This Scam Almost Worked And It Started with a Compliment

Scammers just leveled up. Now they are pretending to write stories about you to steal your information and it's working. So here's an email I received. Hope you're doing well! My name is Mary, and I'm reaching out from ABC, a publishing firm based in Florida. We recently received an inquiry on our website mentioning you as someone with a compelling story worth writing about. It included your email, but there wasn't much detail beyond that. Since we get a steady flow of unclear submissions, I wanted to personally check in and see if this was actually from you (or maybe someone you know). I had a look at your LinkedIn and saw your work at [company]—exciting stuff! If the submission was genuine and you're open to exploring, I'd love to learn more about your background and any publishing aspirations you might have. If you didn't submit it, not a problem—I just wanted to make sure before moving forward. Let me know whenever you get a chance. Scam. Total scam. They are waiting for you to give them the call so they can get the personal information of yours. Scammers are getting slicker and savvier. They come at you from every angle. The emails, DMs, texts, phone calls. I've been hit every day and I fell for it twice. The first time I caught myself in time. I didn't lose anything. The second time I lost several hundred dollars. The worst part, you have to be constantly on guard like 100% success rate, not 99.9%. It's so draining, mentally draining. Have you ever been scammed? How did that happen? Did you salvage it?