I run a native garden coaching website. Recently I received a message that, at first glance, seemed sweet. A volunteer helping a Girl Scout earn her Trees Badge wanted to thank me and share a resource. But something felt off. After looking at the website they wanted me to link to (a commercial flower delivery shop), I realized this was a scam designed to manipulate me into giving them a free backlink.
I’m posting this to help other website owners recognize these tactics. Because they’re getting sophisticated, and I strongly suspect AI is involved.
How To Tell It’s A Scam
Before I break down the manipulation tactics, here are the red flags of a scam:
- The link doesn’t match the story. They claim “Harper” is researching dendrology and trees for a Girl Scout badge. The link they want you to add? A commercial flower delivery website. These have nothing to do with each other.
- No specific details about your own content. They say my page was “very helpful and informative” but never mention a single thing from it. A real person who actually used your resource would say something like, “Your ecoregion finder recommendations were exactly what we needed.” Generic praise is a red flag.
- They found you through a resource page. Scammers specifically target pages with resource lists because those pages already link out to other sites. Adding one more link seems harmless on the surface.
- The email domain doesn’t check out. The email came from linprice@starfallarts(dot)com, so I looked up the website and it has ‘AI-Bot’ written all over it. More on what I found below.
- They’re asking you to do something for them. Legitimate thank-you messages don’t come with requests. If someone genuinely appreciated your content, they’ll just say ‘thank you’ and leave it at that.
The Actual Message I Received
Here’s the email I received:
Name: Linda Price Email: linprice@starfallarts(dot)com Comment or Message:
Hi, I hope you’re having a lovely day! I’m a volunteer at my local Girl Scout Troop and just wanted to write a thank you note on behalf of a young lady I’ve been helping out with research. Her name is Harper and she’s a Cadette Scout working towards earning her Trees Badge. While looking into the dendrology, we came across your page, http://www.fridaygarden.com/native-plant-resources/ and found it to be very helpful and informative. Thank you so much!!
Harper also really wanted to share a cool and hopefully helpful find with you! It’s http://www(dot)avasflowers(dot)net/tree-classification-guide-and-glossary-of-plant-terms and it’s a tree classification guide and a glossary of terms. She learned a ton from this, so she hoped it could do the same for others using your page.
Do you think it might be possible to include Harper’s recommendation on your page if it’s not too much of a hassle? We’ll be meeting again later in December and I’d absolutely love to show that her suggestion was up and running to help others learn about trees. I believe it could encourage her to continue reaching out, with the hope of making a positive impact, even if it’s just a little one.
We hope to hear back from you soon!
Happiest of Holidays and thanks so much again, Harper L. & Linda Price
The Emotional Manipulation Playbook
A closer look at how this message is engineered to make you feel guilty about saying no:
- Exploiting a child. “Harper” is a young Girl Scout earning a badge. Who wants to disappoint a kid working toward a goal?
- The volunteer/mentor angle. “Linda” isn’t just any adult. She’s a volunteer helping a child succeed. Extra guilt.
- Flattery first. Praising your page as “helpful and informative” softens you up before the ask.
- Minimizing the request. “If it’s not too much of a hassle” makes refusing seem petty and mean.
- Time pressure with emotional stakes. “We’ll be meeting again later in December and I’d absolutely love to show her” implies you’d be disappointing a child if you don’t act quickly.
- Future impact framing. Suggesting this will “encourage her to continue reaching out” and help her make “a positive impact, even if it’s just a little one.” If you add it, you’ll be shaping a young person’s character and confidence. How special.
This is what disgusting textbook manipulation looks like.
Why I Think This Is AI-Generated
I can’t prove it, but this message has all the hallmarks of AI-generated content:
- Perfect grammar but emotionally hollow. It reads smoothly and hits every manipulation tactic, but feels formulaic rather than genuine.
- Generic specificity. Details like “Cadette Scout” and “Trees Badge” are real things and easy to Google, but the story itself is completely unverifiable.
- Generic Sender Domain. Starfallarts(dot)com goes to an unrelated and generic-looking ‘cover’ operation without any links or contact info (see note below).
- Unnatural phrasing. “Happiest of Holidays”? “Making a positive impact, even if it’s just a little one”? This sounds like AI pretending to be a warm and compassionate human.
- Scalable template structure. This email works by swapping in any website URL and any semi-related commercial link. It’s designed to send thousands of personalized variations.
- The mismatch no human would make. Why would a real Girl Scout researching trees for a badge recommend a commercial flower delivery website? A real kid would share an actual resource about trees.
AI has made it trivially easy to generate thousands of these emotionally manipulative messages, each customized to the target website.
About That Suspicious Sender Website
I looked up starfallarts(dot)com (the domain from “Linda’s” email). It’s total ‘sus’ (translates to “suspect” according to my kid). The website has literally no links anywhere, no contact page, and no physical location mentioned in any of the generalized descriptions. Just this note at the bottom of their “about” page:
Note: Presently, due to circumstances beyond our control, we are not offering any in-person programs. But we are doing several online projects. Please check back to see when we will be able to resume our normal programing.
To top it off, the whole site reads like it could have been written by AI too. It looks like what us gen X-ers refer to as a ‘cover operation’. Like a fake laundry or car wash service used as a cover to hide a drug dealing operation (see TV show: “Breaking Bad” for examples).
So Who Would Do This?
The link they wanted me to add points to avasflowers(dot)net, which appears to be an actual flower delivery business. This raises some possibilities:
- The company hired an unethical SEO firm that uses these tactics without telling them what they’re actually doing.
- They know exactly what’s happening and don’t care (getting backlinks by any means necessary).
- Someone is using their URL without authorization (Less likely, given how targeted this is).
Whatever it is, legitimate businesses getting backlinks through manufactured sob stories about fictional children is disgustingly unethical.
In addition, when you link to a site you don’t control, you’re essentially legitimizing it to your visitors. Not only does it not reflect your business, that site could later be compromised or redirect to malicious content.
Are Native Gardeners Being Targeted?
I’ve given this some thought and now suspect this scam was not random. Native plant enthusiasts are growing in numbers as outreach continues to ‘bloom’ (pun intended). This also fuels a growing list of websites about native gardening. Within these sites and communities:
- Resource pages are common. Native gardeners love sharing helpful links. We build resource pages because we want others to learn. That’s exactly what scammers look for.
- The community is kind and helpful by nature. People who spend their time nurturing ecosystems and educating others about native plants tend to be generous, community-minded folks. Exactly the type who’d feel bad saying no to a kid earning a badge.
- The “Trees Badge” story is perfectly tailored. A Girl Scout learning about dendrology? That touches a nerve for people who are passionate about sharing native gardening information to the next generation.
- The flower site is “close enough.” Flowers are adjacent to plants, so it doesn’t seem completely random at first glance (even though native plant education and commercial flower delivery have nothing to do with each other).
- Smaller, passion-driven websites. Many native gardening sites are run by individuals or small organizations, not big companies with spam filters and legal departments that can filter out these scammers.
What To Do?
If you receive a message like this:
- Don’t respond. These campaigns send hundreds or thousands of emails. They’re counting on a small percentage of people feeling too guilty to say no.
- Check the link they want you to add. Does it actually match the story they’re telling? In this case, a flower delivery site has nothing to do with Girl Scout dendrology research or native plants. I actually went to the site to see what the page was about and that is when I made this discovery.
- Look for generic praise. Did they mention anything specific about your content? If not, they didn’t actually read it.
- Trust your gut. If something feels off, it probably is.
- Mark as spam and move on.
The internet is full of people trying to exploit your kindness. Hope this is helpful to those still wondering and thanks for reading!