A cautionary tale
For some months now I’ve been receiving three kinds of emails designed to appeal to my ego but that actually engender disquiet and annoyance. Often several a week.
The first kind, addressed formally to my professional name, purport to come from professional journals or organisations, lauding my work and my global contribution to science, before inviting me to accept an invitation to speak at their conference (often the keynote address), or to contribute to an upcoming edition of their organisation’s publication. Not only did I leave that world many many years ago, but no one could possibly be a leading authority on such a vast array of topics! But worse is to come. Sometimes, when I ignore such messages (as I invariably do), I then get quite threatening follow-up contacts decrying my want of manners or integrity, putting more pressure on me to agree to their requests!
The second kind are more matey, and appear to come from website designers, praising my prolific output and high profile but drawing attention to the potential for a much wider and more lucrative reach. There is, it’s true, room for improvement in my website, some truth in their analysis, but I have a professional designer, and no amount of flattery can be allowed to influence me to fall into these traps.
The third kind is the most insidious. It is very gratifying to get long detailed messages praising my medical ethics novels to the skies; emails that analyse my stories impressively accurately, and use superlatives to describe how they plumb emotional depths, capture profound truths, provoke deep exploration of human experiences, and could set the reading thinking world on fire … if only I would liaise with the sender to reach the millions hungry for these very books. No mention of money in the first approach, needless to say.
I confess I have a lot of sympathy with those who fall for such scams that are so rife nowadays. When the first one arrived with a brilliant synopsis of one of my novels, I was initially sufficiently intrigued as to reply with a list of questions as to motive and expectation. The contact soon went dead! Whatever means are used – AI is way beyond my pay grade – it would be all too easy for be sucked in to these lures designed so cleverly to stroke the ego and offer untold fame and fortune. I’m sharing these thoughts in the hope that it might just save one unsuspecting and trusting innocent going quietly about their own business, the humiliation and damage done by being duped and then fleeced.
As the saying goes: if it looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is too good to be true.