Hey, Scammers! Stop Posing As SPIN Editors. No One Is Buying It (Literally)

See, here’s the culprit hacking into my account! (Credit: Bill Hinton via Getty Images)

It’s recently come to my attention that someone has been posing as me online offering to pay music professionals and other people to write for SPIN. They even shamelessly stole my profile photo of me with my wife and children. 

If you’ve been contacted by someone who’s stolen my social media profile (or anyone else’s here at SPIN, including both editors and contributors), don’t respond. This is a scam!

A screenshot from a recent message started out with this thoroughly-enticing sales pitch:

Hey there, came across your musics, you are doing a great job. Keep it up. 

The horrific sentence structure should be your first warning sign. I would not have a job here at SPIN if my writing was that atrocious. 

Then the message continued like this:

Alright! To get started, a personal interview about your music, including your discography, achievements and upcoming projects would be conducted via email. Whereas I would be needing your email address! This answers would be used to write your article. 

Huh???

Lastly, this person asked for $80.

Again, this is a SCAM. Here are some tips to battle these losers:

• Report them to us. We want to know. 
• Report them to the social media platform they contacted you from. Hopefully they can get the profile taken off the platform.
• Avoid sharing personal details like your bank account information or social security number.
• Feel free to tell them to fuck right off. 

So, if you’re a scammer and you’re reading this right now—we’re on to you. Stop this nonsense and get a real job.