I’m putting some of these emails up so authors won’t be duped by this new rash of literary scams. The email came from “Shadrack Ben” with the address “contact.shadrack.prosehouse@gmail. com”
Dear Jerry Coyne,
My name is Shedrack, and I represent Prose House as Head of Literary Partnerships. We connect authors and readers through thoughtful literary features that highlight books and the ideas that make them meaningful.
Your book, Faith Versus Fact, stood out for its direct examination of the relationship between scientific inquiry and religious belief. By exploring the differences between evidence-based reasoning and faith, it raises important questions about how people understand the world, evaluate claims, and distinguish scientific explanations from religious perspectives. Its arguments invite readers to engage critically with one of the most enduring debates about knowledge and belief.
Through Prose House Magazine, we offer selected digital magazine features designed to highlight their central themes and introduce their stories and ideas to readers in an engaging way.
I would love to share more about how we could present Faith Versus Fact in our magazine. Would you be open to hearing a little more about the feature?
Best regards,
Shedrack
Head of Literary Partnerships
Prose House
Clues that it’s fake:
a. gmail address, not a professional address. Note too the word “contact” as part of the gmail address.
b. email address has name “shadrack” while in the rest of the letter the crook uses “shedrack”
c. The Prose House Magazine exists but is only about six pages long
d. A Google search for “Ben Shadrack Prose House” returns nothing
e. Pangram says it’s 100% written by AI if you leave out the salutation and signature:
I’m tempted to play along with this detestable man and his scheme to see how long it would take until they asked me for money, but I don’t have the time to waste. I just gave the guy a new fundament via email.
If you see something, say something.
The name Shadrack is a good pun! Louis Armstrong, and the biblical three too!
Plus Beastie Boys!
Sounds like Shadrach walked straight into the fiery furnace. Next up, Beth Meshach from the House of Prose.
I am truly disappointed that AI is not using a consistent spelling for the author’s name, but I guess we always knew it wasn’t perfect.
Not only is Artificial “Intelligence” inconsistent with name-spelling, it also manages to make hilarious bloopers whilst doing tasks such as voice-to-text captioning. Dr. Coyne’s ability to quickly recognize the nature of the “opportunity” being proposed and his neighborly manner in sharing his methodology in doing so are but a few reasons this site is a good source for many useful and interesting topics.
‘Ben Shadrack’ is an anagram of ‘backhanders’.
I drive part-time for Uber, and I was surprised at a scam targeting drivers (not exactly the wealthiest people on the planet).
First I received a ride request from an impossible location. The app wanted me to stop in the middle of a bridge to pick up the rider, whose location indicated they were near an island near the bridge.
The rider messaged me that there was some problem with Uber, and that I might want to cancel the ride.
I tried unsuccessfully to find a route near their location. I also tried calling them a couple of times to get their location, but it went to voicemail both times. So after a few minutes I gave up and cancelled the ride.
The next day I received a call claiming to be from Uber support, investigating a complaint made against me. They asked for my side of the story, but then said they needed to verify my identity by sending a code to me via text, and also claimed the rider said my photo was out of date.
I replied that the rider had never met me, so how could they know the photo was out of date. The scam was that they were trying to access my Uber account using my phone number (since I had called trying to reach them), and they needed the “Don’t give this number to anyone” text, plus a picture of me. If they got access to my account, they would change my payment information so that my earnings were sent to them.
It’s getting scary how sophisticated some of these scams are.
Wow. They’re getting creative with the scams. Glad you caught it.
Thank you for posting about these scams. It is importantly to get the information out there, to protect future possible victims.