Friday, August 31, 2007

Protecting Yourself From Scams

I remember watching a television show a few weeks ago that talked about people being scammed by ebay. These people bid through ebay, but they were contacted off site. The person noticed that they wanted a wedding dress and had one, but didn't they were not good with technology, so they just wanted to sell the easy way.

Of course, they had the same dress but at a better price. No one needed to be told that the payment went, but no dress arrived. Soon, the email address disappeared, the address proved to be false.

Another scam 'on' ebay is where one buyer lists a big ticket item, a car, a house, a $5000 prom dress. The first item was legit. However, others are scams. Ebay does warn people -

1. Do not send cash or cheque to the buyer - Use paypal or Credit Card.

2. Do not send payment to a house address - deposit to a bank account that you verify first.

3. Do not buy 'off ebay.'

4. Do not make payment until you verify the address. I usually Google the address, and then phone. And yes, twice the person freaked and wouldn't sell to me. Once it was a lap top, the other an $800 software package.

5. Never work 'off site.' I get about 20 requests for work 'off' my freelance work bidding sites. I always send them back to my favorite bidding site and tell them to reach me through there. In the last year, only one did.

The clients who won't may think they are legit, but usually they are the clients who become nightmares to write for - like someone who sends a book back every two or three weeks because they found a period missing on page 80, and instead of just adding a period, they write a long email, send the ms back for you to fix.


Another Writer tricked a freelance writer by telling her that paypal had crashed. Of course - paypal will never crash. There is more chance of a depression in a country than ebay going down. So, she continued to work for the client while waiting for the check to come.

The problem is - most of our new clients are from developing countries who do not have 'good English' speaking people in abundance, so they need to hire from he UK, Canada, USA. That creates a precarious relationship, especially when working from countries like Egypt or India where 'ripping off' a woman is not seen as an offense.

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