4 ms·

Very Weird Solicitation Alert

113 points by ilamont 5y ago

seibelj 5y ago
TLDR - it is implied that a convicted fraudster named Monica Main either coerced an old (and possibly feeble / demented) romance author (Judith McNaught) or stole her identity to fleece wannabe writers out of money. I applaud the author for digging this deep, what an odd scam. It is affinity fraud, except the group is struggling writers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_fraud
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  Oooh I didn't know this had a name. Family members have fallen victim to this several times to con men that came into their churches and pretended to be "one of them" and had a special ponzi or pyramid scheme from God to share. The churchgoers instantly let their guard down, what an easy con. People in a church already have a tendency to believe in things.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    That's exactly why many scam emails start off with some religious salutation. If that doesn't put you off you're worth investing some time in because you have self-identified as gullible mark.
    - where-group-by 5y ago
      Sounds similar to the Nigerian prince emails in principle.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    I don't think the issue is that they "have a tendency to believe in things" so much as they are among of group of people who've voluntarily associated on the basis of shared beliefs. Looking through the article identifies other groups like immigrant communities as other popular targets. The hint is in the "affinity" part.
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    I knew a guy who did this. Couldn't believe the amount he took from parishioners. He moved after his caper. The minute I met him I knew he was a lying, but felt bad for feeling that way. I felt like I was judging him by race.
    - drclau 5y ago
      If you were aware there's an ongoing scam, I hope you reported him to the relevant authorities.
  - nwatson 5y ago
    Check out Stan Johnson of the "Prophecy Club" on YouTube and elsewhere. He's been riding various Evangelical trends since the nineties or even the eighties with promotional tie-ins to various enterprises, e.g. prepper food/technology, silver bullion, prophecy videos and conferences. I can't imagine he's making all that much these days and his hybrid physical/online seems small. He got the COVID-19 a couple of times and didn't bother to tell his still-meeting congregation about it until quite late. He preys on the gullible ... but in some Black Swan event sort of way (e.g. extended regional power outage) his adherents may come out ahead for a short time.
    - agency 5y ago
      Similar with Jim Bakker[1]. The guy went to prison for fraud and went straight back to televangelism when he got out and sells buckets of freeze-dried food to his parishioners to prepare for the end times. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bakker https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bakker
  - NelsonMinar 5y ago
    The most famous recent example is Bernie Madoff who regularly preyed upon other Jewish people and organizations. Not as explicitly religious as some famous Christian hustles (like various forms of prosperity gospel) but definitely an adjacent kind of affinity fraud. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/madoff-jewish-affinity-fraud/460446/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/madoff-...
  - tragomaskhalos 5y ago
    I don't know the details, but some years back my Jehovah's Witness uncle and his family got heavily involved in some pyramid selling scheme for some kind of health powder. Your comment makes me wonder if they were introduced to it by another JW - this would be a very powerful hook, as JWs are incapable of even conceiving that other members of the cult might be up to no good.
- pbecotte 5y ago
  The weird thing is- it could be a scam that is not actually a scam. If they have somehow acquired the legal right to use the author's name to release books, they don't need to swindle the ghost writers- they would probably be able to actually sell a decent number of books. The victim of the scam would be the author and her publishing company.
neilv 5y ago
> *Using one of my burner names and emails, I signed the NDA, Any lawyer want to comment on that?
- blamazon 5y ago
  I’m not a lawyer, but generally when dealing with contracts, the actual “signature” that’s on the “paper” is somewhat inconsequential. Sure, it’s convenient for record keeping, and easy to defend in a court of law, but it’s not the be-all, end-all of consent to a contract. If you make a good faith effort to convey to a contract participant what is at stake in the contract, (perhaps by writing it out in the form of an NDA) and the intended participant does something to imply consent, like splashing ink on the paper in the spot where it says “by putting ink on this spot I agree to the terms”, or clicking an equivalent button, the participant can be held to the terms regardless of what shape the ink or the pixels make. In terms of defending your contract in court, this can be another matter entirely. If you don’t have some proof that the participant did actually acknowledge the terms of the contract and consent to the terms willfully, you will find it difficult to enforce the contract. Depending on the method used for “signing” the NDA, using a burner alias likely has little to no legal difference from actually signing with real name and subsequently flaunting the NDA in the same manner. However, in terms of getting away with it, the burner alias might be enough to throw off the opponent. No point accusing an anonymous stranger of breach of contract… they need to be deanonymized first to affect damages. If you can’t deanonymize me, you can’t affect damages to me, regardless of what I sign.
  - shp0ngle 5y ago
    The author of this blogpost is, however, not anonymous, so de-anonymizing is fairly easy, no?
    - blamazon 5y ago
      Seems like it. So, in this case in a legal sense, I believe there to be basically no difference to signing with an alias vs signing with real name, particularly since they blogged about doing this.
gumby 5y ago
I find it hilarious that something aimed at writers would choose videos as a way to entice them. Wouldn’t text be more convincing? Sure is for me.
- subpixel 5y ago
  The video is two steps into the spiel. First, these recipients have identified themselves somehow as aspiring writers. Second, they found the mailing so compelling they followed the url.
polar 5y ago
This reminds me of "When Dickens met Dostoevsky"[1]. [1] https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/eric-naiman-when-dickens-met-dostoevsky-essay/ https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/eric-naiman-when-dickens-...

113 points by ilamont 5y ago

TLDR - it is implied that a convicted fraudster named Monica Main either coerced an old (and possibly feeble / demented) romance author (Judith McNaught) or stole her identity to fleece wannabe writers out of money. I applaud the author for digging this deep, what an odd scam. It is affinity fraud, except the group is struggling writers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_fraud

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
Oooh I didn't know this had a name. Family members have fallen victim to this several times to con men that came into their churches and pretended to be "one of them" and had a special ponzi or pyramid scheme from God to share. The churchgoers instantly let their guard down, what an easy con. People in a church already have a tendency to believe in things.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That's exactly why many scam emails start off with some religious salutation. If that doesn't put you off you're worth investing some time in because you have self-identified as gullible mark.
  - where-group-by 5y ago
    Sounds similar to the Nigerian prince emails in principle.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  I don't think the issue is that they "have a tendency to believe in things" so much as they are among of group of people who've voluntarily associated on the basis of shared beliefs. Looking through the article identifies other groups like immigrant communities as other popular targets. The hint is in the "affinity" part.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  I knew a guy who did this. Couldn't believe the amount he took from parishioners. He moved after his caper. The minute I met him I knew he was a lying, but felt bad for feeling that way. I felt like I was judging him by race.
  - drclau 5y ago
    If you were aware there's an ongoing scam, I hope you reported him to the relevant authorities.
- nwatson 5y ago
  Check out Stan Johnson of the "Prophecy Club" on YouTube and elsewhere. He's been riding various Evangelical trends since the nineties or even the eighties with promotional tie-ins to various enterprises, e.g. prepper food/technology, silver bullion, prophecy videos and conferences. I can't imagine he's making all that much these days and his hybrid physical/online seems small. He got the COVID-19 a couple of times and didn't bother to tell his still-meeting congregation about it until quite late. He preys on the gullible ... but in some Black Swan event sort of way (e.g. extended regional power outage) his adherents may come out ahead for a short time.
  - agency 5y ago
    Similar with Jim Bakker[1]. The guy went to prison for fraud and went straight back to televangelism when he got out and sells buckets of freeze-dried food to his parishioners to prepare for the end times. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bakker https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bakker
- NelsonMinar 5y ago
  The most famous recent example is Bernie Madoff who regularly preyed upon other Jewish people and organizations. Not as explicitly religious as some famous Christian hustles (like various forms of prosperity gospel) but definitely an adjacent kind of affinity fraud. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/madoff-jewish-affinity-fraud/460446/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/madoff-...
- tragomaskhalos 5y ago
  I don't know the details, but some years back my Jehovah's Witness uncle and his family got heavily involved in some pyramid selling scheme for some kind of health powder. Your comment makes me wonder if they were introduced to it by another JW - this would be a very powerful hook, as JWs are incapable of even conceiving that other members of the cult might be up to no good.
pbecotte 5y ago
The weird thing is- it could be a scam that is not actually a scam. If they have somehow acquired the legal right to use the author's name to release books, they don't need to swindle the ghost writers- they would probably be able to actually sell a decent number of books. The victim of the scam would be the author and her publishing company.

neilv 5y ago

> *Using one of my burner names and emails, I signed the NDA, Any lawyer want to comment on that?

blamazon 5y ago
I’m not a lawyer, but generally when dealing with contracts, the actual “signature” that’s on the “paper” is somewhat inconsequential. Sure, it’s convenient for record keeping, and easy to defend in a court of law, but it’s not the be-all, end-all of consent to a contract. If you make a good faith effort to convey to a contract participant what is at stake in the contract, (perhaps by writing it out in the form of an NDA) and the intended participant does something to imply consent, like splashing ink on the paper in the spot where it says “by putting ink on this spot I agree to the terms”, or clicking an equivalent button, the participant can be held to the terms regardless of what shape the ink or the pixels make. In terms of defending your contract in court, this can be another matter entirely. If you don’t have some proof that the participant did actually acknowledge the terms of the contract and consent to the terms willfully, you will find it difficult to enforce the contract. Depending on the method used for “signing” the NDA, using a burner alias likely has little to no legal difference from actually signing with real name and subsequently flaunting the NDA in the same manner. However, in terms of getting away with it, the burner alias might be enough to throw off the opponent. No point accusing an anonymous stranger of breach of contract… they need to be deanonymized first to affect damages. If you can’t deanonymize me, you can’t affect damages to me, regardless of what I sign.
- shp0ngle 5y ago
  The author of this blogpost is, however, not anonymous, so de-anonymizing is fairly easy, no?
  - blamazon 5y ago
    Seems like it. So, in this case in a legal sense, I believe there to be basically no difference to signing with an alias vs signing with real name, particularly since they blogged about doing this.

gumby 5y ago

I find it hilarious that something aimed at writers would choose videos as a way to entice them. Wouldn’t text be more convincing? Sure is for me.

subpixel 5y ago
The video is two steps into the spiel. First, these recipients have identified themselves somehow as aspiring writers. Second, they found the mailing so compelling they followed the url.

polar 5y ago

This reminds me of "When Dickens met Dostoevsky"[1]. [1] https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/eric-naiman-when-dickens-met-dostoevsky-essay/ https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/eric-naiman-when-dickens-...