Dot Con: The Art of Scamming a Scammer

by James Veitch

"Dear valued recipient, My late father was Gold and Diamond merchant and he has merchandise (250kgs Gold Dust) for safe keep. I am here seeking an assistance of a reliable and trustworthy person to take these goods out for investment - " We've all had those blatant scamming emails: un-claimed insurance bonds, diamond-encrusted safety deposit boxes, close friends marooned in a foreign country. Standard procedure is to delete on sight. Dot Con is the story of what happened when comedian James Veitch decided to play the scammers at their own game. Packed full of Nigerian princes, can't-miss investment opportunities and eligible Russian brides, his correspondence leads to surprising, bizarre and hilarious results.

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor, Comedy, Adult, Internet, Audiobook, Crime

144 pages, Paperback

First published August 13, 2015

About the author

James Veitch is a former Apple Store Genius whose high-tech comedy picks apart and parodies the constantly evolving and perplexing technology we live with. James has sold out shows throughout the world and currently resides as the third most popular TED Talk of all time. He wrote and performed 2 viral hit seasons of his show 'Scamalot' with Mashable, has appeared twice on Conan, and appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Reviews

[MischaS_ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me when I realised that James Veitch has a book.



I was obsessed with his videos for years, it always fascinated me how far he can go with these scammers, and they still continue.

Most of the stories were previously told by James in one of his videos; however, it did have more details here in the book. But probably my favourite part of his videos is how he delivers them which of course you cannot have in the book except when I was reading the stories with his voice in my head.

Btw, why is it always Western Union?

Anyway, I loved it! Had a few good laughs. I will definitely re-read several of these. The Snail-farm and the novel are always my favourites. (Plus Mary Gary, China Jewelry Corp and Unsubscribing).
And if you are reading this and you do not know who James Veitch, then please, find his videos on Youtube.

[Sad Sunday (Books? Me?!? NEVER!!!) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dear James Blunt,

Will you be my book-boyfriend? I don't read much romance, so I am not sure how it's done properly, but you supposedly lock a person you like in a high security personal harem and throw away the destroyed key (nobody can have access to it. NOBODY!) Why would I like to do that you may ask? Because you are totally awesome! You even play guitar and recite Robert Burns on a weird rock. Amazing as hell. And the sentence "When you see vacuum cleaner around sheriff, it means that hand related to gets stinking drunk." is simply unbeatable. And also, you are one of the very few people that I would like to see live someday. (James Blunt already had his turn, you are the next James in line).

James Bond, to prove that it's not a joke, I am attaching this document that will prove what a rich woman I am (and I can provide for all of my harem inmates).

(They got my name wrong, I am Barbara Sarah Treisand aka Barbara S. Treisand.) I live in Victoria and Albert Museum, and I also work as a Cook of Chef. Not sketchy at all. 100% legit.



Also, here is my driver's license. (And yes, I look that good on all of my documents, but I am terrible at writing "my own" surname, also, I am not sure if I am allowed to drive).



So, James Blake, what do you say? Ohhh, but you didn't hear all the perks of my harem! I will bring you mayonnaise (carrying it above my head as you did for Leah, Robin and Haley on Stardew Valley). Plenty of ducks for you to play with included. I will even manage to squeeze a smaller than you screen if you need to practise your next Ted talk or Conan appearance. For you I even think about going back on Twitter (even if I am not sure how it works at all). I know, I can be persuasive - one of my possible future husbands (he saw me on Facebook, it was a love of the first post! How lucky I am!) even agreed on a white horse carriage! How fancy! Non of my harem inmates ever complained - well, ummm, most of them are more or less fictional, but that doesn't matter, right?

P.S To other, random people - this guy is awesome. Funny as hell. Check him out!

P.S.S. What do you think of Witcher 3?

James Cameron, in the meantime I am waiting in the library. It's a good place to be. Reply and go to Wester Union immediately. God bless you.

Yours,
Sad Sunday, a fan (aka Barbara S. Treisand).

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was laughing so hard when I was reading this that I thought everyone on the train was staring at me. But I didn't care.

James Veitch is just so awesome and so funny when he writes back Winnie Mandela or Princess Mina whose uncle has stolen her inheritance. I think we should have the James Veitch movement. Let's go people!

[Sleepless Dreamer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went on a bit of a Tedx talk binge the other day and came across James Veitch's one. I found it hilarious so I really wanted more.

This book describes Veitch's adventures replying to scam emails. It's very funny and lighthearted. I adore his sense of humor and the way he communicates with these people. He never veers into being cruel or dismissive, it's like he manages to create this form of humor that's just confused and snarky.

All in all, if you're interested in a short and fun read, this is very cute. I absolutely recommend it (even if it doesn't come with a free toaster).

What I'm Taking With Me
- I love the way he speaks and could absolutely watch hours of it.
- You never really think about the other side of scams.
- I want someone to believe in me like James Veitch believes in hummus.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up off the library shelf. I was familiar with James Veitch but wasn’t sure if he would be as funny in book format. But I was able to envision him saying all this stuff, and it worked.

This is a collection of email exchanges between Veitch and spammers/scammers. The poor English was brutal after a while, but Veitch was great at stringing these scammers along, wasting as much time as possible for them by going off-topic and being deliberately obtuse. I’m not sure whether the conversations ended where the book ends them or if he cut them off at a high point.

I couldn’t believe the audacity of the scammers, who spend their time preying on the general public and then accuse Veitch of being a terrible person by wasting their time. A fun, quick read.

Veitch has a YouTube channel here. Most of the scams in this book can be found there.

Clean content except for a few f---s by scammers.

[Noah Crocker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an absolute crackup. I love how creative James Veitch is, and just how dumb some scammers can be.

_____________________________________________________________________

I watched a Ted Talk by James Veitch, and he seems like a very interesting dude. I REALLY want to see what this book contains.

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was awesome. The genius of comedians is that they manage to find new and hilarious ways of looking at and talking about everyday things. And the genius idea of James Veitch is writing back to email spammers. You know, the low energy cons of Nigerian princes and so on, third world country entrepreneurs utilizing the opportunity to connect globally to assist the gullible and naïve in contributing to their various economies. A fool and his money and all that. Well, normally you don’t think about them, delete button at most, but Veitch actually actively engages these people in laugh out loud email exchanges, be that a mail order bride scheme of any other money scam. It’s about as funny for the readers as it might be infuriating for the spammers, which is to say considerably so. I really had fun with this book. It’s such a slender volume, only 144 pages, very quickly read, took about 80 minutes, some of which were spent laughing aloud. About as long as a stand up act, in fact. And to the same effect. All in all a great way to start the day, I read this first thing in the morning. And just a fun, funny read in general. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

[Natasha Niezgoda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literally the BEST coffee table or bathroom book ever! I found myself laughing unabashedly out loud.

James is so freaking clever. The obscene stories he concocts to tool with all the internet trolls are hilarious. The toaster one, holy crap!!!

Seriously, just read it. And then share it. It will brighten up someone’s day.

I have already passed it along to my mother-in-law and 3 friends.

[Paige (pagebypaigebooks) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had seen James Veitch’s TED talk videos before and found them really entertaining so I decided to pick this up! If you’ve seen his videos you’ll notice similar stories but some I hadn’t heard before. I liked reading this but I think hearing James tell it himself was a more enjoyable format for these stories.

[Lauren D'Souza · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're like me, you delete spam emails with one swift click, afraid to interact further than that in fear of downloading some evil attachment. James Veitch, however, has no such fear. Not only does he respond and play the part of an innocent victim, but he is damn hilarious, cheeky, and awesome while doing it.

Most of these emails start out the same way: you've won/you've been left/we have found some outrageously large sum of money, but you have to wire a "processing fee" of up to a few thousand to get the millions. James always manages to throw the scammer for a loop. It's hard to explain. Veitch has done some TED talks where he goes through the emails - check out this particularly hilarious one with one of the best interactions in the book.

Look, I know it may be silly to give this book five stars, but frankly, it made me stay up until 2 am with a serious case of the giggles. I could not stop laughing with every new story, and I don't even remember the last time a book made me do that. It's a very fast read - I finished it in about a day. If you're looking for some lighthearted, fun reading, look no further. Go pick this up. Thank you to Hachette for the ARC!

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beware anyone who’s been mugged in Manila, Philippines and needs money transferred to Western Union.

If you’re unfamiliar with James Veitch, I encourage you now to head over to YouTube and lose yourself in the rabbit hole of his videos, then come back and read this book. Veitch is a former Apple Genius turned famous comedian with the third most viewed TED Talk, and he achieved this by responding to an email scam. This exploded into a viral sensation, and now he plays along with virtual scam artists in order to waste their time and beat them at their own game. This entire book is told as an easily readable series of email exchanges with these scammers, and they are downright hilarious.

If you are familiar with James Veitch, you’ve probably already heard some of the exchanges in this book, but there are also plenty of new ones. With an offbeat style and laugh-out-loud ridiculous humor, Veitch must contend with surreal poetry, clandestine coups, imperiled royalty, unrequited long-distance romance, and more to dupe these villains and maybe win a free toaster while he’s at it.

And as funny as all of this is, there is much to admire in the way that he wastes these scammers’ time so they have less time to target the older generations and the gullible.

[Brigi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Right, I realised that I have tons of books that I finished ages ago, and which need reviewing.

This was a really fun and quic read. Heard about the book thanks to a hilarious TED talk of the author. Toaster story is the absolute BEST

[fay · Rating 4 out of 5]

quick read & made me genuinely laugh out loud more than a few times

[Chris Boulton · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not very often you can say that you're pleased you did something that the Daily Mail suggested.. "read this book," they said, "it's well sick!" (Okay, they didn't use those words... but that's what they meant so, feeling slightly unnerved that I was doing something they suggested, I bought it and finished it in lightning speed.. slowed only because I had other stuff that I had to do, boring stuff, stuff that tbh I probably could have done another day blah blah blah!

Anyway, enough about me. This book is grand (as the DM said, ugh).. it's really funny and quite cathartic! Rather than spending most of your email life just delete offers of huge sums left by people's dead relatives and Ugandan warlords or people trapped in foreign places.. it's nice to see someone making a stand and winding them up something chronic!

It's a shame that James and Elena's budding relationship didn't work out. I think they'd have made a cute couple. Maybe it'll happen some time in the future.. and will be the basis of a jointly written sequel as the mighty warriors of Scamming the Scammers, James and Elana Veitch take on the world!

Or not.

Any road.. give this a try yourself, the book I mean, you'll enjoy it!

[Lexie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why yes, yes this is the kind of humor I like.

I'm one of those folks who when scammers call I basically just mess around with them for the fun of it.

There's a reason we are on the do not call list.

Anyho w found Veitch and his book after seeing his Ted Talk and it definitely brightened my day each time I picked it up. I read it over the cours of a few days, usually whenever I felt stressed and it consistently made me smile or cackle.

By the way Solomon or Henry or Elena, feel free to email me I'd love to chat about what great opportunities you offered James. I promise to not promise that I'm promising to double cross my fingers I'm a legit person wanting some secret money transferred to me.

[Robbie Bashore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this, because I got a lot of belly laughs from the author's TED talks. The book was funny, but it was sort of like hearing/reading variations of the same joke over and over. The other thing was it made the talk look like a conglomeration of several episodes, which felt like deceit to me.

[Luv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what a fantastic read. I laughed so much people were giving me the side eye. I saw this book at the library and picked it up after I recognized the author from a 'Ted Talks' video

[Kristen Gull · Rating 1 out of 5]

James Veitch is a rapist. Do not support him.

[Namera [The Literary Invertebrate] · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was feeling a bit down, and then I came across this in my Kindle and figured it would be a great pick-up. It was alright.

I loved the original format - it's basically a bunch of email exchanges between Veitch and those scammers you get who try to convince you that someone in Nigeria has died and left you money, and you just need to pay a £300 customs fee to get it. There are some real gems; Veitch is very creative. I would really like to see a follow-up.

Not exactly laugh-out-loud material, though, so 3 stars it is (though I feel I'm being a bit harsh).

[Blog] - [Bookstagram]

[alma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious, very light and fun reading. :)

[Franziska · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was hilarious. I can only recommend it to anyone that wants a laugh!

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, very funny! The only reason I give it less than five stars is because I know how much funnier it is when Veitch delivers these in speech, his timing is better than my imagination.

[Katharine Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny. A lot of ‘victims’ in the Philippines!! Thank you Gina for sending this book through. A gift to make me smile in this ongoing situation. Recommend :-)

[Am Y · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of email conversations between the author and various scammers who email him with all sorts of scam propositions (e.g. high-paying job offer, need your help to claim inheritance, friend has lost passport and needs money to help return home, etc etc). Most of the scams are the same/similar, and after some time it gets repetitive. He tries his best to keep them replying to his emails as long as possible and sometimes this yields amusing results. For me it was mildly interesting mainly because you gain a bit of insight into the scammer's mind/demeanour. But who's to say these conversations weren't entirely made up by the author himself?

[Stephanie Inman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love James Veitch’s YouTube content, so I preordered this as an audiobook. I definitely do not recommend this. He keeps making references to illustrations that are not included with the audiobook. He treats the whole book as though he is performing it live, and it just didn’t settle well with me. I didn’t DNF because it’s so short, but I did return the audiobook and do not recommend it.

[Alyce Hunt · Rating 3 out of 5]

While some of the email exchanges were hilarious, others just felt rather repetitive. It's a great concept, I just feel as though it could have been collected better.

[Min · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read! Thank you to Ashley for helping me borrow this book.

[Daryll · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny audiobook that leaves you wanting more. James and Naomi do a great job narrating and doing their best to make each tale different in tone.

[Courtney Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

On a disturbingly regular basis there comes a news story of people being swindled out of their savings by con artists who appear so legitimate that vulnerable people are susceptible to such antics. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth to see people sobbing on those news reports because they have been conned and are left with nothing. It causes such angry responses you feel like you want to reach right through the computer screen and wring the scammer's necks for the devastation they wreak on innocent lives. But James Veitch has given rise to a much better form of revenge – mess with the scammers. Take them on on their own games and try to cause misery for them that would cause misery on others. And from this standpoint, in which Veitch sagely reminds us, we are only engaging in talking with them and wasting their time, we are shown the fun and games that can be had when you enter into conversations with the scammers, and under the expert hands of Veitch, the results are hilarious.

In Dot Con Veitch shares with us twenty-one stories of when he has taken the scammers on and messed with them as badly as they mess with defenceless people. With boring monotony, the scam starts similarly with the scammers spinning a web of lies to try and induce a person to believe that someone is stranded overseas with no money for example, or that a rich person has died and left them a fortune, and in all situations, the scammer attempts to extort money out of the recipient of the email by encouraging people to send them money via Western Union or the like.
Part of the charm of the book is that it is written complete with email addresses and the conversations, making this an extremely fast book to read. The ability Veitch has to string a scammer along in a conversation that can last days is really quite amazing, one might even say he has a gift for such behaviour! He certainly gives a master class to any person who feels the urge to follow in his footsteps and copy his methods in dealing with the lowlifes that execute these scams, and more power to them I say.

If you want a wicked hour or so, then this is the book for you.

[Bunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

The business is on. I am trying to raise the balance for the Gummy Bear so he can submit all the needed Fizzy Cola Bottle Jelly Beans to the Creme Egg for the Peanut M&Ms process to start. Can you assist with the funds? Send £1,500.00 via A Giant Gummy Lizard.

James Veitch is absolutely delightful.

I don't remember if I found him on my own, or if someone sent his videos to me, due to my own personal propensity for constantly screwing with phone scammers. Once I found him, I watched every TED talk and video he'd made on Youtube, and fell utterly in love with his unique style for dealing with your every day Nigerian Prince in need of funds.

If you're familiar with James, some of these stories are already known to you, but there's even more to enjoy. Even the stories we know, he obviously edited out the boring bits for public speaking, so we get to see just how far he got in stringing them along before things invariably devolved into misspelled cursing.

I don't know if anything gets lost in the text telling of these, as it's impossible for me to read this without hearing his voice in my head. But for anyone who has EVER had to deal with these awful scammers, this is an absolutely delightful and cathartic read.

Received via Netgalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.