Tricks and Treachery.
That is SO heartbreaking. Thank you for sharing your tips, and the story. I found your link on Amazon and want to share: https://www.amazon.com/Tricks-Treachery-Sherri-Stewart/dp/1959788337/ref=sr_1_3?crid=EKJJVS9VS6HG&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.EPralFdvZWHiiBbvwD5NUBq8KWk9M1dMRy1xBRb34wOzFml6TynQlVbB6HeXNKWRhARiGb7CRLaG0NMA703rWgKq0TW4WLFIA3DIhDNVaV4.TJwvwmNQZvaytt2fhf5FbNWe3DxBJTpYJZTQrmvLTGw&dib_tag=se&keywords=tricks+and+treachery&qid=1733414348&s=books&sprefix=tricks+and+treachery%2Cstripbooks%2C89&sr=1-3
It always makes me laugh when some guy writes, “You are so beautiful. I think I love you” on my FB posts. I’m a 62-year-old grandmother, for goodness sake! One man showed his profile photo, but I recognized the face as Paul Hollywood from the Great British Bake Off. A red flag is when men like every post I’ve added for the past five years (I don’t post often). Delete…delete…delete.
Great tips. Delete, indeed. But don’t underestimate yourself!
It’s probably going back about 10 years now, a time when scamming was out there but not a business so to speak.
I fell for one of them for a time. Then overtime it occurred to me something was radically wrong. I refused to play the game any longer and that person became very nasty and verbally abusive.
I actually reported it to the FBI. They do have a branch that investigates online scammers.
These days they’re everywhere, a huge annoyance and aggravation. These people are excellent and devious even to the point of setting up fake believable pages.
I’m glad you posted this Tamela.
Have an awesome Christmas season day.
Good to know there’s a special place to go when reporting to the FBI. I didn’t know that.
May you be blessed as you prepare to celebrate the anniversary of our Saviour’s birth.
Facebook is full of scams, and reporting them seems to be a waste of time. Here’s another side to this story. I took it upon myself to advise people on FB that they were being scammed when they shared fraudulant posts. Most, but not all of these, were the “lost dog, lost child, missing elderly person” scams. I would advise those sharing the fake messages that they weren’t genuine, and that they should delete them before the scammer changed the post into an ad designed to steal financial information from those who spread the original post. After that, I’d block the person behind the scam. Then suddenly, I started getting messages from FB telling me that I was writing posts that went against their “community standards.” (What are these standards? They don’t seem to mean anything.) For example, in one thread I stated that I thought the previous actress in a particular role was better than the current one. According to FB this became an attempt at financial fraud. What? I truly believe that someone promoting these fraudulent posts decided to come after me. These warnings from FB started to happen almost every day. This isn’t the first time this has happened. I actually had to shut down a private page designed for women to bless each other because almost everything I posted (all very innocuous) was against these nebulous “community standards.” At least for now, things have quieted down, but my personal FB page and my author’s page are being monitored and they’ve been judged as “having problems.” Because I use these pages for promotion, I’ve decided to stop advising people that they’re being scammed. I hate doing that, but I don’t seem to have a choice. FB is out of control and unless someone higher up decides to bring some sanity back, I have to advise authors to think seriously before taking the offensive against these scammers. Doing so could get your FB page(s) shut down.
According to various news sources, Zuckerberg is courting Trump so maybe FB will change some of its practices. I had no idea innocuous posts could be changed to fraudulent content. That’s scary. Appreciate you for letting us know here. I don’t think our IT people will mind!
It is disheartening to see my country mentioned not once, but thrice in your blog for negative reasons. I am a self-published author of 6 books (4 on Amazon, all 6 on Lulu). They are in paperback and eBook editions. I promote my books online and encourage people to click on the links to my books on various social media and e-commerce sites. If they don’t click how do i get to sell?
I choose to go the route of self-publishing after trying since 2021 to get a traditional publishing deal from The Steve Laube literary Agency and other Christian publishers around the world.
Many Nigerians are honest and hardworking. I am one of them. Please look up my name on Amazon KDP or Lulu and see my published titles and author profile.
Jude Osezua Onegbedan is my name and i am proudly Nigerian.
Thank you for commenting, Jude. I know from being acquainted with a number of Nigerians that the overwhelming majority are honest and hardworking. The book I mentioned in the blog focused on Nigeria. Otherwise, I would have pointed out that this problem also stems from other countries. As we all know, every nation has a percentage of scammers.
My daddy said, “Most people are honest but the ones who are out to get you, will.”
Thank you for being a fine citizen of Nigeria. I’m glad you discovered a way to get your message out to readers. I’m sharing your Amazon link here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Jude+Osezua+Onegbedan&crid=23XVP3NFAJTPC&sprefix=jude+osezua+onegbedan%2Caps%2C296&ref=nb_sb_noss
Kudos Tamela for acknowledging that most Nigerians are honest and hardworking.
Thank you for sharing my Amazon books link. I hope this will increase my book sales. I look forward to publishing my books traditionally in the future with the help of The Steve Laube Literary Agency. God bless you.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to make amends, as I did not set out to offend. God bless you as well.
Thank you for this post! It is so important to warn people about the dangers scammers pose. My daughter was recently scammed out of a large sum she didn’t have to spare. Makes me so angry that evil steals from innocent people. I get many “Hello, beautiful” messages but always delete! One was an admiral in the Navy who stated he was leaving his wife for me. Ha! Ha! Ha! I couldn’t delete it fast enough! Some people I’ve never heard of pm me on my author page and want to chat about how they can “help” me. Delete. Delete. Delete.
I’m so sorry to hear about your daughter. Many VERY smart people are scammed.
The delete key is our friend indeed!
Scammers don’t always open with “hello beautiful.” Recently, someone both emailed me and messaged me on my author page. The exact same message. They opened with “Hello Halter.” I deleted the email, but I answered the message on FB. I told them they were a spammer and to please leave me alone.
They said they weren’t a spammer. I was feeling a bit feisty that day, so I responded, “You claim to have a marketing business but you greeted me by just my last name? I don’t think so.”
They responded, “What’s wrong with that?”
I answered, “If you have to ask that, you’re definitely a spammer.”
They responded, “How should I have done it. Can you help me?”
BAHAHAHAHA!! I ignored that, reported the profile to FB and blocked them. It’s hard for me to understand how anyone in this day and age can be scammed. There are so many warnings and information about it! But not everyone understands or has the information they need, and it breaks my heart. When I see someone getting a spam message, I usually private message them. I don’t think FB can flag private messages. At least not yet, right?
Thanks for this post, Tamela. I’m going to share it.
Wow, asking for advice on how to scam people takes guts. Then again, scamming people takes guts. 🙁
I’m so glad you found this post worthy of sharing. Thank you.
Haha! Right??
Thank you for this important post, Tamela. I can’t count the number of scam emails and social media messages I’ve received. Thankfully, so far, God has given me the wisdom to delete and not fall prey to the nonsense. We live in such an evil world. These people desperately need Jesus, as we all do!
Praying for the scammers is a great idea, even though it’s tough to do so.
Words of wisdom. Thank you, Tamela!
Thanks for being a faithful reader of this blog!