Almost scammed by a bot!

MUMBAI: It was a flattering email

MUMBAI: It was a flattering email. Alda Kane had reached out on behalf of the Vancouver-based ‘More Than A Classic Book Club’. ‘We’d love to invite you to a relaxed virtual Author Spotlight with our book club, where members can learn more about your writing journey, creative process, inspirations and experiences as an author,’ it read.

On looking up Alda Kane, Google showed up Aida Kane. A typo? Possible. On the QWERTY keyboard we are used to, ‘L’ and ‘I’ are close to each other. Typo? Possible. As a published author, and with another one in the works, why would I miss a chance to engage with a book club?

Plus, Aida Kane, appears to be all over the place. On Goodreads, a site bibliophiles visit to look up books or leave reviews, Aida Kane has a profile page. When looked at last, her statistics counter showed she had left 305 ratings, written nine reviews and is currently reading two books that include The Sun is also a Star by Nicola Yoon. Another result on Google throws up a Muck Rack profile page that lists journalists. Here, Aida Kane is visible, with a picture and described as a ‘bilingual English/ French writer who specializes in geopolitics & international affairs.’

While one typo could be wished off, the others couldn’t. Fiction and young adult literature are not genres I have not dabbled in. She had to be looked up some more and some questions had to be asked of her. This is where things started to get interesting.

When the link to her LinkedIN profile page on her Muck Rack page was clicked, it went to the LinkedIN home page. And the people whose pictures emerged on looking up Aida Kane there were different from the person on Muck Rack. So, what about the articles listed against the name on Muck Rack? As for the articles on Muck Rack, all of it were fake with no authors name on a title called The Afro News.

It was inevitable then I send an email to ask for details on how Alda Kane engages with writers. The response was prompt. “The Zoom meeting will be an online conversation where you can join from wherever you are. We will send you a Zoom link before the scheduled time. When it is time for the Spotlight, you simply click the link and follow the prompts to join the meeting.”

A long email exchange followed. This included a blunt question: “Is there any payment, fee, or cost expected from me — at any stage, from anyone associated with this Spotlight — now or later? Yes or no.”

A brusque answer followed: “You are being a little too inquisitive at this stage. The hosting and production are handled by the team responsible for the event, and the specific details will be communicated as we get closer to the date. There is no fee or cost expected from you at any stage.”

The email exchange continued for a while. Sometimes cold. Sometimes angry. But I fell for it. It would be some conversations later and talking to people on other tech forums, I figured, I was in conversation with a bot. These bots are trained to flatter. And flattery is now an industrial scale operation.

Some more looking around later, turns out, this scam is gaining traction. Published authors have been scammed with deposits to engage with audiences that don’t exist. This is just one of the contemporary versions of the ‘Nigerian Prince Scam’.

Even as this dispatch is being written, another request has arrived on LinkedIn from a man with over 12,000 connects—70 of them are mutual. His profile claims he is the director of a firm in Chhattisgarh and an engineer. Again, something looked off. There’s just one post on his profile. “Hi”.

Alda Kane was a bot that at least bothered to invent a genre. This one could not be bothered to invent even a sentence. What I now about Alda Kane is that it is a bot that tries to scam authors with marketing packages beginning at $150. How this one will try is unknown. What is known though is that the 70 ‘mutual connects’ mistook the follower count as a signal of credibility and accepted this bot into their network. Their invoice will come after the signal has done its work.