This Week In Delicious Scams; Or, I Yam Not What You Think I Yam

If you are anything like I once was, you moved through life feeling pretty sure you were not going to get scammed. You had an eye for the desperation of a fake Craigslist posting. You were attuned to the strange formatting of a phishing email. You had not even written a book intriguing enough to attract the attention of the mysterious book thief. But then hubris got my ass, as it is wont to do, and somehow I ended up inputting my debit card information into a fake USPS website and losing around $600 in many installments of $19.99 to a man named Maurice in Georgia. (Hey, at least I didn't get scammed by a cat.)

No species is above a scam, or above getting scammed. Two recently published papers bring news of particularly creative scams that, as a bystander, made me chuckle. And now I will share them with you! I recognize my privilege here. Perhaps I would not find these scams so charming if I were the bird or bee in question. As such, the pages of Defector remain open to any victims of said scams who would like to share their stories.

Please direct all pitches to [email protected].