scams

Book discussion: Flim-Flam!

This entry was posted in Book discussion and tagged books scams skepticism on by

James Randi, stage magician (“the Amazing Randi”), skeptic, and writer, died on October 20, 2020. He was someone I really admired. He took on nonsense and demolished it. He gave Penn and Teller their start. This post is about one of his books mostly so I can talk about him. The book is Flim-Flam!, published in 1982. I don’t think it’s currently in print, but used copies are easy to find.

He took apart many claims of paranormal phenomena such as astrology, fairy photography, and faith healing, using facts and logic. Sometimes this made him unpopular, but he had fun doing it.

He pointed out that even smart people (like you and me, right?) can be fooled. Scientists can be especially gullible because they aren’t used to dealing with nonsense and fakery.

Randi was famous for offering a monetary reward to anyone who could demonstrate paranormal abilities. Originally it was for $10,000, and later he increased it to a million dollars. In Flim-Flam, he wrote:

I have carried around with me ever since a check in that amount [$10,000], immediately awardable to a successful applicant. … The offer is still open, and will be during my lifetime. It is stipulated in my will that if the amount is still unclaimed and available upon my death, the same offer will be made by my estate in perpetuity.

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Is Constant Content stiffing its foreign writers?

This entry was posted in Writing Writing as business and tagged business Constant Content scams writing on by

The news for Constant Content’s foreign writers doesn’t look good. This Reddit discussion, as of the time I’m writing this post, suggests that no one is getting paid. (The company is based in Canada, but it doesn’t treat US writers as foreign, and at least some of them are getting paid.)

Constant Content is months behind in paying these writers. Its website still doesn’t acknowledge the existence of a payment problem. Its FAQ contains blatantly false information, still claiming “Payments are made through Paypal.” It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the company’s only guiding principle is what it can get away with.

Update #2 on Constant Content

This entry was posted in Writing Writing as business and tagged Constant Content scams writing on by

The situation with Constant Content remains the same. Payments to writers are long past due, and I’ve seen no indication anyone has been paid recently. Some people have received an email instructing them to set up payments through Stripe. Others say they haven’t received it. They can’t find this information on the website. I used my old account to log in and couldn’t find any information indicating a change of ownership or payment method.

The writers’ FAQ says, “Payment is made the first week of the beginning of each month.” It doesn’t say the first full week, so I take that to mean writers should have been paid last week. Comments on Reddit and elsewhere indicate that’s been their past practice. I let the following Monday go by to be generous, but I’m still seeing no reports of people getting paid.
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