Social Media Scams Part 1 is here.
by Anne R. Allen
Social media is big business these days. And wherever there’s money, you’ll find crooks, trolls, and scammers. Social media scams are lucrative cottage industries in some developing countries, where whole villages may be employed by click farms, con artists, and identity theft scams. So be wary of who you friend, follow or click on.
Two weeks ago I wrote about seven of these scams:
- Spoofed FB friend pages
- Friend requests from fake profiles
- Social media Romeos (aka “catfish”)
- Extortion via DM
- Abused animal photos
- “Share this and money will be donated to charity”
- “I have too many friends”
After the last post, my friend Catherine Ryan Hyde sent me the most hilarious Catfish Facebook profile ever, so I had to share it here. This scammer first stole the photo of some poor middle-aged couch potato and then…photoshopped the face into a photo of somebody talking with President Obama.
This guy isn’t pretending to be some ordinary general or CEO. This guy wants you to believe he hangs with POTUS! (Although they don’t seem to be getting on all that well, do they?) And note that this dude has not two but three first names. I also notice his bio gives only his height and marital status. All that matters in a man, of course. Any takers, ladies? 🙂
8) You’re a Facebook Winner!
This is a new one to me. I recently got a DM that said: “Dear Winner: We cordially wish to draw your notice that you have selected as one of the winners out of 600 million entries from the facebook Inc, Promotion from our online website database system. your facebook Account Address was selected from the Website.”
Yeah. Right. Facebook does this all the time…because advertising should always be secret, right? And of course they hire employees with limited English language skills, because there are so few educated English-speaking persons up there in the San Francisco Bay area. And how would somebody working for Facebook know they should capitalize the name of the company they work for?
This particular missive came from a newly added “friend” who pretended to be a pretty young blonde from Alabama (with two first names–often a clue that you’re dealing with 3rd world scammers.) “She” had Facebook logos all over her page. But she’d only been on Facebook for a week and gave her occupation as “Facebook agent.” I can’t imagine a lot of Facebook employees manage to avoid being on the network. Obviously I should have paid more attention before accepting her friend request.
I don’t know exactly what this person had in mind, but I’m sure it involved getting my bank information, so I unfriended and reported her.
What to do: Don’t accept friend requests from people who have brand new profiles and no friends. And if you do it by mistake, unfriend if you get any iffy Direct Messages.
9) Sick Child or Cancer Patient Memes Asking for Cards
These show a photo of a gruesomely injured, deformed, or sick child, (or someone in stage IV cancer) and ask you to share the post and send cards to the victim.
There is also, of course, a message telling you to share the meme to show you aren’t a heartless monster who ignores the plight of injured, deformed and sick children and/or cancer patients.
Here’s the thing: The photo is generally stolen from the FB page of the family of the patient, who has long since passed away.
This stuff is very painful for the families and is often started by a troll who thinks torturing the bereaved is funny.
I’ve heard there is also a variation on this that shows a very old person and urges people to send “happy 100th birthday” cards. Unfortunately, they usually do this after the person has died. With the same heartless purpose.
What to do: Don’t send cards to strangers unless you have some secondary proof the recipient is real and the story is current.
10) Direct Messages Offering Lucrative Freelance Tech Work with Big Companies
These are a newer version of an old scam. If you click on the link, it takes you to a page where you’re asked to buy—for a nominal fee—a video telling you how to do this job (which they usually claim is for Google or some other big name company.)
There is no job and the video is elementary and useless.
But that “nominal fee” gets them your credit card number and information. They will start to bill you every month for more useless videos. They often claim to be authorized representatives of Google, Amazon, eBay, etc.
One of these outfits hooked me in the early days of eBay. I clicked on a link that claimed to be “a how-to authorized by eBay.” But before I could view it, these “Seller’s Lounge” people asked for my email address.
Then they asked for money for “shipping and handling.”
Weird for an online video.
I immediately clicked away.
But now the “Seller’s Lounge” fraudsters had my email and somehow got my phone number. They phoned day and night, getting increasingly abusive—trying to get me to order that “free” video. They told me I’d be banned from eBay if I didn’t do what they told me.
I later discovered a forum where victims shared their experiences with Seller’s Lounge (in American Fork, Utah.) The victims said Seller’s Lounge charged them $50 a month on their credit cards for never-ordered “informational eBay CDs.”
I just Googled them and they’re still at it, over a dozen years later. Check them out at USAComplaints.com and Ripoff.com. They are still claiming to be representatives of eBay, so obviously eBay does not care, unlike Facebook and Amazon, who tend to jump on scammers pretty fast.
What to do: Work-from-home scams have been around forever. Want easy money? Rob banks. It’s probably easier and safer.
11) Social Media Scam “Thank You” Messages with Links to Malware or Spam
Shortened links are convenient, but they are unidentifiable, so be careful about clicking on any shortened link from a stranger. The ones in Direct Messages are most likely to be iffy.
Some of these are simple spam, like, “Thanks for following me, now buy my book, minion!”
Others are not so benign. There’s a rash of them right now that ask you to Retweet a link. That link goes to a site that installs spyware.
Or they may offer a “free download” of a book or podcast to lure you to give your personal information or download malware.
And beware following people who show a lot of skin in their avatar. They often send you a “thank you” with a link to a porn site.
BTW, If you’re an erotica or romance author whose covers show a lot of skin, don’t use a cover as your avatar (unless you’ve got one of those 50 Shades tasteful gray ones.) If you don’t want people to know what you look like for fear they’ll recognize you in a PTA meeting, choose a pleasant-looking drawing of somebody the gender of your nom de plume so you don’t look like a porn spammer.
What to do: Never click on a shortened link in a Direct Message from a stranger. And only use a DM to communicate with somebody you have an established relationship with. A follow is NOT an established relationship. If you must “thank” somebody for a follow, do it in a tweet or a regular post, not a DM.
12) Legal-Sounding Privacy Notices
These are always making the rounds. Somebody you know will post this long legal-sounding notice about how Facebook is going to steal your content if you don’t share and post this on your page.
This is BS. It’s a non-solution to a non-existent problem.
Facebook doesn’t claim copyright to the personal information, photographs, and other material that their users are posting. And even if they did, this silly notice wouldn’t make any difference. You already agreed to their terms when you signed up for Facebook. You can’t alter that with a bunch of legalese.
Nobody knows whether this started as a prank or a paranoid fantasy, but don’t fall for it. For more on this, see Snopes .
What to do: Ignore them, and let your friends know they look doofusiod when they post it.
13) Bogus Social Media Memes
There are so many of these it would be tough to name them all.
There are tons of memes with a photo of Lincoln, Einstein, Freud, Churchill or some other famous historical figure, attributing to them a quote they didn’t say. These are so common there’s even a FB page for Bogus Quotes from Historical Figures .
Other memes are laments for the death of a minor celebrity who has actually been dead for years. I fell for one of those a couple of weeks ago.
And then there are the false-information political ones. I don’t even want to go there…
One meme aimed at writers really annoys me. It shows somebody reading and says “Amazon doesn’t rank books that have fewer than 50 Reviews. Write a review so your writer friend doesn’t starve to death” or some such nonsense.
This is simply not true. I had a book in the top ten in humor–selling 500+ copies a day–that only had 14 reviews. Yes, we want reviews and BookBub won’t take your ad if you don’t have a ton of them, but Amazon’s ranking is NOT based on reviews. All that counts in your sales rank is sales.
No serious harm in sharing these, but they do sort of pollute the general knowledge pool and make you feel kinda dumb.
What to do: Google it before you share it.
14) A Friend Sends a Link With an Alarming, Cryptic Message
This is pretty venerable, but people are still falling for it. You get an email from a friend that says, “somebody on Facebook just posted these pictures of you at this wild party!” or “Is this you in these photos on Twitter?”
But it’s not from your friend. Their email has been hacked and this has been sent to everybody on their contacts list.
If you’re my age and you haven’t been to a wild party since Bill Clinton’s administration, you know this is probably bogus, but you may still be tempted to click just to find out what’s up with your friend.
Don’t do it. If you click on the link, it may install malware, or it may take you to what looks like your own Twitter or Facebook login page. You enter your password and username…and a criminal outfit now has your info and controls your account. That isn’t really your social media page. It’s a copy.
According to the Norton antivirus people, this is one of the top scams on the Interwebz.
Others, like one I got today sent (supposedly) from a well known author, simply says “I know you’re going to love this! Check this out!” Click on the link and it is likely to install a virus or malware on your computer.
What do do: Never click on an unidentified link from a stranger (See #11) and even if it’s from a friend, if it seems out of character for that person to send such a thing without explanation, do not click. Write the friend first and ask.
15) FREE Tickets!
This is a new one making the Facebook rounds right now. It pretends to be a promotion from Alaska Airlines, offering free tickets in a special promotion. It takes you to a spoofed page that is not affiliated with Alaska Airlines, but looks just like it. They ask for your information and…you’ve been “phished.” You’ll start getting tons of spam for more bogus stuff.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) June 19th, 2016
What about you? Have you run into any of these scams? Do you have any to add?
On Ruth’s blog this week, you can take a walk down memory lane with her feisty Boomer sleuth, Blake Weston. Anne continues on her poisonous path with a post on Botulism.
A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT TO AUTHORS IN KINDLE UNLIMITED (KDP SELECT)
This is a heads-up for indie/small press authors in KU. We’re taking my books out of Select/KU as soon as their 90 day stint is up. Other authors may want to do the same.
This is because the “click farm” scammers who are gaming the Kindle Unlimited system are using legit books as bait (they get your book on sale or free, make multiple copies of the book, add 3000 pages of nonsense and then click on them all day and get $$ for “pages read.”)
Amazon is responding by banning the victimized author from Amazon for life. All your books, forever. Not a chance I want to take. Here’s a discussion about it at The Passive Voice.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
The first book in the Camilla comedy-mystery series is now only 99c!
Ghostwriters in the Sky is a spoof of writers conferences, full of funny situations most writers will identify with. It’s “Janet Evanovich for English Majors”
Ghostwriters in the Sky is available in ebook at all the Amazons, iTunes, Google Play, Kobo,Inktera, Scribd and NOOK. It’s available in Paper (regular and large print) at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. (prices may be higher at some retailers.)
A wild comic romp set at writers’ conference in the wine-and-cowboy town of Santa Ynez, California. When a ghostwriter’s plot to blackmail celebrities with faked evidence leads to murder, Camilla must team up with a crossdressing dominatrix to stop the killer—who may be a ghost—from striking again. Meanwhile, a hot LA cop named Maverick Jesus Zukowski just may steal her heart.
MYSTERY AUTHORS! Here’s a list of 15 small presses that specialize in mysteries and do not require an agent for submissions. It’s compiled by “Authors Publish” Newsletter–a great resource.
ROMANCE AUTHORS! Here’s a list of 31 small presses that specialize in romance and do not require an agent for submissions. Also compiled by the Authors Publish Newsletter.
Remember in November Creative Nonfiction Contest. Sponsored by Hippocampus Magazine. $1,000 grand prize plus complimentary registration to HippoCamp 2017. $150 runner-up ( $25 honorable mentions. Previously unpublished memoir excerpts and personal essays of up to 4,000 words are eligible.. $12 ENTRY FEE. Deadline September 23, 2016.
Thanks for posting all these. I’ve never seen most of them, but I am so rarely on Facebook, and this is a large part of the reason why.
D.D.–It’s true that scammers target Facebook the most, because that’s the biggest social network. But I see a lot on Twitter and Google + too, so it’s good to be aware they are out there.
Once again, glad I’m not on Facebook.
I tend to ignore all Direct Messages on Twitter unless it’s from a friend. Besides, they usually want me to follow them on Facebook…
If I ever do need to click on a link that I question, I do it on my iPad. (Usually because someone gives me a heads up they are getting a virus warning when visiting someone else’s site.)
Thanks for the list of warnings!
Alex–I guess an iPad would solve some of these problems. The malware/virus problem is very real and scary for people with PCs, but sometimes Norton or McAfee gets it all wrong the way they did for you last week. I know I need a tablet. Maybe I should get an iPad.
Then there’s the wounded woman veteran one that shows up periodically. There’s so little on women veterans that nearly everyone who sees it shares it, so it gets a lot of play–and probably hits for a site somewhere. The photo is of a group of smiling women, all quite beautiful, and with a leg prosthetic. It usually has something about respecting the women women veterans. And it’s fake. When we see it, we have to tell people the women aren’t veterans at all. Snopes even has this one up on their site: http://www.snopes.com/fashion-warriors/
Linda–Thanks for the heads-up! I have seen that meme! Those women all look like models. I remember thinking it was strange they were all so thin. I’m glad I didn’t share it. I almost did, but I think it ordered me to share, which usually stops me.
As the exec. director of Crime Writers of Canada, with a public email address, I would get probably one of these a day. I’m a former bank manager, so used to dealing with cons. (We were trained.) But even I had to admit that some of these new scams are very clever. You’ve done a super job with this list, Anne.
Melodie–I’m sure you must have got tons. They love to target the heads of writing organizations. It’s true that some of these people are very clever. Too bad they’re not using their creativity for a better purpose.
I’m with Alex! 🙂 So glad I didn’t sign up for FaceBook and ditto on DMs. What *are” people you don’t know and never heard of thinking when they practically demand that you read their book/like their FB page?
Thanks for the scam/scum list! A true PSA!
Ruth–Avoiding Facebook and Twitter DMs does eliminate a lot of this stuff. I wish people would get the word about those DMs. Unfortunately there are social media “gurus” out there who tell people this is how to build a platform.
They don’t understand that “likes” are meaningless if people aren’t engaged. And “liking” a page that you don’t actually like messes with your FB feed. “Like” one erotica writer as a favor and your page will be full of erotica the next day. No thanks.
I believe the only appropriate response is something along the lines of, “Oy gevalt!” I continue to be astounded at the amount of time people appear to have on their hands.
CS–I think some of these are third world con artists who are making more money doing this than they could make in a legit job. But others are underemployed mom’s basement-dwellers who see the Internet as one big videogame, and they entertain themselves with petty cruelties. I wish people would report them to their moms!
Thanks for this post Anne. Having already had my identity stolen last year, I’m always very careful what details I give away and who I befriend online. Some of the scams do seem to be getting more sophisticated so we have to be even more careful!
Mark–I’m so sorry to hear you went through that. What a nightmare. And you’re right that these people get more devious all the time.
There’s a page I follow on FB of a little girl with Harlequin Ichthyosis and she had an image of her as a baby shared by scammers. That little girl is still alive, but I hear often those scams the images of the child has already passed away. =( Heartbreaking for the parents to discover.
Patricia–Targeting the bereaved is a huge thing on Facebook, unfortunately. And it’s not done for money–just pure sadism. They especially target the families of teen suicides. but they’ll go after anybody who’s in pain so they can add to it. These are people who will only make the world a better place when they leave it.
Some other scams that involve very sick children do involve identity theft and malware. But the majority are just evil. It’s sad to know there are people out there who are that awful.
Sad that people have nothing better to do. Glad you’re posting about these. I clicked on the bogus quotes but the link didn’t work. Thought you’d like to know. Thanks for the info. 😀
Lynn–Thanks for letting me know that link is broken. I’ll see if I can fix it now!
The quotes link is fixed now!
#9 — that’s about as low as one can get. And to do it just for “the fun of it” — unimaginable.
I confess, I’ve just mailed a card, but I have a good feeling about it, at least I hope very much it’s nothing like what you describe.
You might have heard about Hallee Sorenson, an autistic teen who had the worst birthday last year, because none of her guests showed up. Hallee’s cousin shared the story and asked for birthday cards, she said Hallee loves getting real mail and this would make her birthday very special.
I think originally it was a FB post, but then it went viral, was in the news — I think it’s the real thing.
Love that Abraham Lincoln’s quote, Anne 🙂
OK, it is the real thing, I’m so relieved:
http://bangordailynews.com/2016/06/10/news/bangor/why-the-world-wants-this-bangor-girls-birthday-to-be-happy/
Hallee’s birthday’s some time in July, but apparently she’s got thousands of cards already. And mine’s on the way 🙂
Sasha–Lots of those ARE real, so I don’t want to keep people from sending cards. Just check with a quick Google. As you just did. Thanks!
It’s important to do a quick Google check, though — thank you very much for the reminder, Anne.
And Hallee’s birthday is July 2nd, everyone, still time to send a card 🙂
Wow Anne – you’re really on top of these scams. I’ve noticed lots of the quote memes. There is a particular quote on writing (which escapes me now) that it is attributed to so many writers that it’s laughable. Although, I must say I was most alarmed by your public service announcement regarding Kindle Select. So much so that I’m I’m to Amazon to see when my stint runs out. Thanks for the heads up on that.
Annie
Annie–If it’s the one about the road to hell being paved with adverbs, I’ve seen it attributed to Mark Twain, Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, and about six other authors. I think it’s actually from King. Mark Twain said “if you see an adjective, kill it.”
Yeah. I find the new Amazon heavy-handed response to KU scams very scary. I hope when they see so many or us leaving KU they’ll have a change of heart. Banning pirated authors does nothing to stop the scammers and kills careers for no reason. Amazon loses that revenue, too..
One thing you can do with anything with a photo that works very well with the Google Chrome browser is to right click on a ‘suspect’ photo and then in the box that comes up, click ‘Search Google for image’. Google will show you everywhere that image and/or images very similar to it are being used. Often you can find exactly the site, profile or article it was lifted from. It’s a great way to figure out what’s a scam and what’s real…and 90% of this sort of stuff or more is a scam.
Anne–Good tip! Thanks. Especially good for those “memes”. Snopes.com is great too. Mostly we have to take the time to check things out. i know I often just hit share without thinking. It’s a bad habit I need to break.
Good to know all of this, Anne. Thank you.
Patricia–It’s a jungle out here in Cyberia. We need to help each other!
Anne, thanks for this great scam info. Some of these I hadn’t seen. My friend, a cyber crime executive, says do not buy from sites unless the url begins https rather than http. Silly me, I thought they started using https because they were running out of http addresses. Ha! But no, the s stands for secure.
Bad news regarding innocent authors pirated on KU. I guess with Amazon it’s guilty unless proven innocent, or, just guilty.
Deb–That’s a good reminder. Never buy from sites without that “s” after http!
Yes, the Amazon news is hair-raising. I’m hearing of more and more authors who are getting hit. But they are reinstating most of them who protest. unfortunately, they lose all their sales momentum and they can lose their reviews, too. And they’ll have no income for the time they are fighting for reinstatement. Not worth the risk, IMO.
Another great post, Anne. Thanks for the warning.
I’m a huge fan of the Dark and Story Night Contest mentioned in Opportunity Alerts above. I usually submit. Highly recommend. Even if you don’t win, it gives you a chance to write some really terrible first sentences. Here’s one of mine I’m kinda proud of it’s so bad: Glynda Godspeed twirling in a meadow below the majestic Alps—though she wasn’t quite sure they were Alps, but they had that look about them as very big mountains are wont to do—stood frozen as a popsicle in January when a gunshot interrupted her musings on whether or not one really could hold a moonbeam in one’s hand.
Like I said, terrible stuff but at least it gives us license to indulge in horrible prose once a year. Again, great follow up post to the previous one on scams. Paul
Paul–LOVE it Truly terrible. 🙂 I hope other people will put bad sentences in the comments if they have any. I’ve never entered, but I sure love reading the winners!
Hi Anne, I was unaware of some of these wacko scams. Thanks for sharing the public announcement from the passive voice’s blog. Very unsettling news.
Tracy–A lot of these things do seem pretty unwell, don’t they? The news from Amazon is disturbing. That’s because they use robots to enforce the rules. Usually if you can get hold of a human you can get things put right, but that can take time.
These scams are awful. I’ve been friends for years with the lady who had her account banned on KDP. I’m flabbergasted and horrified on her behalf. If this can happen to her, it can happen to anyone. I’m debating jumping ship on KU, too. I’ve already taken most of my books wide, but I was going to keep in an upcoming paranormal romance trilogy. I’m rethinking this plan now.
Kessie–I’m pretty shaken up by the Amazon news too. They’ve done two big things this week that damage authors: Closing down Pixel of Ink and Ereader News Today and then this heavy-handed policy of punishing victims instead of going after the scammers.
I’ve just heard that all the victimized authors had bargain newsletter promotions going when they were hit, so it may be that by avoiding BookBub and other newsletters you can be safe. But I still think going wide is safer. Like having a back up for your files.
Anne, as always, this is extremely useful – some of these scam I had never heard of. I quickly put it on Thingser.com: http://thingser.com/post/26588 Thingser is a social media site that I’ve noticed tends to be crowded with Millennials: that’s a generation more savvy about all things Internet than we are, but still, even to them, it’s useful stuff to know, scams work with every generation!
Claude–Thanks for spreading the word! Actually, millennials tend to be less careful of their privacy online because they don’t have the same expectation of privacy as people do who grew up in a pre-social media world. So they need to hear these warnings too. Thanks!
Love this post, Anne. Yes, there are way too many catfish on Facebook. Whenever one of them says to me, “I can’t stop looking at you” I definitely know it’s a fake account or some guy from Nigeria who wants to ask me for money. Fortunately, the good things that happen on social media far outweigh the few scams I’ve been aware of and the scams are usually easy to spot.
Frances–It’s a good (and rare) day when I *don’t* have a friend request from a catfish when I open FB in the morning. Sometimes there are three or four. I can’t imagine it’s all that lucrative, but an awful lot of third world guys must spend their days creating those ridiculous profiles. I used to just ignore them, but now I make sure to report for spam.
But you’re absolutely right that it’s no reason to stay off social media. These things are like gnats you can swat away. Social media is still the best way to get out the word about your books. Thanks for the reminder!
Wow Anne, does it ever end? This Amazon KU scam is frightening. One would think if thousands of authors and social media spread talks about this click farm issue that Amazon may bloody well figure it out. So annoying!
Debby–I sure hope Amazon gets the word that they’re approaching this problem the wrong way and they need to stop punishing authors for things we have no control over. Unfortunately, the Zon usually takes advice from the vigilantes in the Amazon fora who are rabidly anti-author. They assume all authors are crooks. Scary people.
It’s ridiculous. And one would think they’d take heed upon the anti-authors. Banishing authors and paying KU royalties for fake reads seems like the stupidest business decision. Perhaps they should bring back humans instead of bots surveying.
Wow. So much to watch out for out there. I fell for a new thing on FB not long ago. A site said they were giving away a real cool item to three people. All you had to do was “like” their page and comment. I got suspicious. They announced a winner! I searched the name on FB. No one by that name. They are still doing it. I can ‘t quite figure out what they get from it, though. There always have been and always will be swindlers out there.
Christine–Thanks for the heads-up about another scam. Scam contests are great “phishing” tools. They promise a non-existent prize and get 1000s of email addresses and FB friends. There have always been con-persons, but the Internet puts us in front of every con on the planet. FB is so big that I’ve read that in places like Brazil, they think of FB as the entire Internet.
Anne, thank you. I knew about some of these, but not the “sick child” one. How can people be so mean.
J’aime–Medical professionals say that 4% of the general population are sociopaths, but there seems to be an even higher percentage online. There is a whole subculture devoted to torturing bereaved families after a death, especially the death of a child. I wish there were laws against it.
I’m so glad you’re doing posts like this and putting this information out there so people can see it. I’ve been around for a while and I’ve seen them all, but it’s what I haven’t seen yet that really freaks me out. And there’s always something new to worry about. But this was excellent!!
Ryan–Thanks for stopping by! There are so many scams on social media, it’s hard to keep up. I should probably do updates on a regular basis. I’ve heard about several more this week. The creativity of these people is amazing. Too bad they don’t use it for a better purpose.
It’s awful that there are so many crooks and sneaks out there. I’ve been caught out once. I friended someone whose avatar was a little old lady, her banner had her at a big conference table with important looking people, and then she put about 15 advertisements on my wall. But at least I’ve never clicked through to anything. Thanks for the warnings!
Lexa–I’ve seen more fake women’s profiles recently. ( I now never friend anybody who only has one photo on their profile–or the same photo as their header and their only “status update.” I had two yesterday. I also saw these “women” had been friended by 20 or more of my friends, mostly all members of Nightwriters, a local writing club. I’m sure they’re all getting tons of spam now. (They should read my blog!)
Smart of you not to click through any of the spam.
I’m late to this dance. Thank you for this article. I am very leery of heart-rending pleas on Facebook. I’ve been following the KU and click-farm issues at a remove, but I have decided to non-renew KDP select until things get straightened out. I’ve been going wide, but I went back to the fold. Time to go wide again.
Thank you again!
Diana–Those manipulative FB posts usually snag the relative newbie, but I have some tender-hearted friends who still fall for some of them.
I think going wide is probably the best thing for all of us right now, unless you’re with an Amazon imprint and get all the Zon promos and stuff. And they’re probably safe from the pirates.