Novelist traces fake fan mail scam to Philippines address
Joe Dunthorne followed a $500 scam request from a fake "Berlin Book Club" founder to a street address in the Philippines, The Guardian reported
Novelist Joe Dunthorne wrote in The Guardian that he receives near-daily fan emails from senders with names like Bella Monroe, Thalina Rose and Tricia Claxton, which he says are fake and designed to con him out of money by offering to promote his work in exchange for a payment of a few hundred dollars. He also described receiving messages impersonating real authors, including Ottessa Moshfegh, and said other writers have received similar messages impersonating Donna Tartt and Sally Rooney.
Dunthorne wrote that he decided to engage with one such email from a sender claiming to run the "Berlin Book Club." After negotiating payment method, he told her he could only pay in cash and said he had $500 in an envelope ready to send; she eventually gave him a physical address, which according to the piece was in the Philippines. Using Google Maps, Dunthorne identified the street as a rural two-lane road with palm trees, a junk shop, an evangelical church and a large building behind high white walls.
Here's the part that should sting: the AI writing these scam letters has clearly read your books, because it was trained on them. You can't stop that from happening upstream, but you can stop it from costing you money downstream. The move is simple — any "fan" who wants cash for promotion, book clubs, or "reach" is not a fan, full stop. Report it, block it, and tell your writer friends what name the scammer used, because the same template is almost certainly landing in their inbox too, just with a different alias.
From the Coral Wire edition of Mon, Nov 2 2026 · Coral Index 29/100 (Storm warning)
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