I’ve been alerted to the very alarming fact that someone is posting jobs for “Kidlit” as “Mary Kole” on school job boards. These are writing jobs that seem attractive. I’ve heard from several people emailing to confirm whether the job posting they saw was legitimate.
Kidlit is currently only hiring for this copywriting position, and only on this website. Any job posting you find posted off of this website that claims to be connected to me or this website online is fraudulent.
There has been an individual posing as me on university and other online job boards and providing the email address kidlit@job4u.com. It is a classic “we will send you a check, you will deduct a certain amount, and send us back a money order” scam. Their check will bounce after a few days, then your bank will hold you liable for any funds you chose to send out. The FTC explains it here.
Any kind of scam that attempts to take advantage of writers sickens me, and I take it very seriously. There are, unfortunately, many bad actors out there who prey on writers who want the chance to practice their craft and don’t know better.
If you have corresponded with this individual, please forward your interactions to me for my legal team. Do not send your personal information to this person and do not accept any money from them. Certainly don’t send any money to them. Similarly, if you have seen one of these job postings in the wild, please report them as fraudulent to the job board where they appear and alert me at mary@kidlit.com to let me know what institution is running the listing.
Unfortunately, since this is an online impersonator using my name and business name without my permission, I’m not liable for any financial loss that you suffer due to interacting with this individual. My hope in posting this is to prevent anyone from getting scammed.
Whoa! I can’t believe how horrible people can be. Glad you found out.
Thanks, Lisa! This individual preying on students and aspiring writers really bothers me. But I’ve been able to make some good traction in the places where this has been posted. We’ll see what happens.
That’s awful, Mary. Particularly during these tough times too makes it extra disgusting from that individual.On a positive note, thanks for all the new blog posts and videos – much appreciated as always!
I echo, Lisa. I’m glad you found out about this! I hope they are stopped… FAST.
I don’t really know what to do– I shared personal writing as well as my resume before I saw this. My university even had this posted on their job page, and I have no idea who to contact to get it taken down.
If you see this posting on a job board, you can contact your university’s career office, or whoever manages the job board. It’s VERY IMPORTANT to know that anyone can post anything anywhere online. Your university isn’t individually screening job postings. Most receive an inquiry and post the job without doing their due diligence. I did have a few universities reach out to me to confirm the job posting, but they are in the minority. Most have just posted it without a second thought. That’s why I have this scam alert displayed prominently here. The candidates who are doing their due diligence and visiting my site before applying will see this post right away. As for your resume and writing sample, my suspicion is that this scammer isn’t worried about either. I can’t say that participating in a scammer’s activity is 100% harmless, of course, but my guess is that they’re not checking references or keeping anything. They just want to find someone to participate in the financial part of the scam, which comes a few steps into their “interview” process.
Ugh. That’s horrible!
The really bad part is that these people rarely, if ever, get caught. They are extremely good at covering their tracks.
It’s a sad fact that there is always someone out there that wants your hard earned money. They will try anything to get it.
Thank you Mary for alerting us. I hope they don’t do any real damage to your good name.