Fake Linda and me: the Agatha Christie-worthy mystery of the fraudster who stole my byline

How a string of bizarre events led writer Linda Geddes to don her sleuthing cap and dig into a world of shadowy impersonators

I t started with an entirely ordinary interaction on LinkedIn. Someone had tagged me in a post, saying how much they’d enjoyed contributing to a New York Post article I’d written about “chronoworking”. As the author of a book about circadian rhythms, it was exactly the sort of subject I might write about. Except I’d never heard of this person, let alone interviewed them.

I clicked on the link and my stomach dropped. There, above an article about people who organise their working lives around their biological clocks, was my name: Linda Geddes.

It was the latest in a string of increasingly bizarre events that had begun three weeks earlier, when a friend who works as an editor at the scientific journal Nature texted to ask whether I’d been pitching stories to one of her colleagues. I hadn’t.

It turned out that someone had been approaching Nature editors using my name and an email address that wasn’t mine, referencing articles I’d previously written to make their pitches more convincing. Worse, the journal had recently encountered another impersonator posing as Caroline Williams , a former colleague of mine. That person had convinced an editor at Science to commission and publish an article under Caroline’s name, receiving about $1,000 for it.

Further digging revealed that Fake Linda had also pitched a story to Science, unsuccessfully. Then, last week, an editor at Nature Medicine contacted me to ask whether I’d been pitching to them and Nature Health as well.

I donned my sleuthing cap and discovered a potential link between Fake Linda and Fake Caroline. Entering my impersonator’s email address into Outlook.com’s account recovery system revealed a partially obscured Gmail recovery address. An editor at Science had independently discovered the same address pattern associated with Fake Caroline’s email.

As someone whose livelihood depends on the reputation I’ve spent decades building, I find this deeply unsettling. Someone is potentially making money by passing themselves off as me, while putting my professional credibility at risk. Apart from one interview conducted by email, the quotes in the New York Post article were lifted from previously published features, without attribution. Many of Fake Linda’s pitches also bear the hallmarks of AI-assisted writing. Even unsuccessful pitches could damage relationships with editors.

The New York Post has since removed the article, conducted an internal review and referred the matter to the appropriate authorities, a spokesperson said.

What I find particularly baffling is the motive. Freelance science journalism is hardly a lucrative profession, and is quite niche. My best guess is that a struggling freelancer is impersonating more established peers to boost their earnings, perhaps using AI to make the process more efficient. But how would they receive payment without revealing their identity?

Other possibilities have crossed my mind.