Every successful scam has effective social engineering, and as embarrassing as this story is for me, I tell it any chance I get bc I was a busy professional who just auto added one more speaking engagement to my calendar.

Our friends can’t be our filter, but we can try to look out for each other 🫶🏼

I consider myself reasonably internet savvy and all it took was

~a pleasant profile pic

~some flattery (“we’ve heard of you, we’d love to have you speak”)

~enough mutual connections (“my friends must know this person”)

~ an appealing location (Paris 😍)

and just like that, my defenses were down+

I realized they were using our relationships and trust in each other to request a connection, and then using any engagement to further legitimize their con(f) by advertising us as speakers to the rest of our professional network.

I was able to cut my losses thx to my friend, but I was shocked+

This was a flag so I began evaluating their online content and schedule more closely, and it was nonsensical, vague and disorganized.

I examined the “friends” list of the conf organizer profile interacting w me and it was maybe 70 connections total and almost entirely older colleagues in my field+

My colleague messaged me, “I went to this conf last year and the only attendees were other presenters, and no staff showed up to manage anything”

How did he know to message me? I was still negotiating terms to attend but the conference website had already put up my picture as a confirmed speaker+

A few years back a social media account actively recruited me to present at a scam neuroscience conference in Paris and I almost fell for it.

The profile pic was a friendly-looking young woman and “she” was connected to other people in my industry. I wasn’t suspicious.

But a colleague intervened+

BFE looks like delightful, eat some delicious food for me!

I had too many projects this spring and had to choose between BFE and AAPB, so I’ll be in San Diego in May ✨🧠