Dot Con: The Art of Scamming a Scammer

by James Veitch Narrated by James Veitch, Naomi Petersen

Overview

From viral comedy sensation James Veitch (as seen on TED, Conan, and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon) comes a collection of laugh-out-loud funny exchanges with email scammers.

The Nigerian prince eager to fork over his inheritance, the family friend stranded unexpectedly in Norway, the lonely Russian beauty looking for love . . . they spam our inboxes with their hapless pleas for help, money, and your social security number. In Dot Con, Veitch finally answers the question: what would happen if you replied?

Suspicious emails pop up in our inboxes and our first instinct is to delete unopened. But what if you responded to the deposed princess begging for money in your Gmail? Veitch dives into the underbelly of our absurd email scam culture, playing the scammers at their own game, and these are the surprising, bizarre, and hilarious results.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"James Veitch is one of those people that come along once every hundred years. I can't be more specific than that."—Conan O'Brien

"From the first page I was intrigued and laughing out loud. Delighted to see someone going out of their way to waste the time of these scammers. James is doing the Lord's work."—Iliza Shlesinger, author of Girl Logic: The Genius and the Absurdity

"A diverting read that may bring you some needed laughs."
—Fortune

"Dot Con is perfect for [Veitch's] superfans as he shares all of his hilarious correspondence, complete with screenshots."—TED.com

"Hilarious....[A]n uproariously funny read that will make your stomach hurt from laughing so hard."—Omnivoracious: The Amazon Book Review

"Whip-smart and brilliant. Hysterically funny!"—Harry Hill

"A wicked sense of humor....I laughed my ass off."
—The New York Times

"A pleasure."—The Sunday Times (UK)

"A Dave Gorman-esque romp."—Time Out

"Ingenious...One to watch."—Independent (UK)

"Playfully funny...the author's absurdist approach and enthusiasm for his work make for unpredictably funny reading. An amusing, oddball compilation."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Summed up in a single word, Dot Con is hilarious!...Dot Con brings to light the potentially life-changing repercussions that these scammers can have on an innocent person's life....English teachers will probably hate this book because of the misuse of the English language...a great read."—The Seattle Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

2020-03-19
A British comedian dedicates his days to drafting playfully funny conversations with the authors of scam emails.

Veitch’s penchant for scamming the scammer originated with a comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and continued with a few TED talks. In this collection, first published in the U.K. in 2015, the author describes how he creates a persona tailored to each weird phishing email he gets. “I think of the spam folder not as Pandora’s box, but as a costume shop in which you can play and play at being whoever and whatever you wish,” he writes. “If only for a time. Last week, I was a bank robber, a pilot and the one-time confidant of a beautiful Arabian princess—and that was just Monday.” In the fitfully interesting email exchanges that follow, Veitch tortures the scammers, whether he needs to pose as a hedge fund manager or a “fruit consultant.” They vary widely in length, from “The Sheriff and the Vacuum Cleaner,” simply twisted to form surreal poetry, to a lengthy conversation with “Winnie Mandela,” concerned about her husband’s health. “Given that Nelson died three months ago I’d describe his health condition as fairly serious,” Veitch retorts. Whether the scammers originate in the Philippines, Dubai, or Nigeria, the comic’s ultimate goal is to drive them to profanity-laden rage-quitting, which he does more and more successfully as the exchanges stack up. As the scammers arrive offering gold, fortunes, and even romance, they soon find their own scams turned around on them as Veitch variously demands poems, declarations of love, and a blurb for his illusory book,Sensitive Passion. It’s a weird niche, but the author’s absurdist approach and enthusiasm for his work make for unpredictably funny reading.

An amusing, oddball compilation of email exchanges with princesses, smugglers, and other charlatans.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172250002
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	06/02/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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