I’m very suspicious of scams, and it had all the hallmarks of a perfect scam.

I had received an email purporting to be from New York Times bestselling author Neil Strauss advertising his “Writers’ Roundtable,” a 1-year writing course. It was $100 to apply—which gave me a slight pause, but come on, it’s a course with NEIL STRAUSS! $100 = worth the risk of it being a scam.

After his assistant called to interview me to see if I’d be a good fit, however, my “scam-dar” not only intensified, it began screaming “red alert, RED ALERT!”

Basically, Neil’s assistant called and asked me about my writing, and I talked at length about the three books that I’ve written that I’m most proud of. He was a good listener, seemed quite impressed, and he didn’t neglect to stroke my ego the requisite, perfect amount before delivering the exciting news:

“Congratulations! You’ve been accepted into Neil’s program!”

For about 5 seconds, I felt like I had been accepted into Harvard. All that time, dedication, sweat, blood and tears that I’ve poured into my craft had FINALLY paid off! About damn time someone recognized my writing talent, my hidden genius that was just waiting to be discovered, and furthermore, I would be working with my idol, THE Neil Strauss! Ok, but wait a second…

It took only about 5 seconds to crash back to earth. Remember that movie, Requiem for a Dream? I suddenly felt like Sara Goldfarb, the elderly woman who thought that she was going to be on television. This seemed… a little too good to be true. If it was really Neil Strauss teaching this class, do you really think his assistant would just accept me into the program on the spot, without even a little consultation with his peers? Without a second interview? Without even asking for writing samples? I mean, come on, this is Neil Strauss. In my opinion, he is a contender to be the GOAT of writing. Imagine if Harvard accepted people like that, on the spot, after just one 10 minute conversation. Fishy, to say the least, especially when the guy on the other end of the line said that I needed to wire him $3000 as the down-payment right then and there to reserve my spot.

The amateurishness/sketchiness of the payment form did nothing to reassure me at first, but then I thought to myself: “Surely no scam artist exists who would make a web form this amateurish—only if it was the real deal would they care so little about having a polished web form.” That, and I did some serious digging into the whole operation. I double-checked the SSL certificates of the website. I performed “open source intelligence” on the guy’s personal phone number, dug into his background, where he lives, and social media presence. He didn’t appear to have a criminal background. So far, so good…

Screw it, I thought to myself.

When my friends ask me about this, I’m sure to them I’ll sound like I’m saying (in a New York accent): “Purple in the morning, blue in the afternoon, orange in the evening. You don’t understand, I’m somebody now, Harry! I’m going to be on television!”

I entered my credit card details into the shadiest web form that I’ve ever seen in my life and stared at the screen. It was the moment of truth. I suddenly heard the little voice in the back of my head scream, “do it!”

I took a deep breath, and clicked “Submit.”