This is a confession and an exposé. I am a mark and a table-turner. This is a cautionary tale of avoidable failure, not so cleverly avoided. This is how, in the first days of actively promoting myself as a freelance writer, I was targeted by a scam. I can say I didn’t get completely sucked in. I can say I deftly navigated my way out of it, outsmarting who or whatever was behind it, leaving them to prey on other suckers elsewhere.
Yeah, I could say those things…
Here’s what happened:
I was let go earlier this year from the company where I’d worked for 33 years. I am close to retirement age but not quite there, and I wasn’t sure how much of a job I really wanted to pursue. I didn’t need to be at the same level I was, but what I really didn’t need was to not be needed. So I went through the motions with the career counseling service that was part of the severance package, coming away with my first resume since 1991 and a much livelier LinkedIn page. And, also for first time in 33 years, I actually applied for some jobs. I then created an additional self on LinkedIn, a freelance one-man gang I called Red Hill Copywriting / Consulting, offering my services to anyone who needed what I know how to do.
Once the Red Hill page was up and cross-connected to my regular LinkedIn page, I started getting messages from former and soon-to-be former colleagues and other connections, congratulating me for landing on my feet so quickly. I wrote back to some of those individuals to clarify what I thought was obvious: that Red Hill was just me, not some hotshot ad agency or mission-driven organization that had swept me up to show them how it’s done. The others I let think what they wanted to think. I also got a lot of messages from people who couldn’t believe I’d been let go. I was tempted to respond that I was finding it quite plausible.
Anyway, lots of well wishes that had the intended affirming effect, some so spirit-lifting I still re-read them. But no actual offers of work, or even invitations to talk about the possibility of work.
This whole process of putting myself out there was new to me. Since moving to New York, I’ve never had to do it. Every interview I’ve had here came through a recruiting service, and more than that, through the same recruiter, the same person. She found the opportunities for me. She called me when she thought it was time for me to move on to another place. And as for freelance work (and I did a lot of it), everyone of my clients so far has contacted me unsolicited. Someone left my company, went somewhere else, and they needed some work done. Then someone she knew left for somewhere else and they needed someone. And so it’s gone. A designer acquaintance asked me to recommend her to another publisher. She never got anything from them, but they put me to work for over a decade.
I’d had it easy. It had all been initiated by someone else. All I had to do was do the work. But now for the first time, I was dealing with something all those freelancers I used to hire had to deal with all the time. The gnawing, clock-stopping wait for a phone call, an email, something. And what I was getting was…
Nothing.
Until…
I saw the first message from Annette on Wednesday morning, July 24. At that time I was still setting my alarm for 5:20 to get out the door for a run by 6 am (I’m starting to loosen up on that). Before heading out, I checked my email. Annette’s message had come in at 2:25 am:
Hi,
I’m interested in your writing services and would love to discuss a potential project with you. Your portfolio showcases your versatility and skill, and I think you’d be a great fit for this assignment.
Could you please share your availability, rates, and any relevant information about your writing services? I’d appreciate any information you can provide about your service.
If you’re available and interested, I’d love to send you more details.
Best regards,
Annette Haynes
I responded immediately that yes, I was indeed available and interested. Was I ever!
Annette Haynes…Annette Haynes…who could she be? What led her to me? I had a former work colleague with that last name. She’d written a very nice message on my virtual goodbye card (I reread those messages multiple times as well). Could this be a sister? No wait, Amy’s married and had taken her husband’s name. Sister-in-law, then. No, hold off. Amy spells it Haines not Haynes. Maybe this was something simpler yet more gratifying. Annette came across my skimpy Red Hill LinkedIn page and knew instinctively that I was the writer for her.
Now, she did mention seeing my portfolio. I hadn’t actually made one available yet. Ok, she was just buttering me up. And that odd time for the message to be received? Well, maybe Annette was in California working late or Europe working early. Or who knows? In Japan, on her lunch break. Wherever she was, she might have thought the time stamp on my response was unusual. Early bird or night owl?
Annette’s next message came in at 10:13:
Hello Todd,
Thanks for the response. I am an academic . I am organizing a seminar for High schools in the Harrisburg area. The article will feature in a bulletin that will be given to the participants at the seminar. The article will guide the speaker and help the participants to grasp the topic that’s been discussed. The theme of the seminar is Academic Challenges And Overcoming Them. The article should reflect the challenges faced by students and various ways to overcome them. I have taken the liberty to draft a table of content that will guide you. The article should have 2900 words.
The delivery date is September 25th, 2024. The budget is $1.40c/word. That’s $1.40c x 2900= $4,060 in total. If the price is not satisfactory, let me know what you’d charge to get it done.
She also provided a skeletal outline of common impediments to academic success for high schoolers, nothing I couldn’t have guessed – distractions, peer pressure, balancing school and social life, trouble at home. I decided Annette was well-intended but didn’t do this kind of thing very often, someone working on an ancient PC who found the internet intimidating (and who didn’t understand that a red squiggly line meant there was something to correct. That extra space after “academic” and the capitalized “H” on high school are hers, not mine).
As for the topic, I’d written about it plenty and had edited a number of pieces by others on the subject. But then, so have a lot of people. A lot of qualified people. A few taps in a browser and you could get whatever version you like: research-backed findings in academic journals, New York Times articles, “how to” advice on teen-oriented websites. I would never have plagiarized anything or used AI for a first draft. But I could follow what was already written to see those studies for myself and use my own language. This was going to be easy. And $4000. What a start! Deadline of September 25? Ha! How about Friday afternoon?
I wrote back to tell her the compensation was good and to set up a time for us to talk. The response came several hours later, at 6:07 pm:
I am glad that the terms and conditions are fine with you. I have taken the pain to write an elaborate response explaining in detail what I want. Email is my preferred method of communication because of my condition. I suffer from Apraxia of speech. I’d appreciate it if you can put your questions into writing and send me an email. I’ll respond to you as fast as I can. As you can see, I take my time to read and respond to emails. Secondly, I want every communication to be in black and white for sponsorship and documentation purposes. Thank you for your understanding.
I’ll be waiting to read from you.
Warm regards.
Apraxia? I had to look that one up and if you don’t know what it is, I’ll save you the trouble – it is when the brain has trouble communicating with the muscles needed for speech. Well, that would explain a lot about the way she was coming across. And maybe she sincerely thought the phase was “taken the pain” instead of “taken the pains.”
I wrote back around 8 pm Wednesday that I understood how things were and would put together some questions for her. She acknowledged at 4:30 Thursday morning, and I sent her this message the following Thursday afternoon:
I’m enjoying thinking about this assignment. I can certainly use your outline, do some research, and pull this together. I’ve written on this topic before. But I want to make sure that’s the plan. Here are a few questions:
I’m assuming the audience for the seminar is students, but I realize that may be wrong. Is it about teachers helping students or students helping themselves?
Is there a syllabus or a presentation deck for the seminar itself that I can look at, to see how the speaker is going to address these topics? Or is the idea that this piece will guide the speaker’s presentation?
Do you have anything additional I should look at before getting started? Again, the outline is plenty, but I want to make sure this piece reflects your ideas on the topic.
Annette’s response came in Friday morning at the more ordinary time of 8:32 am:
Thaks for your reply. I am glad that you find the topic interesting and are willing to work with me. The article is for the students. Teachers or parents are not going to be with these kids all the time. I want this workshop to address the students directly so that they’ll know what to do when they need help. Secondly, the article is going to guide the speaker. I want the speaker to have an input on the topic. You are going to use the same guideline though. I think the guideline is elaborate enough. Don’t forget, I am on a budget. If I had more guidelines, that’s more words to be written. Let’s work with these.
I acknowledge that your details have been received and payment will be mailed out to you as soon as possible. I will keep you posted.
Warm regards.
First off, again, she hadn’t responded to the red squiggly line (“thaks”). But more than that, I had to finally acknowledge that this was getting a little nutty. Was she really asking me to write something that would be the basis of the presentation, the summary of its ideas, activities, and recommendations, as opposed to writing something that summarized a presentation already packaged up and ready to go? I could do it, write it all up with supporting references and sound authoritative (and clever and hip and possessed with a unique ability to really connect with today’s teenagers). But shouldn’t a professional educator or counselor be guiding me instead of the other way around?
This was when I gave my wife an update on the project, pointing out all of the little headscratchers as if they were charming, not unsettling. I was still coming at it as if Annette were merely a sweet eccentric, a dedicated veteran teacher, stricken but working to overcome the limitations of her disability. And she’d gotten a grant of some kind and found a writer and a presenter to do what she couldn’t do to make her passion project a reality. Well, okay. This was work for hire. And if four grand was where working for Annette started, who knows where it could lead?
Right?
My wife was immediately skeptical (“Uh, honey?”) and I don’t think I hid my reaction well. Oh no, I know I was showing her, don’t bring me down. After the weeks of bum out I’d been wallowing in, this is the one bright spot. Don’t take this away! And she realized that’s how her response was hitting me so she pivoted to tell me it was great news and to tell her more when I found out more.
Yes and then, and only then, did I do what I should have done after the first exchange of messages. I looked Annette Haynes up. And found, well, nothing. Okay, not quite nothing. Out of a host of Annette Haynes’s on LinkedIn, I did spot a mostly inactive page for one with divinity school credentials. There was no recent activity, no posts or endorsements, but this Annette was affiliated with a church in New Mexico and had previously worked for faith-based organizations in a few locations in Pennsylvania. So Harrisburg as the landing spot for this material became borderline plausible, as did – no offense to faith-based workers or New Mexico – my thinking that this was a well-intended someone not fully in step with the modern world.
The snap-out-of-it moment finally came later that afternoon, courtesy of my dear friend, Martin. I get together with him and a couple of other guys on Friday evenings to play music in a studio we rent in Union City, New Jersey. The event usually starts with a pre-jam pint, and on that day, we met at an outdoor bar in Bryant Park behind the main New York Public Library building. Martin is another longtime publishing professional, only at a much more accomplished executive level. At that moment, somehow, he was under contract at two separate companies, serving as more or less head of publishing for each at the same time, each a role that you’d think would preclude him doing the other. Plus, he’s English and knows everything. I’m not being sarcastic.
Our third member who travels to the studio from Manhattan, Matt, was a few minutes away, so I gave Martin a quick rundown of what was going on. He was shaking his head from the beginning. Then Matt arrived and I had to go through it all again, to an audience now of two shaking heads.
Martin took the lead in pointing out all of the warning signs – odd message times, a reference to a portfolio that I hadn’t made available, Annette’s non-institutional email address, no online presence for her, stilted language, payment before seeing the work, Apraxia! – the pileup of screwy things that I was refusing to let override the possibility that someone out there (as opposed to more or less everyone else) wanted me to work for them.
Martin laid it out for me as if this was among the most obvious, well-documented scams of our age, right up there with freeing the Nigerian prince and claiming your unclaimed inheritance. The object was to get my address (which I’d already given them) then send me something in the mail that for all the world looked like a valid check. My bank would have trouble with it, I’d tell Annette, then she’d offer to wire the money directly to my bank. I’d just need to provide the account and routing numbers.
And then I’d wake up to a bank balance of zero.
I used to say the only reason I hadn’t been successfully targeted for fraud or identity theft was that nobody had really bothered to try. Then, of course, they did. Just a few years ago, someone got my debit card number and went on a fairly pathetic shopping spree at several Walgreens in Georgia. I got the money back. Not long after that, one evening coming home from a soccer match at Yankee Stadium, I responded to a text alert from the bank who issued my credit card – they had just put $4000 charge on hold until I could confirm that it really was me trying to book a week at a singles only-resort in Jamaica. With my wife at my side, speaking loud enough to be heard by her, I said, “No, absolutely not. I am not trying to book a week at a singles-only resort in Jamaica.”
I didn’t even sound convincing to myself but the bank was satisfied, and seemingly my wife was as well. It was all cleared up during the 15-minute walk home from Grand Central.
Then, only a year and a half ago, there was a massive data breach at my now former company. Those of us caught up in it, including my wife and son, were enrolled for free with the major credit protection services. but by upon signing up, I learned I was in default on a balance of over $1000. At Victoria’s Secret. Apparently, the notices going to my address in the Bronx had gone unanswered and a collection agency was looking for me. It was surprisingly easy to get that one straightened out, starting with clear proof that I haven’t ever lived in the Bronx. My wife thought this one was much funnier than the Jamaica thing. Subsequent credit applications to Lowe’s and Wells Fargo were blocked before they went anywhere. The guardrails held.
But now, this was a whole new level of exposure. This was Annette. And I’d let her in. She couldn’t get into my bank account yet (thank goodness) but she had my phone number and address.
I suppose I could have just stopped responding, or could have written saying I was no longer interested in doing the project without explanation. If coming after me stopped being effortless, maybe she’d turn her attention elsewhere.
What to do? Well, I did what anyone with any sense would do. I asked Martin what to do. And with his approval, I sent the following:
I’ll probably get into this midweek next week and it won’t take long from there. But before I start I’d like to know more about who I’m working for. Can you share a bio and current affiliation? Are you on LinkedIn? And you mentioned sponsors for your seminar. I’d like to know who they are as well. I’ll also be sending you a standard Statement of Work and an invoice. I need those for taxes.
A perfectly reasonable response from a writing professional, and nothing in it that overtly revealed I was onto her. Or perhaps she’d start to wonder if she’d met her match, to suspect that I wasn’t who I claimed to be, that “Todd” was but a part of a coordinated multi-front law enforcement effort (local authorities, the FBI, Interpol!) to entrap the Annettes of this world and put them away!
Annette’s next email didn’t come until August 5, over a week later. But in between those messages, I got something else from her. On Wednesday evening, July 31, I went to our apartment building’s package room to pick up an Amazon order and was given an additional small USPS envelope. From Sarasota Avionics in Venice, Florida.
Inside was a check for $4060.
Oh heck.
It was on Amaris Bank, drawn on the account of Supermercado Talpa 10, LLC, and dated 7/29. There is indeed such a bank and Supermercado Talpa looks to be a real regional chain of Latin American grocery stores in the southeast. And Sarasota Avionics in Venice, Florida, does exist.
I wanted it to be real. I wanted to be shamed for ever doubting Annette, fighting her way through Apraxia to improve the lives of high school students everywhere. I wanted to call the bank to be told, “What’s the problem? Cash the check, my friend!” But if not real, I wanted it to be a whole lot less unnerving than it was.
Somehow, I summoned the strength to do nothing. I didn’t call that bank. I didn’t deposit the check. I didn’t destroy it either, as a few people recommended. I wanted to be able to prove I had it in case someone denied it was ever sent. (Oh yeah? Then what’s this! Courtroom audience gasps).
I kept it. I’m looking at it right now. That check.
And the other one.
The one that arrived three days later, Saturday, not held in the package room but waiting in our regular mailbox in the lobby.
The second check was for the same amount. But more than that, it was identical in every detail to the first one, same account, bank, routing number, even the same check number in the upper right corner. The only difference from the previous delivery was the return address on the envelope itself. The Saturday check came from Marriott International in Louisville, Tennessee. I now know there really is a Louisville, Tennessee. It looks to be a suburb of Knoxville and thus nowhere near the one in Kentucky. Google Maps says I can drive there from New York in 12 hours.
Here’s that August 5th message from Annette, coming in a week after my request for more details and after I’d been mailed the two checks:
Hello Todd,
How are you doing? I am sorry that I have not been in touch with you. I had a family emergency. My mom was rushed to the hospital and I had to stay with her until she’s stable. I just got back home tonight. I am happy to inform you that the payment has been delivered to you by USPS. You have been professional and absolutely impeccable in your feedback and I am impressed. I have complete faith in your abilities. The project will cost $4,060 and that’s the amount on the check. Kindly confirm with me as soon as you receive the payment and you can start immediately. We have barely 8 weeks to finish the project now. Proceed to deposit the check and send me a proof of deposit for my records.
Many Thanks
I junked the email and blocked the sender, hoping that would be it.
The next day, I received a text from an unfamiliar number. Nothing new there. I get unsolicited messages and phone calls all the time, the most popular being expressions of concern about my car insurance coverage (I don’t own a car) or voicemail transcripts in Chinese following up on phone messages in Chinese.
But this one…
…was from Annette.
It was a friendly reminder that the check had been delivered and I should deposit it right away.
She was in my phone. In…..my…..phone.
I blocked that number. Then I went into my email, copied out all of the messages from Annette, saved them offline, and trashed them, even emptying the trash folder itself.
About an hour or so later I got another text:
Don’t you want to get my messages anymore?
I was shaking. Sweating inside my skin. Those were the words of a ransom seeker or blackmailer (“We have photos…”), or an outright demon slithering all around me online, slipping away when cornered, waiting to give me a preview of an unpleasant eternity.
This was really in my head now. It was all coming together. The debit cards, the data breach, the Victoria’s Secret account, this scam. And did I mention Facebook? I’m averaging two hacks a year (as were a lot of my FB friends) and had just responded to the latest one, yet another invitation sent out to everyone who already was a Facebook friend. But there was something more this time. In the “People I May Know” row, I came across someone named Todd Elder Sr., using the profile photo I’d just replaced. At least a dozen friends had responded and were now friends of Todd Sr., people who should have known full good and well that Todd Sr. couldn’t be me because neither my son nor I was a Todd Jr. (Pay attention out there!)
When I was working with the credit services, I was advised to take a few steps to protect my compromised identity, among them filing a report with the Federal Trade Commission. So when I settled down a bit, that’s what I did. I told on Annette, giving the Feds the whole story. I tried pasting in the complete series of emails but they added up to too something like four times their online form’s character limit, so I edited it down to the essentials and sent it in. I got an automatic response a few minutes later:
Thank you for filing a report with the Federal Trade Commission and helping to fight fraud in your community. The FTC does not resolve individual reports, but your report will be entered in the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel database and will be available to federal, state, and local law enforcement across the country.
Well, what did I expect? Thanks for providing the missing piece of evidence in a years-long investigation? We’ll send somebody right over?
What I did next was perhaps the worst possible thing I could do. That Junk folder to which I banished Annette’s messages? I just had to look, didn’t I? All of those horror movies where you want to scream, “Don’t open the door!” to the scared-stupid character on the screen? I wouldn’t have heard you either.
It was like lifting a log just enough to see a nest of writhing, snarling, ill-intended creatures now free to fly in chaotic formation right at my face. Financial offers and financial threats, fake order confirmations, security software I hadn’t purchased failing on devices I didn’t own, all kinds of “Greetings my friend” from other countries, other languages, other alphabets.
And there was Annette, each of her messages tagged with a red circle with a line through it, but they weren’t just messages anymore, they were her, Annette herself, lashed down, glaring at me, swearing to get me as she struggled against restraints I prayed would hold. But I’d let her in. Gave her/them/it my address. And phone number. What if this wasn’t an impersonal international conspiracy casting a wide net, only needing a few stupid fish to get caught in it? What if there really was an Annette, leader of a group of vicious operators, delighting in tormenting me, perfectly willing to escalate the invasion of my life to keep from being exposed?
I was sitting at my computer desk, worrying about all of this. When would I feel safe again? She/they/it knows where I live! Annette knows!
Then there was a knock at the door.
Really. With my mind going full Tilt-a-Whirl, fearful my slightest misstep had me in freefall, there was a knock at the door. Twenty-one floors up in a doorman building, how could there be an unexpected knock?
Except it wasn’t unexpected, or shouldn’t have been. It was Hiram. The maintenance guy. Oh yeah, I’d called the office about a problem with our shower faucet not twenty minutes before but had been so pre-occupied with Annette that I’d forgotten all about it. But here he was. Hiram! It was 9:30 in the morning but he was already sweating. This wasn’t his first stop. Hiram had been helping people for some time already this morning and now he was here to help us. Me. He took a quick look at the shower faucet, and no it wasn’t going to be as I feared, a costly repair requiring an outside plumber. He left and came back with a replacement faucet and by a little after 10 am he’d taken care of the problem. He’s taken care of a lot of problems in this apartment. A visit from Hiram always ends with a deep feeling of appreciation and, more than that, a sense of relief.
As it did this time. Relief. I was relieved.
Because if Hiram was in on it with Annette, I really was in trouble.