Real outlets book guests from their own domain, never free webmail. How one fake BBC Radio 4 Bookclub invitation gave itself away, twice.
A real broadcaster, podcast or book club books guests from an address on its own domain. The BBC books from bbc.co.uk. A podcast run by a company books from that company's domain. A book club with a website books from that website's domain.
None of them books guests from Gmail.
If an invitation to appear on a show arrives from a free webmail address, treat it as not from the show. That single rule catches most of these before you read the second sentence.
I received an invitation to be interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Bookclub. The email came in the name of James Naughtie, who really does present the programme. It knew my book title. It was polite and specific.
The sender was jamesnaughtie.bookclub@gmail.com.
The BBC does not book guests from Gmail. Its producers, researchers and presenters use bbc.co.uk addresses. A presenter of James Naughtie's standing does not run his own bookings from a personal Gmail account with the programme name bolted on. The address told the whole story.
I write under more than one pen name, and each has its own email address. The same invitation landed in two of those inboxes at the same time. Same wording, same "James Naughtie", same Gmail address. The only difference was the book title, swapped to match whichever pen name it was addressed to.
That is a mail merge. Somebody scraped author names and book titles from a public source, dropped them into a template and sent it to everyone on the list. A real producer choosing one guest for one programme does not do that.
If you only have one email address you will not see this. But you can still ask the question: does this email read like it was written to me, or like it was written to a field called {author_name}?
Being asked to talk about your work is flattering. Fraud that uses flattery works because you want it to be true. Authors, academics, consultants and small business owners all get these. The invitation is the hook; the ask comes later.
The ask usually takes one of these forms:
Real outlets do not charge guests to appear. If money is mentioned at any point, the invitation was never real.
Look at the domain first. From address and Reply-To address, both. If either is a free webmail domain, stop there.
Find the outlet yourself. Open a new tab and go to the broadcaster's or podcast's website by typing it. Find the programme page. Real programmes list their production team, their contact route or a press office. Compare the email you received against what the outlet publishes.
Search the presenter's name plus the programme name. Does the programme exist? Is that person attached to it? The fake BBC email passed that test, which is why it was convincing. The address failed it, which is why it was caught.
Contact the outlet through its own channel. The BBC has a public contact route. Most podcasts have a contact form or a named producer on their site. Ask if the invitation is genuine. A real producer will not mind. A fake one will never know you asked.
Check whether the invitation could have been automated. Does it mention anything a person would only know from actually reading your book? Or does it mention only the things that appear on your Amazon page: title, subtitle, author name? Template emails stick to what can be scraped.
For contrast: a genuine invitation names the producer, comes from the outlet's domain, says which episode or edition it is for, proposes a recording window, and often mentions something specific from your work. It does not ask for money. It does not need you to respond within the hour.
If you have been on a real programme before, you already know this. If you have not, now you do.
If you are unsure, do not reply to the email. Instead, write to the outlet through its published contact route and ask. That keeps any conversation in a channel the outlet controls. Genuine invitations survive this. Fakes do not.
Stop replying. If you sent a headshot and bio, that is unfortunate but not serious. If you sent money or clicked a link and entered a password, there are steps to take now. I have a separate guide for that.
I am building Proof of Sender to check invitations like this one. Paste in the sender address and the outlet it claims to represent, and it tells you whether the domain matches. It is early and free. Try it at proofofsender.com/demo.
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