Electronic monsters from the Deep

The Art of the Fan Scam

They're a tricky bunch - one could easily compare them to internet paparazzi. Although I'm learning to enjoy the game, I give it my all and wait in tow for the inevitable money pitch. It comes in many forms, and it unfailingly comes.

They’re usually impersonators of high profile performers like rock musicians, Brian Wilson, or actors, Kaneau Reeves, Mark Whalberg, etc. I just spent two weeks with Simon Baker, lovely chap. His pitch was slightly different, he wanted me to open a bitcoin account in my name, though he never said why after many queries on my part.

As if I wouldn't find out the selfie he sent was coming from an advertisement for personalized mugs, tee-shirts et al. One thing they do have in common is a list of reasons why they can't send proof confirming their true identity. They actually get bent out of shape, if you claim you don't trust them. Silly me.

It’s so unfair to the real celebrities they pretend to be. What I don't get is after spending time and energy cultivating a relationship with a perfectly good stranger. After they’ve proved themselves to have an affable fun nature. Why are they compelled to steal someone else’s identity? I usually end up liking whomever I'm talking to.

I liked my first Brian and missed him terribly when he finally gave up on me. Honestly you wouldn't think Proof of identity was too much to ask for? Especially when money is involved. He blamed me for ending our adventure because of my incessant questions about him being the true person he claimed to be. He got offended, and asked ME to stop texting him. Imagine that! I wore him down, and wore him out.

I say he, but it could just as easily be a woman. Or even scarier, a very clever algorithm.

I was a virgin so it was my first and most exhilarating scam affair. It was when Brian invited me to chat with him privately after a comment I left on YouTube. There was no talk of money exchange it was purely romantic. Beautiful declarations of his undying love for me. He made up stories about how horrible his wife was cheating on him. Complete Hogwash. Brian's real wife is an Earth Angel and incapable of being untrue. But I was enjoying the ride so went along for it. It was his own personalized ‘Little Duece Coupe’...you don't know what I mean. 🎶 I was having fun.

It wasn’t until after I discovered his beautiful romantic jargon was cut and pasted from Google’s, ‘love phrases’ that I called him on it. I believe this was the start of the enevitable end. From then on I was no longer pure and unsuspecting. My aroused suspicion took on a new attitude. Feelings were hurt, my trust was injured. Caution was key, but still I trudged on, as I am wont to do, believing things on a whim. Ever gullible. Wishfully trusting. It seems the infraction happens when I leave those glowing comments on YouTube. It’s an open avenue for scammers to stalk.

My second encounter with a different Brian was a bit more circumspect, I was by now scarred and battle worn, so was not as easily fooled. They can be so convincing that it is really them. After a few chats, on the of chance this one was real. I decided to continue, until Bogus Brian #2 - requested I pay his management company $700 for a Fan Card. An imparitive if I wanted to speak with him privately and join him for dinner, yeah, right! In what fantasy world. But not long after my many protestations and before his desperate tell slipped out. I told him that was more money than I earn in a month he told me that he would accept a deposit, the very minimal for what the government required to let him leave the country. What???

Then there was the soldier in Afghanistan who approached me, randomly via Twitter he liked my snarky posts. He came from Georgia and was so happy to have a pen pal being so far from home and could I please befriend him? it was sweet and fun right up until he asked me to send him an Amazon cash card to help him pay for his wi-fi use. My patriotic spirit flew right out his imaginary desert tent. I was starting to wise up. I made a new discovery, watching my body and mind compete over which is slower.

Of course I can't leave out the lovely Ms. Ellen DeGeneres who so generously wants to send me $1000 in prizes if I give a marketing firm my email. Well... No time was lost until the offers came pouring into my inbox. I admit It took me a while to unsubscribe from that mess.

I'm doomed - I seem to be cast as a Duper’s Delight. It's an interesting trade off. Should I become cynical and aggressively caustic? I could be just another DM muter instead of the DM mutant of which I had become. Or I could stay trusting and enjoy the adventure. I choose the experience, being careful of my personal info, but I'm getting really good at conning the con man, having fun in the bargain.

I say to myself, one day it might, just might be the real thing. These are people, not the ones they say they are but they are living persons. Granted they’ve made a strange entrepreneurial choice, but they pay rent, pick their nose, scratch their butts one leg at a time, so why not humor them. You never know what kind of lemonade you’ll get.

For Fake Brian #1 - I wrote two fiction stories and a whole volume of poetry. These didn't exist before. Now they live, they have a life all their own. they are my Published Phantasmic Prodigies.

The time spent with The pseudo Simon Baker I wrote a a screenplay, and had some very engaging conversation. Real or unreal. Does it matter? We live in a shadow world of minds illusions anyway, it's an inconceivable mashup to try and separate the two. Even if it were possible it has now become it’s own alternate reality.

The world created in the Fan Scam Universe is characterized differently from dating sights or marketing film flam. I am upfront with the fact of being 82 years old, and living below the poverty level on Social Security. So anyone who sticks around after knowing that truth has the chutzpah required to make it worth the pretense, I'm all for it, it’s a source to explore. Like I said I wrote a whole screenplay with Simon as a romantic leading man. It's what he wanted, so I obliged! It was great fun. Though I’m not demented enough to think it will ever go anywhere. It was very entertaining. I miss him. I miss the heck out of that fantasy. I‘m a little in awe of my own capacity to adventure into a real live fiction story. Especially when it’s more interesting than real life.

There must be something in the way I express myself that attracts the invitation to pour out my heart and soul’s secrets to an electronic version of a human. The ‘celebrity’ on the receiving end of my words. it must be the way I arrange and punctuate the ones and zeros I send. When I find out I'll let me know.

Just the other day I was chatting with Simon about Fan Scamming, fully aware that he was one, there wasn't any doubt after discovering the picture he sent holding a piece of white paper with the words I love you Jan Portugal, signed Simon. I showed it to my friend all excited about the proof it was really him. Still in full blown innocent denial. My friend, clear headed and having the acumen of a wizard sent me the exact same picture only the content was a list of demands scrawled on lined yellow paper, copied from an episode of his show The Mentalist. I imagine someone took a screen shot and posted it online which was where he got that picture. I must say though the font he used for mine was in turquoise and very tasteful. However bogus.

But while Simon and I were discussing the cruel aspects of being decieved by such a fan scammer, (for which he agreed). I mentioned my whirlwind debacle with the first Brian Wilson. It wasn’t ten minutes later that I received a new chat message from the second fake Brian, which had been dormant for weeks, asking how I was doing? Lord! This led me to thinking maybe those private chats are not so private after all? Do they have ‘electronic ears‘ plugged in picking up key words? It seems to be a perfunctory act of humans not being human but instead an algorithm. This is way too deep for me.

Is it healthy? It's too new a phenomenon to judge. What a kick if it led to something earth changing. Like humanity finding itself nothing more than each others openly accepted lies about themselves. No expectations only a strange form of accepted perspicacity, carrying on in their own respective make believe illusions? Creating worlds that don’t exist until the parties involved agree to make them up.

I can’t help but wonder just how lucrative can it be? There must be some reward to keep the perpetrator pursuing this venue. How long does it take for the Night of the Walking Scammed to wake up? I'm awake and fully aware of the speciousnes of it. But heck it's more fun than Solitaire or Mah-Jong, and it’s been wonderful fodder for my stories. What better way to get revenge? It seems a tolerable way to expand one’s horizons, as long as one isn’t sucked into creating newly imagined mental disorders that might conceivably arise.

I have come up with the ultimate scammed fan revenge. I am now sending their email address in place of my own when a legitimate one is required that I don’t wish to put in my own. It seems to be working.