Ugh. Report Spam and Scam!
Just a reminder to report people who send you comments on Ao3 asking if you want them to create art for your "amazing, fantastic" story (which they have NOT actually read.)
Note: They're not people you know; they're somebody who joined yesterday. People you know would never make this request on Ao3.
They're getting smarter, often dropping the offer to do art for payment, instead, saying "let's talk on another platform."
You can still report them!
If you posted a one shot today, or the first chapter of a new story (these seem to be the fics they target), you probably got one. I did, and was curious so I looked down the queue and checked several stories. Amazing! The same comments, the same "people." I counted nine comments that were nearly identical on nine different stories, mostly from the same two accounts. And that was just the BBC Sherlock queue.
If you like arguing with idiots, you can respond to them, but it's easier if you just report them. If you've forgotten how to do that, here's the process:
Don't respond. They're leaving the same compliments on hundreds of other works for other authors.
Click "thread" button on their comment.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page this takes you to and click "Policy Questions and Abuse Reports" under Contact Us.
This will take you to the Abuse Report page. It will already fill in a link to the page with the comment, so just fill in the blank for "Brief Summary of Terms of Service Violation" - say "Spam" and/or "Commercial Promotion"
Then fill in the space for Description of the Content. Here just say that it's soliciting for payment in exchange for art work.
Hit "Submit."
You don't need to write a book! They will see the comment and know what to do. I've done dozens of these and never had one rejected. The comment and the account will disappear in a few days.
They want to engage with you on another platform because they know it's not allowed on Ao3. Don't do it!
On Reddit / r/AO3 people have described what happens when you begin to engage or give these people money. They will text you several times a day, bugging you for more money, trying to get you to involve more writers. Once they have an account number for you, god help you. These "artists" are not interested in your fic. They are only interested in your money.
I've also gotten comments of people saying they'd like to 'collaborate on a story,' or 'I enjoyed collaborating with you on this,' even when I wrote the whole thing by myself. When I responded to these comments asking what this was about, the accounts started asking for my socials on other platforms and telling me they'd 'tell me more once we're talking somewhere else.'
Of course, I deleted them. I suspect they may be running the same scam. Watch out!
