Latest / The WritersWeekly Podcast / Episode 53 - The Psychology of Scam Victims with Psychotherapist Marsh Rose - DON'T MISS THIS ONE!!!

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Episode 53 - The Psychology of Scam Victims with Psychotherapist Marsh Rose - DON'T MISS THIS ONE!!! · The WritersWeekly Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Writers Weekly Podcast, a forum geared toward the writing enthusiasts and those who want to make money from their writing.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Brian with your host.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can also find current pay markets at JobList.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: You've boost your writing career and even your bottom line.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: But for now, let's get on to this episode of the Writers Weekly Podcast.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hello again.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: And this is another episode of the Writers Weekly Podcast.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Brian Witten.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: With me, as usual, Angela Hoy, president CEO of BookLocker.com and the creator of WritersWeekly.com.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we have a killer episode for you today.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_05: Well, you can put it that way.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_05: I want to start out with our disclaimer, legal and uh medical for this one.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um, we are not lawyers.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_05: We can't give you legal advice.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_05: This is just our information after being in the business for 28 years now.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_05: Me, Brian, and being the business for the last what, 10, 11 years.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um, we're not your lawyer.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, if you, of course, we're not lawyers anyway.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, if got my tongue all tied up.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um, if you need legal advice, reach out to us and we'll put you in contact with attorney James and Walsh.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_05: He works with scammers, or reach out to your own lawyer.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_05: Again, none of this is considered legal advice.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Before you do the next one, we have a special guest today.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: As you all know, we talk a lot about scammers and we talk about authors that we've tried to stop from getting scammed, and yet they get scammed anyway.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: We we finally got an actual psychotherapist to join us.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Her name is Marsh Rose, and we're going to introduce her in just a second.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: But Angela, go ahead with your next one.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_05: The next disclaimer is uh we this is not medical vice advice, whether physical or psychological.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um, we are not therapists.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Marsh Rose is a psychotherapist, but she's not your psychotherapist.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_05: So if you find yourself in this situation, contact your own psychotherapist or email us and we'll send you to Marsh.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_05: So I also want to say that Marsh has written several articles for Writers Weekly.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, she does a lot of scam busting, she really messes with them, and she is hilarious.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um the funniest therapist we've ever met.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Marsh, say it say hello to everybody, and and let's go ahead and uh have you tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then we before we move on after that, we have a special announcement.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: But Marsh, uh please go ahead and uh tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for inviting me.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is really a lot of fun.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've been a psychotherapist, I'm licensed in California since 1992.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, these days I see clients online through a platform.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so I don't have a private practice boots on the ground anymore.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but scam, scamming, and especially in the publishing realm, is um it's kind of a new little hobby for me.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize there was scamming going on.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: When my first book came out in 2021, this wasn't happening.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the next one came out last September, and suddenly there was all this peculiar stuff going on.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I got some direction from there's an AI expert and writer named Jen Heller, who first taught me the warning signs.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then um Maria Konakova writes about she wrote a book called The Confidence Game.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just about why do people get con?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Why do people get scammed?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Not about this particular.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's something very unique about publishing scams, and we can get into that.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna dive into that in just a few minutes, and looks like we got uh exactly who we need to talk to about this.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, this is gonna be all about um the psychology of scam victims.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've we've mentioned to y'all before that we we get we get some pretty heavy emails uh come down the pipe over our our scam busting uh efforts, and strangely enough, we got a very unique one last night.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Angie, you want to read this to everybody?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, whenever I say the word F, you know what I'm talking about.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_05: They use the real word.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_05: However, in a couple of the profanities in this email they sent to us, they sent it through uh a free email service, anonymous email service, and through our contact form on our website.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_05: They put an asterisk in the middle of the word, probably because if they actually spit out the word, my spam filter may have.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_05: So, you ready?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Dear Angela.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_05: No, there's no dear about it.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, just got right into it.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_05: Get the F off social media, including Facebook and LinkedIn, or we will send someone to cut your throat, Angela Hoy bitch.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_05: Oops, beep.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_05: We have your details.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_05: We give okay, pay attention to the grammar, okay?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, um scammers out there and and murderers and serial killers.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna send us death threats, just be cool enough to spell and put in proper grammar, will you please?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_05: Come on.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_05: We're authors and publishers.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to take you seriously when you can't even spell right.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, go ahead.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_05: We will send someone to cut your throat, Angela Hoy.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_05: Beep.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_05: We have your details.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_05: We will give them serial killers and rapists.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_05: Are they gonna give the details the serial killers and rapists details or vice versa?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_05: See, the grammar's getting out of the way.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_05: Just read the serial killers and rapists, special instructions so they rape and cut your the throats of your family right first right in front of your eyes before they bump you off.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_05: We will also flood your company page with negative reviews decide fast, explanation, exclamation point.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_05: We won't spare your associates either.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_05: Vanish from social media, including Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and die like an anonymous loser.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_05: Ouch.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So are they gonna kill us first and then fill our fill our website full of negative reviews?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what's gonna happen?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, all right.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_05: You must never be seen online again promoting anything now or in near future.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_05: Again, grammar.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_05: If we see you again on social media, we will destroy your career and life.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_05: We are watching your online activities.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_05: We don't live in your country, and your laws can do nothing to us.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_05: Your clients will hear from us next if you do not vanish.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_05: Again, this was also in all caps.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_05: Uh just so painful.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a sample of the things we we receive, which tells me we're doing some good work out there.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently, we're hitting somebody's wallet.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_05: Well, we announced what a month or so ago, we did the math, and just people who had contacted us who were about to get scammed in the past two years, we've saved those folks$2.7 million.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_05: We are really giving it to the scammers in their pocketbook, and this is how they respond.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_05: With bad grammar.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, we're kind of making light of it right here because that's really all you can do.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're not gonna let this stuff uh scare us.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's not to say that we don't take this stuff very, very seriously.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we are we have reached out uh to some federal authorities because we do the this this is very possible, this is coming from overseas.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: And however, again, we do take it seriously.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a combat veteran and an ex-police officer, and we live in one of the biggest Second Amendment states you can think of.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_05: We are armed, our neighbors are armed, our neighbor's town is armed, our neighbors know what's going on, and you're one of the deputies.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um you may get here to come get us, but there's a good chance you're not leaving.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we're just gonna leave that out there.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, but it's also a firearms instructor, and he never misses.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: We will defend ourselves.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, think think twice before uh carrying out something stupid like this, because um, I don't play.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, hey, let's get on with this.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, what Marsh, what did you think of that?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Does this person need some help?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let me crawl out from under my desk here.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh well, you know, no, they don't need help because sociopaths are never helped by psychotherapy.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what they need is um incarceration in prison.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but um, I would I would be more concerned about helping anyone who crosses paths with them.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I think, like I said, I think this is a sure sign, absolutely, that we have we are hurting somebody's profits.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: They are they are desperate enough that they have to send this stuff to us to shut us down, and we're not going to be shut down.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_05: Well, also think about we've been contacted by all those people to the tune of 2.7 million.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_05: However, people who've read our work and read Marsh's articles, that all of this is education to teach people this is a scam, it's almost always a scam.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_05: Don't engage these people.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_05: And we're seeing a huge wave of online, especially on Facebook, of people they see a scammer post a comment and a bunch of people now that they're educated come back and say, get off the group, scammers, scammers, scammers, scammer.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: So and that wasn't happening two years ago.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_05: And we have saved multi-millions of dollars people that are now educated.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, that's money that hasn't gone into the scammers' pockets, which is awesome.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Marsh, are you ready for your first question?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: I certainly am.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: So this is kind of a general one here.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, is there any psychological explanation for why some people fall for scams and others don't?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that it's the same dynamic that drives a gambling addiction.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: There is so much about this that's like gambling addiction, but not like other kinds of addictions.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, because with a gambling addiction, the hook is that dopamine hit that you get before you find out whether you've won or lost.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: So the the chance of the win gets you worked up to where you'll you'll take the risk.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you you used a word a couple of minutes ago that I think really enters into this entire picture, desperation.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at all of the people who are writing and hoping to get published, some of those people will do anything to get published.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's true.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Or get their or get their book um more popular or better sales.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_05: Or the possibility of the scammers tell you those fake marketing services feeding on what just marsh was just talking about desperation.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this little tiny that among the people who are susceptible, and I'm not judging them or analyzing them, but if you take a hundred people and you survey them about how important it is for them to be published, there's going to be a certain element that feels that desperation.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Other folk, you know, you can take it or leave it.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: You hope you succeed, but you're not going to sell your firstborn son or whatever it is that people do.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really realize how pervasive and lethal this can be until, of all things, uh, I saw a documentary about Matthew Perry, uh, the guy who played Chandler Bing on Friends, died of an overdose.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um, he said, I had everything I wanted.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: My girlfriend was Julia Roberts.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I had a house that looked out over the Hollywood Hills, it wasn't enough.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: That the fame wasn't enough.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not to say the people who fall for publishing scams are that susceptible, but there's that element of desperation where they will simply say, next time we'll be better, next time we'll be different, and and other people succeed.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so maybe this will be my time, and they're completely losing sight of the fact that the vehicle that they're climbing aboard is like an old broken down parts jalopy, if that.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um people who are legitimate are not going to come looking for you.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Especially not at two o'clock in the morning from you know, who can't spell or write.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: So and it's the signs are there, the temptation is there.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've been messing with these scammers for almost a year now, and I have to allow myself a one nanosecond window of permission to think maybe this time will be different.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Haven't fallen for it yet, but there is that book, there is that element of desperation.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um are you gonna discuss ego today?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, somewhere somewhere in here we're gonna talk about ego.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, because the desperation also feeds into the ego.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_05: Authors need an ego to in order to write a book and get it out on the market.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_05: So go ahead, Brian.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Marsh, would you like to uh address that at this at this point where ego would would play into this?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm hog tied by the fact that to a psychotherapist, ego has a different meaning than it does to normal people.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so when you say ego, do you mean like um let's see.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I think I think we're when we talk about it, we we are addressing maybe an inflated ego, somebody that's desperate for that recognition or sales or money or whatever, Angie.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Am I right?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll I understand that ego is basically sense of self.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, in order in order for someone to have the courage to write a book and put it on the market and put themselves at risk of being criticized for the city.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: They have to have a little greater ego than most people.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_05: Right, you gotta have a little more courage than other people.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_05: And we we were on with two guests a couple of weeks ago, and they they also deal with scam victims, and they also said the greater your ego is, the more chance you're likely to get scammed because you're you're so desperate to make that happen, what the scammers are promising you.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Marsh, that's coming from two publishing experts.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think about that statement?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I would go with an inflated sense of self.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um that would be, I mean, that still feels it, it still taps into this desire.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's nothing negative about wanting approval and wanting um wanting success.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's, I mean, you know, we'd still be living in caves if we didn't want to improve things, you know.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, oh, we can do without, you know, nobody has to invent electricity, we can just live in the cave.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but when it when it jumps its boundaries, when it overcomes quality of life, that's when it becomes really toxic.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when people start saying, maybe this time we'll be different.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this time I'll win.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that there are two, there used to be, well, there used to be three forms of cons out there.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: The early ones were based on fear, and these were mostly the Nigerian prince scams.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they would read obituaries and find like someone who died, who's their sister and who's their niece, and they would contact the sister and say, I'm your niece, I'm being held hostage in Botswana, send$500 and they'll release me.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that was like the early days.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until the internet we got the love con and the money con.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And now in the publishing world, there's the fame con.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a combination of desire for money, desire for love, and then the veneer on top of it is the desire for fame, and that's where this inflated sense of self comes in.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because you have to believe that you deserve it and that you, you know, you are the one who can offer whatever this is in a way that nobody else can.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And for other folks, you know, we can look at, I say we because I'm I'm not among those.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I look at this kind of thing and I think, why would anybody trust someone who is so obviously going to hurt you?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, well, we could slide off into the woods and talk about why do people persistently get into toxic relationships?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: They know they're going to be harmed.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then a lot of times in that kind of situation, the person will leave the toxic relationship with the help of their therapist, and then go on to find another one just like it.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh this time will be different.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: This time I can make it work.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so scandal.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Finish that, but we we're we're we're that's a perfect segue into the next question.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: But just yeah, finish what you were about to say.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's basically they they don't see that they're repeating the same pattern over and over because the desire that this time will be different is going to be the machine driving the whole vehicle, if I can use bad metaphor.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so some people get scammed over and over again, even after losing thousands of dollars.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: So um it is this more of an issue with personality or psychology?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is it what you were just talking about, like somebody that keeps getting into bad relationships or abuses?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, to all of the above.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's it's it's all of those things combined.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: There used to be there was a quote that used to be attributed to Albert Einstein.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, no proof he ever said it.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was madness, madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, it it came out of, I think it came out of Alcohol, Al Anon, which is a branch of Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they work with survivors of addictive relationships.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So these are the people who are married to or in a relationship with the gambling addict, the cocaine addict, the alcohol addict.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And every single time they expect different results.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing over and over, but this time we'll be different.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And sure, I gave that person$25,000, but but they're but they're not like this person, or but I misunderstood them, or I don't know what the hook is to get somebody to keep reinvesting.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it sounds like it sounds like they can be pretty persuasive.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um Marsh, I'm curious what dopamine uh would play into this because I I hear that that's what keeps people posting things on Facebook, looking for those likes and and that that that um what do they call it, uh approval or attention or confirmation or whatever.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh is this kind of the same thing?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh dopamine is actually a chemical that's secreted by our brains.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And without getting too technical, we have as many organs in our brains as we have in our digestive systems, believe it or not.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: But they're not, you can't see them.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're very, very minuscule, they're very, very tiny.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there's an organ called the amygdala that secretes dopamine.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And dopamine is the pleasure chemical.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's basically the pleasure we get when we get that hit, we win an award.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: We somebody loves us.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: We get a like on Facebook.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: We get um whatever that is, it gives us that tiny little hit of approval.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And again, without getting too technical, um you can get so much of it by getting so involved in something that's going to boost you over the horizon with success and fame.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: You basically deplete your supply of dopamine and you don't have any.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why so many times people keep coming back for more.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's because the crash after they fail is almost intolerable, and it just keeps them wanting to go back for more.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that sounds just like the gambler.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it is a gambler.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_05: It reminds me of all the emails I receive.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_05: Authors forward me emails they receive from a scammer, and the scammer used AI to make the author in their book sound like the best thing that's ever been created in the world.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_05: And the authors are so excited.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_05: Thank goodness they're they're cautious and they contact me first, though probably most authors don't.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_05: But I bet those three or four paragraphs telling them they're the best thing since since sliced bread gives them a huge boost of dopamine.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_05: And then if they don't, if they aren't careful, they're going to get scammed.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_05: If they are careful, they contact me, and then I I deplete their dopamine because I take it all away because I tell them, yeah, it's a scam.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_05: So interesting.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And Marsh, um, we have authors that will contact Angie, and then Angie will explain to them, no, this is a scammer.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to get involved with this.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: However, some of these authors will we will literally prove to them with irrefutable facts that they're talking to a scammer.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_05: Step by step.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_05: This is the same thing.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: And yet some of these authors will refuse to believe us and proceed to send money to these scammers anyway.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Can can you can you help us understand that at all?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, because they're not contacting you because they want the truth.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: I have never thought of that.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_05: That is great insight, Marsh.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: What are they contacting us for?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: To lie to them.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: To tell them, yes, you're right.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: These people are you're gonna be the next, you know, uh whatever.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: They're writing the wrong people because we don't lie to people.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: We just we don't care how bad the truth is, we're gonna tell it to you.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_05: You know, probably well look less than one percent of the company names that come across my email are actually legit.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it's it's a drop in the bucket, but I still research every single one.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_05: And we have an article on our website, and we'll put a link under this episode.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_05: Writersweekly.com slash podcast.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_05: This is episode 53.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: 53.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_05: And we'll put a link to the 11 ways to determine if this company's a scammer or not, and you probably only need number one to figure it out.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_05: So anyway, go ahead.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Marsh, go in with what you were gonna continue to say.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, nobody wants to be scammed, and they're not reaching out to you because they want you to say, Yes, you're going to get hurt.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: They want to hear, oh, this time we'll be different.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you're the one person who can give them that information, but you don't have what they want to hear.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: So look at the source.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: If they were able to make that, I mean, again, not judging them, they're probably very, very intelligent, maybe more vulnerable than most people, and willing to expose themselves.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so once you crush their dreams, well, there's still the dream out there, they can still go for it.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: That almost sounds like confirmation bias.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, interesting.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, of course.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: They they want they they they they contact us wanting to hear what they want to hear, and then when they don't hear what they want to hear, they refuse to believe what they're hearing and then move forward.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_05: You know, another problem is uh they specifically target elderly people.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_05: And we we were interviewed yesterday and we talked about this.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_05: A lot of people don't have the time to write a book until they retire.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_05: And a lot of people, you know, if they're gonna spend money getting published, these retired people in the Western countries, of course, typically have money in their savings accounts, and that's why these scammers target elderly authors.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and let's let's be honest, a lot of elderly authors, what they have working against them is they're not really tech savvy, they're not internet savvy.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so when they're getting this email from somebody and it sounds really good and it's very slick, slick writing, and it makes them feel like, wow, my book is that great, they really want to, and and Marsh, correct me if I'm wrong, they want to grab on to that because that's making them feel really good.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: What doesn't make them feel good is Angie saying, Nope, that's a scam, you're gonna get hurt.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_05: You know, another thing um is the scammers going out the journalists we talked to yesterday couldn't understand why they're going specifically going after publish after authors.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, just really nailing the authors.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_05: I'm getting dozens of emails a day from scammers, and all other authors are getting the same thing.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_05: The difference between a publishing scam and a romance scam is a romance scam is the long con.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_05: They got to cozy up to you, they gotta become they probably won't ask you for money for a couple months or even six months.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_05: They will spend all that time communicating with you, hoping they can get five or ten thousand dollars in a few months out of you.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_05: With publishing, if they can con you today, they can get five or ten thousand dollars out of you today.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_05: Right now, yeah, and that's why they're going after authors.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_05: It they it's more lucrative than the romance scams.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've actually come across some long game cons in the publishing.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the very first con artist that contacted me was after a long game um goal.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think I I mentioned him to you.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: He was a novelist, he claimed to be a novelist out of Norway, and he was um mentioned in the New York Times review of books, and he contacted me.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: He just wanted to be pen pals.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was nothing to fair, he didn't want anything.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: What a sweetie! And so we were emailing each other, he told me what his cat looked like and which window his deck faced, and like, but there was something wrong with it because he kept wanting to talk about marketing, and I kept saying, why is he this guy's mentioned in the New York Times Review of Books, why is he so obsessed with getting money?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's when I reached out to Jen Heller and she said, No, he's a con artist, and you need to contact his publisher, and I did, and they verified this guy never heard of me, and thank you for telling us, and send us the header and all of the information in their emails, and we'll track them down.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that was my first experience.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was a long game con, and it was an impersonation scam, yeah, yep, impersonation scam, exactly.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them that I get, especially claiming to be romance writers.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my favorite ploy is getting them to agree that we used to be BFFs in a writer's group.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I never met the real person, you know.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they would work in these details of things that never happened, and I would say, Oh, I remember the lovely scarf you wore.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you get it?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, I got it from, you know, somewhere or other.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: There was no scarf, there was no person.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um listeners, Marsh told this story for Writers Weekly, and we will put a link to that under this episode.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_05: It's hilarious.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_05: I'm sorry, go ahead.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yes, if they can get the money from you right away, they will.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: If they can play you, then they'll do that.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: But remember, where while they're playing you the long game, they're getting lots of money from other people who are sending them money right away.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're not their only love.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, every scanner's got plenty of targets working all at the same time.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I kind of stopped myself from getting more information when you sent me the question the other day.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Are seniors more vulnerable?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't thinking about senior authors, I was thinking about all the stuff we get about seniors being vulnerable to money cons.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't thinking about publishing cons, I wasn't thinking about seniors who now have the time to write a book because the first person I ever met who lost a mega amount of money was in exactly that same situation.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually my my hairdresser's mother-in-law,$25,000.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: They had her believing that she was going to be on an international book tour, and she didn't have to book her flight through an airline, she could just send the money to them.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and um oh, go ahead.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was just gonna elaborate on that, but I don't need to.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: That was elaborate enough.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: You're the guest.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm willing to give you all the the time you need.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I was just gonna so I was going to ask for uh any parallels between the motivations of those who are vulnerable to romance scams and those who fall for the publishing scam, seeing as we're kind of starting to to blend everything here or compare everything.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_05: Wait, but can I interject real quick?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: You certainly can.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_05: We had an author contact us who was involved in a publishing scam, told them he had no more money, and then it turned into a romance scam.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_05: The exact same person and the journalist who interviewed us yesterday, she met she met somebody who had the exact same thing happened.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_05: They couldn't afford to keep paying for the publishing services, so the scammer started romancing them.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_05: So we've heard about that twice now.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, wow, wow.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, the difference between the romance scam and the publishing scam is that veneer of fame.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not just romance con, it's a money con as well.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, the reason you want to sell a billion books, I mean, as well as fame and love and adoration, you also want money.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: So combine the love con and the money con and mix in a desire for fame.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: And sure, I don't think people who are more susceptible to love cons would be more vulnerable to fame cons.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's I think it's unique to the entertainment industry.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I may be wrong, because things go on with people who want to be models, people who want to be actors.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't know anything about that that industry, that desire for fame.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's unique.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um, since I don't experience it myself, in fact, when I was a cove reporter, I was uncomfortable with a byline.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's kind of desire for recognition is is I think it's a unique element in this whole thing.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have it, you understand.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have it, I mean, I'm just always shrugging and you know, raising my eyebrows and wondering, I wonder what that would be like to feel that way.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like what'd you say, Brian?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Lack of contentment with where you're at right now.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I I kind of approach life from a from a Christian perspective of you know, no matter where you find yourself, you have to be content with what you have.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now you may get better, things may get worse, but you other people now I I understand not everybody approaches from a Christian viewpoint, but still, if you can live your life with a certain level of contentment right where you're at, you know, if you get more, you're gonna be very happy, but if you don't get more, you can still have a a level of happiness because of that contentment of where you're at, instead of constantly chasing the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, the better, the better, the better.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right, yeah.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make any sense?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it does.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: It also sounds like a Buddhist point of view, also.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay, me in the Tao.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, desire for you know the here, the now.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, be where you are, and if you can find, I mean, all of the meditation practices, mindfulness meditation, stress reduction meditation, all of them focus on the here and now, and especially, and I don't know if this is relevant or just me.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think we all have our unique points of view.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is your body telling you about what's going on?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And really, to me, when I start sensing a scam, which pretty much at this point they all are, when I get that gut reaction, something's wrong.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: If I start trying to talk myself out of it, that's a gambling addiction that's trying to speak.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: This time we'll be different, this time we'll be better.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's the hook, that's the dopamine, that's the hit of that chemical, you know, that we get.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um I mean it's potentially lethal in the case of, I mean, I don't know if anyone commits suicide if they don't get fame.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew Perry certainly did.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's that's really where it gets to be um toxic and lethal and out of control.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: And these people, you know, they don't have any compunction about scamming people who are vulnerable.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Without vulnerable people, they wouldn't be making any money.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, it's kind of like, you know, how do they sleep with themselves at night, knowing, you know, knowing that they've hurt people.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I used to work in a criminal courtroom, and you know, I would find myself asking that about many of the actors in play in that situation.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: How do they look in the mirror in the morning?
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, well, sometimes they look in the mirror and give themselves a a thumbs up and say, we did a good job, we scammed somebody.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, there has to be a particular mindset, and um it's interesting again, wandering off into the weeds of technicality, lots of research was done with sociopaths, people who have no heart, no empathy.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: That tiny little organ in the brains that issues good feelings is smaller than in people who aren't sociopaths.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you're saying for a sociopath, physiologically, physically, that, and we talking the amygdala at that point, or are we talking another organ?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is is I'm sorry, let's say an organ in the brain, the the way that you get pleasure from um from from social approval.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay, but you're saying in in sociopaths that is physically smaller than a normal human brain.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_05: That's interesting.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_05: Also, um these scammers are very sophisticated.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_05: They have studied psychology.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, they know what they're doing.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_05: And in places like Nigeria and other places, it's considered honorable to scam Americans and and people from Western countries.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, they they they they all get the ones that work in those big warehouses with just computers lined up and people lined up, they get to like bang a gong if they get so much money from somebody.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_05: They it's it's all reminds me of Wolves of Wall Street, Wolf of Wall Street.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think they just convince themselves that you know, we're all poor over here, and all those Americans and and and Europeans are so rich, so it's okay to take their money because we don't have it, you know, we don't have what they have.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: So let's just um yeah, I don't think they have any any real sympathy for it.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's like shoplifting for Macy is sort of.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, you look at a big company, you know, big company, it's okay if I take you know$200 worth of clothes from them because they got plenty, right?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, and we deserve it, as you know, that's another element.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: So um I actually need to reel myself in and stop feeling sorry for the scammers, um, because I see them work in these warehouses and they're victims too, and there's an overlord, and um, it might not be that way.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Angela has found out that that that is the case in some instances that some people have been human trafficked and put into that situation and told if you don't perform, you're in trouble.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_05: But the vast majority of scammers contacting authors, we call them the amateur scammers, are they're just lone wolves working by the they found, oh, this is working for somebody, I'm gonna do this too.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_05: A lot of them are just individuals who boy, and when you confront them on Facebook, man, they get really mad.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um Yeah.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Marsh, just for just for fun, let's compare.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: So so you have somebody that's um that's already been scammed, they're in the process of being scammed, and we tell them, You're being scammed, you have to stop sending this person money, and yet they continue to send person money, uh send uh the person money.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we have, you know, not only do we deal with this um if you watch any of the catfish shows or the romance scam shows families will tell loved ones you're being scammed, stops in and then they just refuse.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let's compare that to Stockholm syndrome.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Just just for giggles.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, how how close is it do you think to to comparing the Stockholm syndrome?
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in a sense, oh interesting.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: In a sense, the person being scammed is a hostage.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, they're a hostage to themselves, in a sense.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: They're holding themselves hostage, and they um they identify with the perpetrator because it's a way that they keep themselves safe psychologically.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a way that they keep themselves from having to admit I am vulnerable to a scammer.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: That is a very good point.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting, yeah.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's denial to a point.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Denial on steroids.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: On steroids, okay.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, that's a that's an interesting way to put it, is you don't want to face the the the it would be a devastating reality to have to open up to to realize that you have been scammed and that you are vulnerable to this, and that you have lost something because you didn't think it through.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_05: Some people are so shamed.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, go ahead.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the operative word is you.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: You gave them money, you got scammed, you were the engine driving the machine.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: In the Stockholm syndrome, I think it's interesting.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: We've gone back now to using Stockholm syndrome instead of Patty Hearst syndrome, but um, it's you know, Patty Hearst was, you know, famous daughter of the Hearst publishing company, kidnapped and eventually identified with the perpetrator and was videotaped holding an assault weapon in a bank.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she identified that much with the perpetrators.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: That happens over and over in hostage situations because psychologically, to protect yourself, the only way to survive is to go along with what you're being brainwashed as true.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can, I think it would be fun to look at scammers as brainwashers.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: The person they're brainwashing, the you that they're brainwashing, we can say that they're a willing participant, but they're really not.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's a part of them that's vulnerable, that's hidden, that's not willing to be seen, and is willing to keep going, even though you have told them you're being scammed, stop sending them money.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: In situations like this, where I'm working with families of addicts and people who are in intimate relationships or or who care and are involved with somebody who's being scammed.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: The best thing I can ask them is, how are you taking care of yourself?
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's kind of like when I read about the things that you're going through, I'm thinking, wow, how are these folks, how's your blood pressure?
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, you're you're talking to somebody who persists in following the pie piper, and you're doing your best and you want them to be okay, and they're basically twiddling their fingers at you and thumbing their nose.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: And here you are doing the best you can, and they just won't listen.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: And how are you taking care of yourself?
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: I want to ask, do you think about them at night when you should be sleeping?
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes Angie, talk to me about that.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um, there's a gentleman who recently lost eighty thousand dollars.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_05: It was three different websites, but they were all the same company.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_05: Two of them threatened to sue us.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_05: They said they're not the same company.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_05: They have the exact same website, okay?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_05: It's the exact same website.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, um He that was his entire retirement and he said, I I go I'm going after him.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_05: I'm going after him.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I'm gonna sue him.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_05: And I I told him, Yeah, you can try, but you're never gonna be able to collect on the on the judgment.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_05: You'll get a judgment.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_05: You know, but you might have to fly to Nigeria to sue them, but you're you're you're not never gonna be able to collect.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_05: And he wrote he's so upset, which I certainly understand.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um he hired a lawyer in Illinois, and it's either gonna be the lawyer will tell him, no, you're never gonna go to get anywhere with this, or the lawyer might be a slimy one and might drag it out for months and months and charge the guy thousands of dollars and he's never gonna get anything anyway.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_05: I worried about him, he's in his 80s, and I we do all this for free.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_05: We don't charge anybody anything to research scammers, but when I hear these really horrible stories and they're almost always senior citizens, it breaks my heart.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_05: It really does.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_05: However, I'm gonna keep doing it because we are really making a dent.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_05: And so are you, Marsh, with your awesome articles you've written for us.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_05: You're just you you have a unique talent in making everything hilarious when you're dealing with these scammers one-on-one.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_05: It's just great.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they are hilarious.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm actually working on one now for you of getting love bombed by a scammer.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't wait.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's for next month.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's like no matter what you say to her, she comes back with compliments.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so hey Marsh, we've got a couple of uh questions that were sent in to us from um from uh some some Facebook uh followers, and so I wanted to ask you about these.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um now we've already covered this, but I'm gonna let you just touch on it again just because I want to I want to give this person's question uh voice here.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh is scamming now okay, so this is actually from the perspective of the scammer.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is scamming an addiction as well as a money-making venture, once a scammer becomes successful, are they able to change?
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: Can you give us any insight, do you think?
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, just my opinion, yes and no.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's an addiction.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, they're not going to change because where's the motivation?
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_05: There's actually the story of a Nigerian scammer who got out of the business and wrote a book about how it worked to warn people.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, there's one.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there are some ex some some uh what am I thinking uh exceptions to the rule.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I think you're right.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: As long as you're making money and and culturally, again, you're you're not, you know, the these aren't Americans for the most part, right?
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: These are people in other cultures, and as long as you're making money, why stop what you're doing?
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and look at Wall Street, it doesn't matter where it's based.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, there are enough Americans, and you know, addiction's addiction.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: You get re it's basic behavior modification.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: You get rewarded, the bell rings, you salivate, you know, if you're familiar with that, you know, yeah, basically.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: Pavlov's right.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're all basically dogs, and I say that because I love my dog.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um right here listening.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: I can see your dog behind you.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: I tend to like dogs more than I like people.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um go ahead.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that that basically it's reward and um and behavior.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: So the scammer gets rewarded.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Why would they stop?
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, because they're hurting people?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, their amygdala is too small, they don't care.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I mean that's not across the board.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's like really um serial killers in prison were the ones who were evaluated.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: So gotcha, gotcha.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay, so here's another question.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is an interesting one.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, who is likely to be more vulnerable?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: Senior women or senior men?
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: And are people from other cultures or countries like Scandinavia or Canada more vulnerable because they are more trusting?
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't know how trusting how more how much more I don't even know how you measure how Scandinavians are more trusting than Americans versus Canadians or whatever, but um and they also asked, do some of the some victims have an element of greed as well?
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: So let me know if I need to repeat any of those.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm half Canadian, so I could say that um Canadians, I mean, there's an element of almost naivety, but no, they're pretty sharp.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't I looked up Scandinavians when you first sent me the question.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't find any research at all on vulnerability among Western cultures because Americans are so often targeted.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if Scandinavians are are targeted at all.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then senior men versus senior women, um I think that that it must be it must be even across the board.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: If there's an element of wanting um fame, I would say it doesn't matter if it's women or men.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Love cons, it's different.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: Money cons, it's different.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: Fame is something else entirely.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: And is there an element of greed?
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying no.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because greed is a toxic thing, greed is succeed no matter who you hurt.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: Greed is wanting more than everybody else.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think that that element of greed is what weighs in in fame cons.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it's more the combination of money and love.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: And because if you take the greed element out, I mean I actually Googled greed to get all the synonyms, they don't really hit it for me.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, okay.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_05: I I I got a comment about senior women versus senior men.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_05: On Writers Weekly, um, we have more female readers than male readers.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um booklocker, probably 50-50 male authors versus female authors.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_05: We hear from considerably more men, male authors who've been scammed than we do from women.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_03: You're right.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_05: But it might be because the women are too embarrassed to admit they've been scammed, so that's underreporting grossly underreported.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: Marsh is nodding big here.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_05: And but the men, when they realize they've been scammed, they come out swinging.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_05: They are mad.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're mad.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_05: So go ahead, Marsh.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's the difference between anger and depression.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: Anger, you come out swinging.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: Depression is closely tied to that great motivator or anti-motivator shame.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: Shame is shame is the Kool-Aid of the of the scamming world.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think really shame pretty much undercuts all of the repeat, I don't want to say repeat offenders, but re repeat victims.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say repeat survivors of scamming.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because being victimized really does imply something negative.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really surviving a scam.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: Although going back and doing it again and again, I think that's voluntary victimization.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and it really does need outside intervention.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe psychotherapy is the answer to everything.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: But in this case, where it concerns addiction, um, I really do believe that having an impartial outside mirror is really something that's going to begin to break the mold.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: Begin to break, not not immediately break.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh here we tend to believe that the best weapon against scamming on on a large scale at this point is uh education.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, simply because it's it's it's so massive.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much of it, it's so pervasive.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way we can catch scammers and and and out scammers and and and bait scammers and beat them at their own game.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's just too many of them.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the only thing we can do is help the best we can teach people how to identify us, but then it uh out of how to identify the scammers.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: But after that, man, it's it's up to the individual.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_05: And it's not just publishing, they're in every industry.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, they're everywhere.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_05: They're fake accountants, they're fake lawyers.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_05: How however they can pretend to help you and get you to make a upfront payment, you know, through an ACH transaction instead of your credit card.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_05: And we're getting so I add all the new ones that get sent to me to a spreadsheet, and I'm adding over 10 a day right now.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_05: The spreadsheet's just massive.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_05: There's no way we can put them all on our website.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_05: So education, we we switched from exposing and shaming them to just educating people uh in general.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_05: This is how it works.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_05: Whoever contacts you is a scammer.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the exposing and the baiting is fun, but it doesn't it it only it only screws with one scammer.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not really helping anybody.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: It might get a lot of laughs, but in the end, how many people are you really helping to educate on how to avoid these things?
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: But like I said a minute ago, you can teach all you want, but it's up to each individual person to to take that, absorb it, and then apply it when they see that next email or they visit that next website.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_05: Hey, I I gotta interrupt you for a second.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_05: My phone just popped up with a a notification from Facebook.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um, one of our readers just sent me a private message.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_05: Where are you talking to the psychotherapist?
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_05: Where can I hear it?
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_05: She thinks we're live today, so write to her later.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, people are excited about this episode.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: People are already looking forward to this episode, so okay.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um Marsh, this is the last question.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: And as I read it, I see that we've actually already touched on it, but let's just let's just touch on it again real quick.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm curious to know why people who have already consulted you about a potential scam still believe the scammers and spend thousands of dollars on something they know is not real.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a key phrase right there.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: They know is not real.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know it's not real until they choose to accept that it's not real.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: Am I correct?
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: Knowledge in this case is not power when it comes to being scammed, it's that emotional hook.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: And our emotions are so much more powerful.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, unfortunately, logic has absolutely no role to play in this situation.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's all it's all emotion, it's all desire, and really it's all desire, desire for fame, and it's going to shout out every single element of logic and reason and you know um everything that has happened to human beings in the last 10,000 years goes out the window.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about um gut feeling and chasing that that next high.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_05: Dopamine.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, yeah.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: Dopamine, you bet.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and I had a I had a thought and it just flew out.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: There it went.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I will share the I will share this uh with with you, Marsh, and the audience.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I almost got scammed just two days ago.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, believe it or not.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_05: Not a publishing scam.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: One of the one of the one of the you know, the the scam crusaders here almost almost got it.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I met I'm a I'm a winemaker.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: I like making wine.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know I know how to crush a bucket full of grapes and make wine, but my preferred method is to buy a wine kit.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: Buy the juice.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: With all with all the with all the stuff included in one box, and and I make my wine for that.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um But the the particular wine kit that I usually make my wine from was no longer available on Amazon.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, although I think I think suddenly like one box popped up, and it was and then the the price had jumped double, right?
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: The price had jumped from like sixty dollars to eighty-four dollars.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, why did they jump up that that high?
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I I decided to Google to see if I could find you know that that same product anywhere else.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: And lo and behold, a link comes up, you know, my brand of wine kit for uh$48.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, whoa, half price, great.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I click on that, and it's a it's a brand I recognize called um Mountain Supply, and they're they're you know they're sell wine stuff, and so I start filling out the form to order my my wine, and and it came to that, you know, fill it, you know, credit card number, and I just paused and I said, let me just double check this because half price is too good to be true.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I first went up to the address bar on the browser, address, yeah, and it said mountain supply23.com.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: I said, now wait a minute.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember a 23 being in the word in the name Mountain Supply.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I went back and I and I opened up another browser and mountainsupply.com.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_01: Boom, up pops the website.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went into their search, their search bar for the website, and I searched for that brand of wine kit, and it had zero results.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_01: And as I scrolled through their shop, their their their store, I realized they don't sell wine kits.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: They only sell, you can buy yeast, you can buy, you know, carboys, you can buy buckets, you can buy uh tannins, you can buy everything you need to make your own wine, but they do not sell wine kits.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized that Mountain Supply 23 was a fake scam website, and I almost gave them a credit card number.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_05: So another impersonation scam.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_05: If they're pretending to be another company, trademark infringement.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_05: If they're using their photos, it's copyright infringement.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yep.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_05: They really are in every single industry now.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: But that that's an example of how easy it is to get caught up in this.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not looking at the details, if you just slow down for a minute and take a skeptical look at everything that you do online, you're gonna be able to protect yourself much better.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: She's picking her head unless you uh rather than if you go based on emotion.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: Marsh, uh, your comments?
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that's absolutely true.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's everywhere.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: And really, it's unfortunate that we need to.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't want to say paranoid, um, but I think skeptical is as good a word as any.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we do, it's it's absolutely true.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're all vulnerable at this point.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean we're all weak or we all want to succeed.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, you know, if we don't, if we rely on getting in our car and going to the store, and that's the only way that we can keep going, then we're probably not as much at risk.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_00: But if we buy things online, then um we're at risk.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've bought things on a very popular website that turned out to be counterfeit.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you you wouldn't think that would happen, but you could tell by uh, you know, it arrived, and this isn't the actual manufacturer.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, they're everywhere and it works, so they keep doing it because why change?
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_05: You know, the impersonation stuff, the the scammers are impersonating all the major traditional publishers.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and if people would just look at the actual website that the well, a lot of the scammers will put the real publisher's website under their signature, yeah.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_05: But if you click reply, it goes to a Gmail email address.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_05: And those publishers don't use Gmail.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but a lot of them have put up websites and it's like Simon Simon Schuster, or it's they change it like Simon or Schuster.com.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_01: Most people won't look for those or maybe Simon Dash and Dash Schuster, something like that.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_01: But but all all it takes is one character off.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you've got a whole new website, looks exactly like the real website.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: Scary.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead, Marsh.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was just gonna mention there's a fellow out there who writes a lot about um internet pro like click date and stuff like that.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: Is Ask Leo.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I go to him, he sends me an email every week.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this one was about click scams, and um, he writes a lot about how people get um hacked, hacked and scammed, and it's very, very technical computer stuff, but he saved me a couple times, like how to look at an internet address to see if it's real or not.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the 23, I never would have known that he told me about that.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you said uh Ask Leo is where people are to go.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, ask Leo.com.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Ask Leo.com.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: We'll put a link on that, uh, writersweekly.com slash podcast, episode 53.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we'll have a link to Ask Leo.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds like a great resource for people to look at.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: Marsh, I am so glad you joined us today.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I I think this just kind of gives everybody such a better understanding of what you're dealing with when it comes to these scams, both romance, money, and wine.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wine and even the publishing thing.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, there there is a psychology to it, but as you say, sometimes psychology has nothing to do with it.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's just it's almost like an addiction, or it's this des this this drive, this desire for fame, fortune, money.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can't tamp that down or control that, then likely to be you're in trouble.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna hit the tripwire.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um Marsh, I would like to give you uh three, four minutes to say anything you'd like to wrap up here.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um actually this has just been a great deal of fun.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_00: You've actually taught me some things um that that I wasn't thinking about and didn't know about.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, I think I can feel that dopamine flowing already.
• 1:03:16
  unknown: All right, yeah.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't even trying.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh yeah, I think you do you guys here comes more dopamine.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_00: You guys do really great work and uh just really enjoy reading it every um every time it comes out.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, um education is the important thing, and absolutely right.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_00: Messing with them isn't going to change anything.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, I messed with one, she confessed.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was a tearful confession.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: She will never use that famous author's name again.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_00: Two months later, here she comes again as if we've never, you know.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: So well, it it may not it may not do anybody any good, but it's still fun.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: So don't stop.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_01: We want to hear more about how you mess with these scammers.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_05: And again, we're gonna put a link to all those are all Marsh's articles under this episode because she is a hoot.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not advocating messing with them.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I it's it's dangerous to interact with sociopaths.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: Can can we can we take 10 more minutes and let me just ask you about that?
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_01: It is yeah, um, what what could be the dangers of of your your average Joe who decides to play along and play the game?
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is there any is there any danger of falling for the scam if you get too deep in with these people, even though you you meant to out them or or expose them?
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_01: What tell me your your thoughts on that?
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, engaging with them, engaging with someone who offers to slit your throat and rape your children, um, they're probably not going to do anything good for you in the long run.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they're so yeah.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as far as I'm concerned, why reward the behavior?
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe nothing bad will happen to you.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_00: But do you really want something good to happen to them?
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, I think the best thing that can happen to any scammer is just to keep sending out a bunch of crap and never getting a response from anybody.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_05: Also, um, a lot of people do scam baiting to waste their time so they're not going after real potential victims.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_05: I mean it's it's a hobby for some.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_01: But then again, you're also wasting your own time.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_05: Well, some people well, you can either be watching Netflix or you can be, you know.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you can be doom scrolling TikTok, I guess.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, that that's kind of a good thing in my corner.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: I actually don't watch or read the news, and I haven't for many years.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, I'm a therapist and a writer, so I have nothing but free time on my hands.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, plenty of free time.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, what's more fun?
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, you know, I my dogs are greyhounds, they don't play.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you can't fetch you can't play fetch with a greyhound.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_00: It just thinks you're stupid.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_01: They don't they don't they don't have that play instinct.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I've got my two dogs, man, they will bring me the toy and be like, you know, pushing it up on me and won't stop until I play with it.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, but they they weren't they didn't genetically come from a line where if you run, you run for the horizon.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: So um this one, I just adopted her from Australia uh a couple weeks ago.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_00: And um she is great.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when you figure it was winter there and it hit here on one of our 105 degree days, she's adopting better than you'd think.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: But um yeah.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I definitely did not get scammed.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_00: The people who are part of the whole um Australian rescue thing are very, very reputable.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_00: But their idea of being housebroken and mine may be two different things.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_01: Angie, why don't you uh what you got anything?
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_05: Last word I'm gonna say it again, I'll say it every episode.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_05: Spammers are scammers.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_05: Real companies with honest companies who do not reach out to authors through email, social media, on your website or anything, they have enough business to keep them busy.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_05: They don't need to reach out, they don't need to spam authors.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_05: Anyone who spams you, and everybody's like people always say, Well, it might be a half a percent.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_05: I don't care.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_05: When people spam you, assume it's a scammer, block them, and move on.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you didn't if you didn't ask for a specific if you didn't reach out to somebody and ask for a service, anybody reaching out to you to offer that service is likely they're trying to scam you.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_05: And just assume 100% of them are.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_05: If every single author followed that rule, the publishing scam industry would go away.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Marsh, thank you so much for joining us, man.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to get this this uh episode out there to people.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_05: You're awesome.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_05: You're just you're one of the funniest people I've ever met.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_05: You're just great.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, goes my dope.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_05: I mean you know, Marsh doesn't even need to send me query letters, she just sends an article.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_05: Of course we want it, of course we want it.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_05: They're they're all just awesome.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: So well, and if you don't want to be scammed, why don't you just come on over to booklocker.com.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_01: Quit shopping around, looking for all those other places to publish your book.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna treat you right.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_01: We've been in business 27 years, family owned and operated.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_01: Our prices are right up there, competitive with any other of the big boys.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um, we've got we actually charge less than the scammers do.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_01: We have you even charge less than the scammers.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_01: So why would you why would you go with somebody who's charging you more?
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's just gonna take your money and not give you anything.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_01: We have an A plus rating on Better Business Spear, and we have five stars in a lot of other places.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_01: So come check us out, uh booklocker.com or Angela at booklocker.com.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_01: You can you can talk to the president and CEO directly, and you're gonna hear back from her.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna hear from somebody in the Philippines or Pakistan or wherever else.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_05: I do all my own email.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_01: She sure does.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_05: Pretty much all I do anymore.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_01: We got a great team of people that'll take care of you.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_01: And again, you're gonna be you're gonna be happy with the book that you get.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_01: We work with you um, you know, throughout the whole process uh to get you to get you the book that you want out there.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_01: You're in control, you know, uh so that so that you can make your dreams come true.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um so booklocker.com, come check us out, booklocker.com.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to thank everybody for joining us again.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you all learned something uh from Marsh here.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_01: I d I did, I know Angie did.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh that about wraps it up here.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_01: We will see all of y'all again on the next episode of the Writers Weekly Podcast.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks again, Marsh.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_01: See y'all later.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.