Saturday, October 8, 2016

Baiting the Phisherman

It’s happened to all of us. That email from a friend that is out of town and lost their wallet and needs you to help get home. It leaves me to wonder if anyone really buys that. Anyhow I got an email this morning, only this one was from David Huffstetler, the awesome writer of the Jack Harden series. The subject heading was ‘Sad News’. Being an author myself, I thought, oh, he’s reaching out to me. To me, something must have been going on with Amazon. Then I opened the email. Ah, gees, …. Poor David is stranded after a successful tour and needs me to Western Union him money because the hotel is keeping his luggage hostage. Forget that hotels get your credit card information when you check in.

Obviously, we all know it to be a scam. BUT… but … what if this scam actually hurt David. We can laugh about it, but seriously, this person is using his name. What if some of his fans didn’t know and really wanted to help out their favorite author? I can see a few of my fans doing that. Wanting to help me. not 1,950 worth of help but still.

So I decided I was gonna get this guy. He was phishing and I was going to bait him. Now I know I am not the first nor will I be the last person to mess with a phisher, honestly, I thought I would be the one to catch him.

Maybe not. Anyhow, here is our exchange. (Click on the image to enlarge)


Obviously this guy is serious. He didn’t even read my email. So I replied,



Then when he didn’t respond to Baby Roo…. I tried one more time.



Suffice to say I haven’t heard back … yet. But if you get a chance, check out the real David’s books.

3 comments:

  1. I loved your responses back to "David!" He cut his losses and went to the next person on the email list I guess? Thanks for the laugh :-) I even enjoy your email exchanges now too! LOL

    ReplyDelete
  2. Did you ever notify David that his friends/email list had been compromised? He then would be able to send out a mass email letting everyone know it was a scam. I know if I got one about you even just as a fan I would check your other forms of contact, such as FB page to see if you posted anything hinting to your troubles, or if it looked like all is normal. I certainly would try to contact you first. It really is a shame what these scammers are doing. Ps I am sure you have plenty of fans that would help if you really were in trouble.

    ReplyDelete