The musings of Sean Paul Murphy: Editor, Producer, Screenwriter, Author. Or, Hollywood -- and beyond -- as seen from an odd little corner of northeast Baltimore, Maryland.
Sean Paul Murphy, Writer
Sean Paul Murphy, Storyteller
Friday, December 9, 2022
Writer Tip #38: Scammed!
There's few things that make me angrier than people taking financial advantage of writers.
Many writers, especially unpublished authors or unproduced screenwriters, are surviving on hope alone. They have often spend years honing their craft in obscurity with nothing to show for it except rejection. That's why so many of us fall prey to high paid but worthless gurus or readers who promise us the keys to success. Imagine something even more enticing: Someone willing to pay you a thousand dollars to write one three thousand word story per week. Who wouldn't jump at that?
I got just such an offer.
It's not unusual for me to get offers. I have written fourteen produced features. Twelve of them were written on assignment. In a very small genre, I am somewhat well known. I have received offers. Some I have taken. Some I haven't. (You'll find my criterion for acceptance elsewhere in this blog series.) Therefore, I wasn't surprised to find an offer from Tom Handy @handy465.
I met him on Twitter. He followed me. I followed him back. That's what I do. I generally follow everyone back unless they use the word crypto in their profile or its obviously porn or dating. I also always avoid anyone running a orphanage in Africa. Seems like every person who follows me from Uganda or Nigeria runs an orphanage filled with starving children who will die unless I send them money.
Here's his profile:
He's been a member since May 2021 and he's written 225 tweets. He tweets a couple of times a week. Usually vague Christian-y messages. That shows some commitment to the con. Most scammers and bots have either no messages or retweets only. I assumed I was talking to a person and not just a bot.
Then came the pitch, via Direct Message:
Thanks for following, May God bless your work.
Are you open to Clean writing opportunities?
Yes, I am.
Good, It's a freelance content writing opportunity from
Clean Romance, Clean historical romance, Christian
Adventure, Christian Kidlit story, Christian Thriller,
Christian Horror, and Christian Drama. What genre are
you comfortable writing in? $1,000 per story, 1 story a
week. Can you assist with that?
Are you talking about screenplays or narrative stories?
If narrative stories, how many words are you looking for?
Narrative stories, 3000+ words- a complete story or
series. Can you join our executive team at the telegram
hybrid workspace at 11:00 am ET Thursday 8th,
December for an interview, benefits, and requirements?
I'm interested and I would be happy to talk to you
tomorrow.
Join the executive team at ID: (Crossflixworks21) on
telegram. Identify yourself in the workspace.
I already knew it was a scam when I agreed to talk, but I thought it would be fun to go through the process.
The first thing I did was research Tom Handy @handy465. I found another writer named Heather Hancock in the faith field who called him out as a fraud online. I reached out to her on Twitter and she was very forthcoming. At the time, instead of CrossFlixPlus, Tom claimed to be working for Up Faith and Family. Heather was more direct than me. She reached out to Up. They quickly responded and said whoever she was talking with was not a representative of their company.
I decided to go through with the interview despite the fact that I was leery of downloading the Telegram app. I wanted to play along until I saw exactly how they were going to rip me off.
The next morning I downloaded the app and spoke with Louis McCall, SRVP of Human Resources. He tried to deliver a series of pre-prepared questions about what kind of writing I did, but I kept asking questions. His answers to my questions took much longer than my answers to his questions. Also his answers to my questions revealed that English was definitely Mr. McCall's second or third language. He did tell me that they were producing ten-to-eleven films a year. However, it took him quite a while to come up with a title when I asked him to name one. (His response: City of David. No IMDb listing.)
Despite my questions, I managed to get through the interview successfully. He set up another telegram interview the next day with Melissa Rea, Operation Director. This interview did not go as well. She seemed annoyed by my questions, and the more annoyed she became, the less precise her English. However, she did tell me that they were signatories to the Writers Guild of America, West. That certainly put me at ease!
She sent me a .pdf of an employment agreement and requested that I send her my resume. This was a moment of truth for me. I didn't want to give them that much information about myself. Still, I played along. I told her I was happy to send it to her company email address. She said I could send it on Telegram. I said I wasn't comfortable sending it on Telegram and that I needed a company email. At that point our conversation ended and the text of both interviews disappeared! That's obviously one of the reasons why they picked Telegram. Most other chats would have left me with the text.
Fortunately, I had forwarded the employment agreement to my email when I received it. Here's both pages:
Drat. It looks like I was qualified for the job. I am over eighteen, I have a high school diploma and no felony convictions....
I apologize for not screen grabbing both interviews, but I was caught off guard by the sudden end. I was hoping to make it through at least one more interview....
I hope what I did capture proves useful to you. Remember, there's no shortage of people out there willing to scam writers.
BTW, I am open for legitimate writing assignments.....
So many red flags in that letter! (United State, anyone?)
However, the biggest red flag to me is that the payment is per story with no detail of how long the story should be (100 words? 1000? 100,000?) and no indication of how many stories you'll be commissioned to write.
Also, why bother putting in the holiday and overtime payments when payment per story means the role likely isn't eligible for either?
Red flags galore! I knew they were false when I reached back. However, to answer your question, they explained that the stories needed to be 3000 words. They seemed to indicate that they would be turned into movies. They said they were making 15 movies a year, but it took a long time for them to name a title!
So many red flags in that letter! (United State, anyone?)
ReplyDeleteHowever, the biggest red flag to me is that the payment is per story with no detail of how long the story should be (100 words? 1000? 100,000?) and no indication of how many stories you'll be commissioned to write.
Also, why bother putting in the holiday and overtime payments when payment per story means the role likely isn't eligible for either?
Red flags galore! I knew they were false when I reached back. However, to answer your question, they explained that the stories needed to be 3000 words. They seemed to indicate that they would be turned into movies. They said they were making 15 movies a year, but it took a long time for them to name a title!
Delete