Scam Alert from Victoria Strauss

I got an email earlier today from Victoria Strauss of the Writer Beware blog warning of a scam. Purporting to be a writing contest put together by the SFWA and advertised on Craigslist of all places, the whole thing is a con job. Here is the link to the warning at the blog. http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2008/06/victoria-strauss-fake-contest-alert.html

Victoria asks how the can artist plans to cash checks made out to SFWA, which reminds me of a script my friend Alan wrote years ago about con artists. One of them goes around with a van, cameras, balloons etc and pretends to be from a big giveaway, passing out a check but telling the "winner" they have to pay taxes on the spot. The check for taxes is made out to the IRS and the conman has a business account for his company, the Icelandic Review Society. Voila.