Almost Scammed Last Week

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Throughout my day, I receive a
number of phone calls. Often they are my Morgan James authors asking questions
or returning my phone call. Other times they are friends or family members. For
most of the people in my contacts list, I have added their photo in addition to
their name so with a glance I can see who is calling.
 
This week on a whim, I answered a
random number not in my contact list (not a good idea). It was someone who
claimed to be from Amazon security checking to see if I had recently purchased
an iPhone. The location for the purchase was in California and I'm in Colorado.
I listened and said it was not me. Then this person directed me to a website
address. I typed it in and it looked like an Amazon site but was not an Amazon
site.
 
I accused them of being a scam,
disconnected the call then blocked this number from being able to call me again.
Then I went to my Amazon account and checked my orders. No iPhone was ordered
and the call was a scam. Whew. I narrowly avoided it and gave the caller zero
personal information.
 
I wrote this article because even
though I've been online for years, I came close to being scammed. As writers we
need to be cautious and be careful. I'm not answering any more phone numbers
which are not already in my phone. These numbers are mostly spam, political or
scams. If you call me for the first time,. leave a message and I can return
those calls.
 
Scams also happen within
publishing. I wrote about one of those possibilities in an article recently
published on the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference called Should I Self-Publish? (follow the link to read this piece).

 
Finally, last week I had two
additional articles published on other blogs. Once a month I contribute an
article to Writers on the Move. This month I wrote about how Published Writers Must Be Pitching. Finally for the Suite T
Blog, I wrote an article, “Do Editors Fix All My Mistakes?” It is another publishing
myth which I attempted to dispell and encourage writers to make a good first
impression with their submission. I hope these additional articles help
you. 
 
Have you been
scammed or like me, almost scammed through some phony pitch? Let me know in th
ecomments below. 
 Tweetable:
This prolific editor and author answered a
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