SCAM ALERT!! This Time Magazine / Told Magazine Inc / Interest Magazine Inc / Red Game Magazine / New Media International / High Alliance Magazine are scams targeting vulnerable creatives.
They lure you in with a very professionally worded email promising an interview with their magazine, saying you were nominated for it by one of your followers. Their website is also very professional on the surface, but if you look closely you’ll notice weird things about it. Lots of photoshopped stock photos of models wearing their logo, no real content or articles, blurry images of text where articles might be.
If you say yes, they send you a link to a questionnaire where they get your personal information, along with some questions about your art peppered in. Then they’ll ask you for money so they can mail you a copy of the magazine with your interview when it’s out, and that’s where the biggest part of the scam is. Once you send them money, they disappear.
I made it to the interview phase before going NAH, (I asked them a ton of questions about where the heck their articles were and why their magazine didn’t appear in any Google searches - they ignored me and just sent their next copy/paste email in the scam - a real editor would’ve addressed my questions). Then I found more artists talking about this scam on Twitter, but I haven’t seen anything about it on Tumblr. So, here you go.
There’s a lot of scams aimed at creatives right now because many us are more vulnerable than ever in the age of covid. Of course I’d love a sweet interview to boost my online shop sales while my entire convention schedule is canceled. But we can outsmart them by doing research, asking questions, and warning others.
Twitter link with more info HERE.
[ 07/03/2020 EDIT ] Since this post is now the 3rd or 4th result from Google searching for Told Magazine Inc, I though I’d update it with everything else that happened since making it to continue exposing them for the scam they are.
Hope this helps a ton of people not get scammed!! Please warn others, have each other’s backs, and don’t get tricked by these jerks!!
[ 08/24/2020 EDIT ] This scam is back with a new name - Interest Magazine, Interest Magazine Inc, The Interest Magazine, Red Game Magazine, and Red Game Magazine Inc. Don’t get fooled.
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