Scram, scam!

I hate scams and the scammers who scam you. This particular scam isn’t new, but it deserves an update.

A bit more than three years ago I talked here about every woodshop’s favorite scammer, “Ted’s” Woodworking. I put that name in quotes because there is no real Ted; it’s just the name they thought sounded good paired with woodworking. Much like they thought the stock photo of “Ted” paired well because the guy has a beard and plaid shirt.

I won’t go into detail on the scam here since I covered it well in that earlier blog, but in short it’s a come-on claiming to offer 16,000 woodworking plans for some ridiculous price. The plans are all simply photocopied (sometimes very badly) from legitimate woodworking magazines – violating numerous copyright laws – or old junk in the public domain.

You generally come across this scam doing an Internet search for anything woodworking-related, with links going to countless clone websites all linked into it, but offering the same garbage. They’ve also tried direct emailing, and I’ve gotten several over the years ostensibly from reputable woodworking magazines making the offer. The emails usually go directly into my spam folder.

However, last week I got one purporting to be from Woodshop News. Naturally, I have my spam filters set so nothing from the magazine I’ve worked for these past 20 years accidentally goes into that folder, so this was right there in my inbox. I was not pleased.

Fortunately, these emails are easy to identify, as they all look the same, are riddled with egregious typos and usually contain a lot of weird characters along with the text. Apparently, sending these things out from Middleofnowhereistan or wherever they come from negatively affects both spelling and normal English characters.

Rest assured, these aren’t from Woodshop News. And if you get one – or the same thing claiming to be from any other real magazine – it’s just the same ol’ scam trying something new.