James Veitch is the king of the most creative and amusing ways to beat a dead horse. (Go to YouTube and search “Veitch Ducks”... I’ll wait...)
DOT CON is a collection of his email conversations with various scam artists. Amusing to no end, he says all the things we wish we did, wasting their time. Need a good moment reprieve and a few laughs, this is definitely the book for you.

Interesting. I like the format, similar to what is found in email programs; the styling of the correspondence. Makes it more interesting than the way just plain text would be. I love "graphic-like" setups of books like this.

I find the book interesting. It seems each chapter is devoted to one scammer each.

Love James Veitch's comedy style and this had me laughing non stop i was able to relax and enjoy this book and laugh it was nice to be able to do so !

I had never heard of James Veitch before this book but I do get what seems to be an ever increasing amount of spam emails so I appreciated the idea of someone writing back to the spammers and playing along. This book was funny, more sonar first before the gag got old and repetitive.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I received an advanced review copy for free from NetGalley.

In case you don't know, James Veitch has been on TED Talk and various late night shows, showcasing how he messes with scammers. He always states that doing this, is keeping scammers away from people who may otherwise fall prey. He suggests that you can do this too, just don't use your regular email. I thought that we could get some insight about James but the entire book contains emails of him and scammers. While funny, I would much rather see him "perform" these accounts rather than read them. All in all its not a bad book, just not what I expected.

A very funny book. I'm glad James Veitch decided to correspond with scammers because hilarity resulted.

Having seen YouTube videos of comedian James Veitch describing his scammer-batting email replies, I knew what to expect from this book. Some of the same shenanigans are present here, along with a bunch of new gems in which the author relentlessly keeps up zany conversations until the scammers finally give up or figure out what he's doing. My favorite exchange involved a scammer who mentioned Mars as "one of the nine planets of the solar system," to which Mr. Veitch replies, "Are we counting Pluto, then? If so, are you sitting down? I have some news." Basically, it's not just the idea of replying to spam that makes these exchanges funny; it is that Mr. Veitch always seems to find a way to keep the conversations going and going until they end up someplace crazy. Anyone who has seen him describe driving his roommate nuts with a never-ending parade of rubber duckies will recognize the same guy who just does not stop until he takes everything too far. Amusing light reading, suitable as a gift.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a digital advance review copy.

Lightly entertaining little read, with an author Tami g the time to show what happens when you interact with the idiotic cons of email.

I became obsessed with James Veitch a while ago while I was on a TED Talk binge and came across the grabbily titled, This is what happens when you reply to spam email. I enjoyed it so much that I ended up Googling him to see if there was any more where that come from and landed on the Scamalot series he did with Mashable. You can imagine my delight, then, when I managed to finagle a copy of his book, DOT CON, which further chronicles his adventures in tormenting scammers by wasting their time.

I think part of why I like James Veitch so much is that he's not malicious or mean. He doesn't insult the scammers he corresponds with or yell at them. He actually reminds me a lot of another "troll" I like, Ken M., whose sense of humor is self-described as "bringing a banana to a gun fight" (per his interview with Vox). In his correspondence with these scammers, James deflects their requests (or demands) for personal data with zany good humor, playing the blithe idiot while never outright saying no, and it's absolutely hilarious when they try to pander to him (some of them go to great lengths to win his credit card info!).

If you're a Veitch fan already most of the content in this book probably isn't going to be new to you. I recognized most of the emails from his Scamalot series and only saw a couple new ones. I didn't mind seeing them again though-- especially the Giant Gummy Lizard one, which is one of the funniest things I've ever seen on the internet. However, if you're new to James Veitch's shenanigans, you should definitely read this book as it's honestly pretty pure and frankly hilarious. In his TED Talk, he said that he doesn't feel bad about messing with these guys (or gals) because every minute they spend with him is a minute they don't spend preying on the vulnerable, and I think that's true.

And if you don't want to read the book, well-- we'll always have Tuscany!

Thanks to Netgalley/the publisher for the review copy!

3 to 3.5 out of 5 stars

This was a quick read of emails between the author and scammers. Some were really funny, some were ok. It is amazing how far scammers will go to get money. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.

This was a fun and hilarious read. What a great idea to respond to scam emails and mess with people! Some of the interactions were funnier than the others but I was interesting to see the scammers trying to hard to get him to send money. The fact that some people in the world actually fall for these is sad, but this book could be used for those people so they know what to look out for.

This was awesome. The genius of comedians is that they manage to find new and hilarious ways of looking at and talking about everyday things. And the genius idea of James Veitch is writing back to email spammers. You know, the low energy cons of Nigerian princes and so on, third world country entrepreneurs utilizing the opportunity to connect globally to assist the gullible and naïve in contributing to their various economies. A fool and his money and all that. Well, normally you don’t think about them, delete button at most, but Veitch actually actively engages these people in laugh out loud email exchanges, be that a mail order bride scheme of any other money scam. It’s about as funny for the readers as it might be infuriating for the spammers, which is to say considerably so. I really had fun with this book. It’s such a slender volume, only 144 pages, very quickly read, took about 80 minutes, some of which were spent laughing aloud. About as long as a stand up act, in fact. And to the same effect. All in all a great way to start the day, I read this first thing in the morning. And just a fun, funny read in general. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

I received a copy of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I've seen some videos of James Veitch talking about scammers online, so I was very interested in this book. It has more transcripts of his conversations with scammers. They're funny, and I really enjoyed seeing the point at which each scammer realized that Veitch's responses were not sincere. It's a quick read, and I enjoyed it.