Scammers Pretended To Be Forum's Mina Kim. Here's Why

About this episode

The episode discusses a new impersonation scam targeting authors in the publishing industry, highlighting the role of AI in facilitating these scams.

In the last month, about a dozen authors wrote to Forum saying they’d been messaged by a fraudster claiming to be Mina Kim. In exchange for a “small fee,” they’d be invited to talk about their book on the show. This is a new kind of impersonation scam targeting the wider publishing industry, and like online dating schemes, they’re using flattery and promises of publicity to con the authors into sending money. We look at why authors are being targeted, just how deep this publishing scam goes, and how AI is superpowering online scams. Guests: Lauren Goode, senior correspondent covering Silicon Valley, Wired Dan Barry, senior writer, The New York Times Julian Sancton, senior features editor, The Hollywood Reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in this episode

Guests: Lauren Goode, Dan Barry, Julian Sancton

Topics covered

• scams
• publishing industry
• impersonation
• AI
• fraud
• authors

Keywords

• scammers
• Mina Kim
• publishing scam
• AI scams
• authors
• fraud

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Forum, Wired, The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter

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