Read Like a Book

Was I scammed, and will you be too?

June 27th, 2026

Whatever you think of AI, there is one group of people who definitely love it: scammers. Just as a lot of our technology is first used in the military, the first people to adopt a new technology are usually those interested in using it against someone else. Here’s how I found that out the hard way, and what you can do to avoid it.

The type of scam I experienced involves what is known as beta reading. I am an author, and just like software companies, authors perform beta testing on their new products. I hired someone to read my book.

The “scam” part of this transaction is that the feedback I was supposed to be getting from a real human being was very likely to have been predominantly if not entirely generated by AI. I sent her (she presents as a woman, but who knows) my manuscript and she gave me feedback on the first three chapters. And it was — no pun intended — really good. It lined up with what actual humans have told me. I felt like she really got me. I guess she did.

Our interaction showed almost none of the classic warning signs of a scam: new online presence, formal language, generic responses and feedback, big promises, pressure to act fast and to pay up front, etc. What’s more, she had referrals from what looked like real authors with real books. She had social media accounts filled with posts, photos, even videos of herself going back years.

It started when I posted my request for beta readers to a Facebook group page. She answered with an email, and I went back and forth with her over the course of about two weeks. The first thing I asked was whether she uses AI, and she said no.

I asked about cost, I kept offering to pay her, and she repeatedly put it off. Finally, when she agreed to let me pay her something, she told me to send the money to “a friend from work.” That’s when I got suspicious, I called the AARP fraud hotline, and they said it was definitely a scam.

I wrote to the moderators of a beta reader Reddit group with the details, and they also said it was a scam. I posted to a beta reader Facebook group asking for help and a professional beta reader responded, read the details, and also said it was a scam. The most convincing point, they all seemed to think, was this request for payment.

At this point, you might be wondering, if the help is good and the price is right, what difference does it make? For one, she was asking double what the other reader charges. Also, as a result of this experience, my massive manuscript, the 1200 pages I spent twenty years to write, is now in some AI knowledge base. Probably nothing else will be done with it, so I don’t have to worry about that. But if I hadn’t figured out what was happening, who knows where this scam could have led. I have a close friend whose parents were duped out of $80,000 by someone who spent two years gaining their trust. For other depressing examples, just look up “pig butchering.”

The good news is that I caught this before I actually paid anything. AARP told me that if any money had been exchanged, I would have ended up on a list to be targeted by other scams.

I know what being on a target list is like. Several years ago, I got a loan from the Small Business Administration. I soon started getting several texts and/or emails a day offering me loans, and it has lasted ever since. And that was a government agency!

Even if a reader seems to be a real person, they can just be a front. They aren’t really the one doing the work or even the one communicating with you. Even if the reader has actually helped real people, some of whom list them in the Acknowledgment section of their real books, that still doesn’t mean the feedback wasn’t generated by AI. Remember that professional beta reader who told me this was a scam? When I looked at her Facebook account and website more closely, I found signs that she might be fake too!

When I asked the reader who had agree to help me why I should trust her, she said she has nothing to gain; she’s not trying to get my business. Is that why you are trusting me right now? Even if you can tell I’m real by my widespread internet presence (I’ve appeared in a lot of media outlets), how do you know I’m not just saying all this to build my reputation so that I can make more money?

The answer is that it doesn’t matter because you’re not paying me anything. Still, all this is enough to throw me into despair. I feel so profoundly unsafe, like I’m in The Truman Show or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and there’s no one else I can trust.

Fortunately, that’s not true. Most people in the world are honest, and we are far from powerless. Here’s what you can do.

• Use an anonymous account (email or otherwise) to communicate and make sure whatever you send them doesn’t betray your identity. Until you hire somebody — if it ever gets that far — they don’t need to know who you are.

• Don’t use Fiverr. I reported this scammer to them and they didn’t do anything about it. I’m told that Fiverr doesn’t vet their listings. For beta readers or editing, try Manuscript Academy, Jericho Writers, RevPit, Tessera, or, with a little vetting, Reedsy.

• Is it too good to be true? This person advertised being fluent in FOUR languages. I hadn’t noticed that until I looked more closely.

• Do they claim to have years of experience, yet they only joined the groups they are posting to within the past year or two? Again, you’d have to take a closer look.

• Does their feedback come back really fast? I had noticed this, but until I did the math, I didn’t realize that this reader had responded to 122,000 words — over 450 pages — within a week. The third chapter alone is about 275 pages. Unless she had already started before I asked her to, she finished reading it in exactly two days.

• Find out how they want to be paid. If the name on the account they tell you to send money to doesn’t match the name they are going by, that’s a big red flag.

• Are they sycophantic? In other words, do they seem too complimentary? I know that this is subjective, but I noticed it. I seemed to get more appreciation and support than criticism. AI is notorious for this.

I also noticed a pattern of wanting to engage. You can actually read this “person’s” communications with others on social media (assuming they are real). Her voice varies dramatically from formal to different forms of slang. I’m guessing this is to match the tone of the person she is trying to resonate with.

Even if you use supposedly reputable sites, the bottom line is that when you deal with a stranger on the internet, over text, or even on the phone, they are anonymous. So here is my main advice:

• Require that they talk to you on video: Zoom, WhatsApp, etc. That can be faked too, but it’s far less likely.

The fact is, as consumers get increasingly savvy, scams get increasingly sophisticated. It’s just an escalating arms race. It’s no wonder, then, that people are losing faith in the internet and in society in general. It’s called the “trust recession.”

In my view, this is just the end stage of civilization, the brief period in evolution when the Earth experimented with individualism. The book I’m writing, the one that’s now in some bot’s brain, is all about that. You don’t have to buy it from me, though; it’s probably already online for free. Besides, I am still looking for beta readers…