The Equivalent of a Nigerian Prince --should I reply?
I don’t mean to stain the name of Nigeria or bring dishonor to princes, or assert that anyone from that country is a bad person. I’m sorry if scammers, cons, phishers, and frauds have ruined it for Nigerian princes, turning them into memes.
It’s just that I have no way of knowing if an offer I got this week is for-reals.
From: Nora Droste
Date: Thu, May 27,
2021 at 1:23 PM
Subject: Creative
Writing and Poetry Conference – We Need Your Experience!
To:
Hello:
My name is Nora Droste and I work for Smart Asset. We are hiring writers and poets with adequate work-related experience for our conference. The objective is to have you share your experiences as a writer and/or poet with everyone attending the conference including some of our employees and members of the general public by invitation only. This is to encourage people looking to become new writers. We request for you to work 1 hour on any two days between July 10th and July 30th, 2021. This will be between 12 PM and 2 PM Pacific Standard Time. We are willing to pay you $1,500 for these two days. If you are interested, please tell us the dates that you will be available for.
Sincerely
Nora DrosteVice President of Human Resources
Should my first clue be a company playing off the pun: Smart Ass?
I replied:
Dear Nora
I'd like to think
this is a genuine offer, but something in the generic nature of the invite
makes me think otherwise.
If you could get back to me with more specifics then maybe we can talk.
I thought if they were a bot then they wouldn’t reply. Now, to be sure, I am a poor starving artist. The idea of $1,500 is 2 months rent. But I would have actually done it for $150. As, I’ve written about here at my blog, Louisa May Alcott made more from her various short stories submitted to tight-fisted cigar-chomping hard-boiled editors than I have in the 21st-century from online platforms, social media, mainstream publishers.
When my flashes, essays, etc appear in journals it is mostly for the kingly amount of pub cred. I’m still awaiting royalties from my book publisher. They are digging out from a return of books after a Humanities Conference I spoke at in 2018. After a small advance my first book was remaindered 9 weeks after publication when that publisher merged, eaten by a bigger publisher, who trimmed the list to bare bones.
But it’s not about money. (So they say.) It’s about art. It’s about being read. My work finding a home with a reader.
Today came their reply
Hi Jane:
I understand your concern. Let me provide you with more information. We are a financial technology company who is promoting a virtual conference over GoToWebinar which is like Zoom. It will be called A Writer’s Experience as many of our employees love writing which is one of the main reasons why we are creating this event. This conference will feature renowned writers from around the country telling of their experience as a writer and/or poet to other prospective writers. We are looking for qualified writers to give a talk and answer some of the audience’s questions. Kindly select two days that you are available for.
More red flags! Adequate work-experience. Renowned writers. Qualified. I wonder: On whose list did my name appear?
I Google Smart Asset. Financial services and products are so not my area of expertise that it feels like I’m reading Elvish. It is a company that advises people on financial advisers. Which sounds somewhat meta—so I decided to turn the whole thing into a meta blog entry, and record the whole thing.
Hello:
Thank you for showing interest. We have made note of the dates that you are available for. We will be sending you the required video equipment in order to make yourself available to the everyone including the attendees. This includes a high quality web camera, headset with microphone, specialized monitor and a copy of the software that we use called GoToWebinar which is similar to Zoom.
We will also be sending you a contract for your review to establish an agreement between us as soon as we complete creating a presenter profile for you with our agency. Please send me your first name, last name and address for record keeping purposes and to prepare your equipment so that it may be sent out to you as soon as possible.
Again they are toeing the line, the border of Nigerian Prince-dom. I apply a kind of logic. As long as I don’t give out my bank account info or agree to send a money order—but I am highly suspicious, and highly needy. I could use the money.
Stay tuned. I’d appreciate advice, feedback, a real prince.
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