This week: Online Scams Edited by: Kit  
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The Internet is a great place. Unfortunately, there are scammers. Be careful out there.
What is your best tip to prevent becoming a victim of online scammers?
This week's Drama Newsletter is all about online safety.
Kit |
Have you ever been scammed? I have. I’m not proud of it. Like most people, I like to think of myself as pretty clever and sensible. The kind of person who’d spot a scam from a mile off. And yet, I fell for one anyway.
You, like me, will know that there are no foreign princes out there longing to place their money into your bank account. You’ll know that you haven’t miraculously won great amounts of money that will be unlocked if only you first transfer X amount of administration fees. You’ll be aware to never surrender control of your computer to someone calling you and telling you that they can fix your Internet problems. You’ll know not to purchase goods through questionable social medial links.
Yet, these scams continue because some people do fall for them. And some scammers are more clever than others. They put in the work to seek out just the right people at just the right time and play on their emotions, their hopes and their dreams. We all have our moments when we are more vulnerable. Moments when we need to believe that we, too, deserve something good. Which is when they get you.
I’m very fortunate that I have never been the victim of a romance scam. Sadly, it’s quite a common scam and I think it’s one of the very worst. Lonely, vulnerable people get targeted and, for a while, they believe that someone out there in the world genuinely cares about them. Loves them. Suddenly, they feel that life has meaning once more. They have hopes and dreams for the future. It’s only natural, then, that when they believe that person to be in trouble, they’ll send them money to help. Or when they believe that the person really wants to come visit them but they can’t afford to, that they’ll send the money for a plane ticket. It’s a terrible, terrible thing to do to someone and it’s easy to say that the people falling for it should have been smarter, but we all have our vulnerabilities.
There are a few clues to look out for: if you believe yourself to be in contact with a celebrity and they start asking you for money, it’s not going to be who you think it is. Celebrities tend to have verified accounts on social media and they’re highly likely to have far more cash than you do. Scammers often aren’t the best at English spelling and grammar, but with the rise of AI there are no guarantees. The best thing to do is don’t send money to someone you’ve never met in person, full-stop. Okay, I have done so sometimes to Internet friends (only small amounts), but I don’t anymore and it’s inadvisable to do so. You can build genuine friendships online but, sadly, anyone can pretend to be anyone online and make up an entirely different life story than their actual reality. People asking relative strangers for cash generally don’t have good intentions.
AI has made things more complicated when it comes to spotting scams. Fake pictures and even videos can be generated with ever-increasing ease. And it’s tiring to always be suspicious, I know. There’s so much misinformation and disinformation online. Even in academia one must watch out for AI research papers that pretend to be peer-reviewed, but aren’t. When shopping one must be cautious about fake products. When on social media one must be on guard against bots, and scammers, and fake content. It is impossible to check everything one comes across all the time. And that wears people down.
I personally fell for a publishing scam. A publishing house specialising in publishing the works of people with disabilities and health problems loved my poetry collection. I signed a contract. It all seemed very professional, and I was over the moon. They did ask for $500 for cover art. I did my research and this actually seemed to be pretty common. Well, I never received my cover art, nor was my collection ever published. They tried to get more money out of me for little corrections I wanted to their edits, and tried to get me to spend a fortune on promotional materials, and when I didn’t play ball they became horrid. Unsurprisingly, the company no longer exists.
In a small defense of myself, I only sent in my collection after someone I knew had his work published there. They did actually publish his, but in the end the guy paid them thousands. And I don’t even know if he realises what happened to him; one can say that he got what he paid for, and that if he seems happy then, hey, his dream came true. I think he got taken for a ride, however. If you really want your work to get out there and you’re okay with paying for it, it’s much better to go to a well-known company specialising in self-publishing so that you can do your research and know what you’re getting. That’s much better than being made to believe your work was so fantastic a publishing house actually accepted it, and then being asked for more and more cash.
Self-publishing is fine. There are many options available to authors. You can publish both eBooks and physical. On various sites you don’t have to make any payment in advance; they’ll print on demand and take a percentage of each sale. It’s not what everyone wants, of course, but there’s no shame in it, either. I’ve purchased independently published novels before and some of them were really good. It’s a great way to discover new authors.
It’s sad that the best way to navigate the Internet is to be a little less trusting. It shouldn’t be that way. And really, many people you’ll meet are actually lovely. I wouldn’t have been a member of Writing.Com for 21 years now if I didn’t love it here, and during those years I have interacted with some wonderful people. I’ve even exchanged cards and gifts and it’s all been fine. I still have hand-embroidered pillowcases another Writing.Com member made me, and a wooden cat yet another member sent me 20 years ago. I have signed novels and poetry collections written by members of this site. It’s not all scary. It’s not all bad.
Just, be careful out there. It only takes a minority of dishonest people to make life unpleasant. Guard your heart, your wallet, your hopes and your dreams. It’ll save you a lot of pain and drama.
Kit
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Drama: October 15, 2025 Issue [#13399]
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