By John Marrs

A Scammer Spent Six Weeks Pretending to Be Me – Here’s How Close It Came to Working

My mornings usually begin with a quick check of my social media messages over breakfast. But a week before writing this article, one message in particular caught my attention. It was from an Australian author and read:

‘John, could I ask you to please verify here if you have been in regular contact with me over the last six weeks via a Gmail account?’

I already knew the answer was no. I don’t have Gmail, and I don’t contact authors I don’t know unless it’s through one of my verified social media accounts. By the sounds of it, a scammer was impersonating me online. However, at that point, I had no idea how far they’d gone to convince that author it was me. 

Impersonators and scam accounts on social media are something I’ve had to deal with far too often. For years, I’ve been notified about fake profiles using variations of my name, usually with ‘live chat’ or ‘private chat’ added on. They pop up in the comments, steal my photos, and try to look as convincing as possible.

I’ve even had impersonators create deepfake videos of me to lure my readers into sharing personal information and bank details. What makes this even more frustrating is the reluctance of platforms like Facebook to remove these fake accounts. However, much to the scammers’ annoyance, people are becoming wise to these tactics, and their efforts aren’t paying off in the way they once did.

This is where the Gmail scam comes in. It’s a tactic currently targeting authors, and it’s exactly what happened to the writer who contacted me. She was messaged by someone pretending to be me, claiming I’d noticed her deeply personal memoir, believed it had real potential, and wanted to help it reach a wider audience.

I’ve read the messages myself and I learned that over several weeks, the fake ‘me’ sent dozens and dozens of long, articulate emails about books in general and the writing process. In fact, fake John Marrs had a better way with words than the real one! But what shocked me most was the impersonator then introduced this writer to a ‘publicist’, someone impersonating a real publicist I had genuinely worked with years earlier, and whose name a quick Google search would verify.

From there, the scam escalated. They requested AU$5,800 for a four-month marketing campaign to re-launch her book. The tone remained polite and personal throughout, with reassuring phrases like ‘don’t feel pressured,’ but the sense of urgency kept subtly increasing. That’s when she reached out to me directly, and I’m incredibly glad she did. Thankfully she didn’t part with her hard-earned cash.

I’m far from the only author dealing with this. Ruth Ware recently posted online about cold emails being sent in her name, supposedly introducing her agent, and even a fake ‘Abby’ from Crime by the Book, to early-career authors. These scammers are exploiting self published authors by telling them they can be a commercial success if they invest in themselves. I began my career as a self-published author. I know how much it would have meant to me if an author I admired got in touch and wanted to help. I may have fallen for this kind of scam myself.

It’s incredibly important that we learn to spot the signs of when we’re being duped. For me, it’s simple: if you’re not speaking to me through one of my official channels, you’re not speaking to me. 

And the harsh reality is that most established authors aren’t going to contact you out of the blue and have a long, private conversation about your book, the writing process, or how they can support you. It’s not that authors don’t care. I, for one, genuinely want every writer to fulfil their dream of being published and find success in this industry. I try my best to respond to comments and messages via my official channels. But that doesn’t mean I can open doors for you. And I will never endorse you spending your hard-earned money on something you haven’t independently verified or sourced yourself.

So, please spread the word. Scammers thrive in silence and confusion and through embarrassed writers not speaking up when they’ve been taken for a ride. So, the more we talk about this, the harder we make it for them. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, then that’s exactly what it is. And your writing deserves more than becoming a body of work that a scammer can exploit.