When Amardeep Singh Dhanjal — better known by his 2.1 million TikTok followers as Magic Singh — first saw an email asking if he’d be interested in being interviewed for “The Bill Simmons Podcast,” he was excited. It was a request that made sense. After all, he had signed with U.S.-based management company Entertainment Lab a couple of months ago and appeared on the CW’s “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” earlier this year.
“They wanted to interview me and talk about magic, my career, what I’m up to with my socials and the shows I’ve been doing,” Magic, as he requested to be called, told TheWrap. “They were getting me all hyped up.”
But what started as a fun PR opportunity quickly spiraled into 24 hours of anxiety as Magic found himself the victim of a scammer who’s been posing as a booking agent for famous American podcasts. Thanks to two-factor authentication and his team, Magic was lucky. He was able to disconnect before any real harm was caused.
But cybercrime hitting online media creators is on the rise. In 2024, the FBI reported that cybercriminals and online scammers stole a record $16.6 billion, nearly 33% more than in 2023. In the podcasting world, it’s becoming a well-known headache, with an insider at a major podcasting brand telling TheWrap that there has been a sharp increase in these kinds of scams in the past 12 to 18 months.
A scam that successfully takes over a creator’s social media account can be devastating. Years of content, follower growth and audience trust — all of which are vital to securing brand sponsorships — can be demolished within seconds. And when you’re talking about a social account that’s monetized, as is the case with Magic’s Facebook profile, the loss is even more immediate.
In an industry full of entrepreneurs, many of whom are solely responsible for their creator empires, Magic’s story is a cautionary tale.
“You spent X amount of years building up so many followers, and you’re monetizing off of it or you’re getting brand deals or you use it as a platform to advertise for your work,” he said. “Could you imagine if that was gone in seconds?”
This harrowing realization is why Magic and Entertainment Lab were so eager to share his story with the media. “If this is happening constantly, we need to protect everyone. That’s people’s livelihoods,” he added.
It started with an email
The email to Magic was as innocuous as it was complimentary.
“William Dave” started by politely introducing himself as a manager for “The Bill Simmons Podcast” and recapping some key details from Magic’s career, such as his acceptance into the prestigious magic society known as The Magic Circle. It also included a thorough email signature complete with a headshot of “William,” a Los Angeles zip code and a link to The Ringer’s website.
The email was passed to Magic through his management company Entertainment Lab, making it seem more legitimate. “They were very cheeky because what they did is they went through the management to get to me,” Magic said.
At first glance, the email seemed like a well-researched and polite press request, nearly identical to thousands of others sent to celebrities and creators every day. But with the benefit of hindsight, certain elements stand out. For one, the message is eerily similar to what’s produced when ChatGPT is asked “Who is Magic Singh?” This is in line with data reported by the Identity Theft Resource Center, which found that using AI in digital scams has been on the rise. The email also describes “The Bill Simmons Podcast” as “a virtual series streamed exclusively on Facebook” though the real podcast is available on all major podcasting platforms. That’s a detail only fans or industry insiders would likely catch. Another suspicious element is the email address itself, which is guestrequests.simmons@gmail.com instead of using @theringer.com format that the news organization typically uses.
The Ringer did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
After Magic agreed to be on the podcast, he was asked to hop on a test call a day before the interview to test out the audio and video — a request that is, again, not out of the ordinary. When that test call took place on Facebook rather than Zoom or Microsoft Teams, Magic started to become a bit suspicious, but he shook it off. After all, he was a creator with a substantial following. Maybe The Ringer wanted to take advantage of his audience through a Facebook Live stream. “It looked legit,” Magic said.
Magic logged onto the meeting using his phone, a choice that was made out of convenience but that may have helped protect him. His hackles were raised again when the tech guy he was talking to didn’t have his camera switched on and his name was simply listed as “podcast.” Magic again brushed it off as an oddity. As a reporter who’s appeared on podcasts and participated in interviews myself, not seeing a member of the tech team on camera isn’t unusual nor are odd naming conventions. But when the member of the tech team tried to make sure the interview was part of Magic’s Facebook Events, the red flags started waving in earnest.
“He goes, ‘Do you see The Ringer podcast?’ And I go, ‘No, there’s nothing there,’” he recalled.
Then the tech team member asked Magic to go through his Meta Business Suite manager, which is where he runs his Facebook account and business. His page, which has 151,000 followers, is monetized.
“They wanted to have access to the accounts,” he said.
The tech guy then asked Magic to share his screen, which Magic made sure was devoid of any sensitive information like passwords. When the event still wouldn’t appear for Magic, the tech guy asked him to generate a link — likely an ownership link — through his account then copy and paste that link into a browser.
“I did that, boom, and then an error popped up,” Magic said.
His phone then started buzzing repeatedly. Later, Magic learned that his friend, who’s also a business associate with access to Magic’s social channels, was calling and texting him repeatedly after he noticed a rush of suspicious activity to Magic’s accounts. When Magic hung up on the scammer to figure out what his friend wanted, he still believed he was being interviewed by The Ringer. He told the scammer he would call him back.
In the minutes between Magic hanging up and talking to his business associate, the scammer tried to change control of Magic’s Facebook account. Fortunately, his business associate was able to restore everything back to normal. Magic then had to anxiously wait 24 hours until the link he sent to the scammers expired. He checked his account “every half hour” during that time save for between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. GMT when the scammer tried to change ownership of his page again.
“I was tense for 24 hours,” Magic said.
One scam of many
Looking back on the experience, Magic credits his team, two-factor authentication and luck as the reasons why his account was spared. If he would have used his laptop to call the scammers, there was a chance that he would’ve quickly approved the pop-up asking to hand control of his Facebook profiles over to a criminal. That extra complication from the phone saved him from disaster.
He also praised Entertainment Lab for quickly contacting the local police department about the scam.
One of Magic’s U.K.-based friends wasn’t so lucky. The friend was contacted by a scammer who posed as a booking agent offering roughly $4,000 to appear on “The Tony Robbins Podcast.” “The Tony Robbins Podcast” did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
“His account got fully hacked,” Magic said. “He’s got a massive following as well. They got hold of his Facebook, his Instagram, his WhatsApp — everything was gone.”
Thankfully, the friend was able to recover his accounts after talking to Meta.
The exact type of scam Magic almost fell for has been increasing. A report from the Identity Theft Resource Center found that impersonation scams grew 148% this year compared to last. More than half the time, those schemes involve scammers impersonating a business.
For this article, TheWrap reviewed several emails from other scammers claiming to be employed by influential podcasters. Host of “Let’s Be Honest” Kristin Cavallari came up repeatedly, but Jillian Michaels’ “Keeping It Real,” Mel Robbins’ “The Mel Robbins Podcast” and Chelsea Handler’s “Dear Chelsea” also appeared. Many of these emails followed the same format that Magic described, asking their victim to appear on a Facebook or Instagram-exclusive episode. Others were more transparent, promising thousands of dollars in compensation to presumably gain access to their target’s bank account. Like Magic’s, these emails seem flattering and well-researched at first glance, only giving away their nefarious intentions through odd email domains and physical addresses that only contain cities and zip codes.
Prior to this experience, Magic didn’t think of himself as the type of person who would fall for an online scam, crediting the prestige around The Ringer and Bill Simmons as a major reason why the ploy worked. “It literally has to do with the gravitas of these people. I’m sure there are some decent podcasts here in the U.K., but then the minute you throw an American name like that, it’s just, ‘Oh, yeah, of course. I’ll do whatever,” Magic said. “You’ll jump at the opportunity.”
He also doesn’t fully understand what the end goal is for these scammers but he thinks it has to do with selling accounts with substantial followers. “It’s mad. It’s a business for these people to take people’s accounts, because what they’re going to do, they’re going to take your account, wipe everything clean, yet they’ve got X number of people that’s on the account,” he explained. “They can just make a new channel and then sell it to someone for whatever amount of money they want. So I guess that’s what their intention was.”
Magic does recall some specific details about the man he spoke to. He remembers hearing background noise that in retrospect makes him think the person was talking to him from a call center. He also believes the man had an accent. “I don’t know if it was a European accent,” he said. “There was an American twang to his accent at the same time.”
More than anything else, the experience has left Magic confused and wary. “We always say that our details are encrypted to a certain degree. But how much access do we have? How much access do other people have to such sensitive information?” Magic asked. “But it’s nice to know that we can share this story with other people so it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
