Day 83: Mike Shreeve - scammer

Between You, Me and the Lamp Post

Day 83: Mike Shreeve - scammer

At any given time, Facebook is a hotbed for scammers. At the moment one such scammer is Mike Shreeve.

Mike claims to have been working as a freelance writer for the past ten years and now he’s willing to share his success template with you. Just to see what he was up to, I clicked on the link and was taken to a long (and I do mean loooooooooong) explanation of what this template could do for you.

I suspected right away that this was a scam and I was right. Near the bottom of the template Mike's true intention was revealed … to get the secret of his writing success, one had to pay $7.

I think you all will agree that $7 isn’t much, it’s little more than the price of a cup of coffee. Mike knows this and counts on it. If you’re thinking that he can’t do much with $7, you would be right, but a true scam is a long con.

Think about it. Facebook has thousands of members and while $7 may seem like nothing, if 1,000 people fall for his scam, that’s $7,000. He only has to run his ad once a month to make a very comfortable living.

To get to the bottom of this, I did a little research and I have to admit, Mike Shreeve put a lot of effort into his scam. He created a website, he designed his so-called ‘No Pants Project’, he even roped in a few people who supposedly made big money with freelance writing.

Someone called Kate claims to make $100 an hour while Pete claims to make $1,000 a day. Every professional freelance writer will see right through this. There is no way, and I  mean no way, that a freelance writer gets paid $100 an hour or that someone can make $1,000 a day. If that were true, people everywhere would quite there day job and start a freelance writing career.

The thing is though, I had to dig deep to find Mike Shreeve’s contact info. Wouldn’t you think that as a businessman he would make his contact info easy to find? But no, his potential victims have to read a lot of blah blah blah. Blah blah blah that tells them how much they can earn and how easy it is. By the time they reach the end of the page, they are brainwashed that what Mike Shreeve promises is actually true.

There’s only one thing missing … Mike Shreeve’s work. Yes, he has a website and a so-called project, and quite a few sites where he promotes his (scamming) business, but when browsing the Net, he has no articles. Now, wouldn’t you think that such a successful writer would have articles online? Something with his byline?

Yes, some writers are ghostwriters for a magazine or a website, but I dare say that all of these ghostwriters, at one time or another, have written something under their own name. That is not the case with Mike Shreeve, I could find any articles with his byline.

Mike Shreeve also has a couple of books on Amazon, with 5-star reviews. Also bogus. The ‘books’ are barely 80 pages long and contain nothing more than a senseless dribble. All rehashed advice of what he could find online. Basically, copying other writers' work. As for the review … I guess we all know by now that there is such a thing as paid reviews.

Do not fall for Mike Shreeve's scam. Do not pay that $7. If you want to be a freelance writer you’re gonna have to do what any other freelance writer has done … put in the time and effort to produce quality material. Once you make a name for yourself, you will get clients and you will make money. How much money is up to you.

The bottom line is … Mike Shreeve is a scammer, a talented scammer, but then scammers usually are.

https://www.reddit.com/r/freelanceWriters/comments/9ddxtx/the_no_pants_project_an_expos%C3%A9/

Day 149: Another Facebook Scam

​My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 149: Another Facebook Scam

Most of us pride ourselves on cleverness. When a scam is going around, we either know about it, or we think we’re smart enough not to fall for it. However, scammers came in all kinds of different forms and when one of those forms is a trusted friend, the scam is not so easy to recognize.

On Sunday morning I received a text from Steve (not his real name) starting with a simple “Hey”

Wiping sleep from my eyes I texted a “Hi” back.

“How are you?”

“Good. How are you?”

“Very good and very excited.”

“Oh?”

“I came into some money. $100,000.”

“You’re joking. Did you win that with the lotto?”

“No, through a grant program that is aimed at the unemployed, elderly, disabled, students, etc.”

“And you qualified?”

“Sure did. UPS delivered the money yesterday.”

“UPS delivered the money?”

“Yes. The online agent asked me if I wanted a cheque or cash and I said cash.”

“And UPS delivered that?”

“Yes. $100,000. I paid off my bills and took the rest to the bank.”

“That’s great. Congratulations.”

I found it a little strange that UPS delivers money but okay, if Steve said so, I wasn’t going to doubt him.

“You can get the same grant,” he went on. “I saw your name on the list. If you contact the online agent, you can get the grant too.”

It didn’t occur to me that this could be a scam. After all, this was Steve I was ‘talking’ to and why would he lie to me? The amount of money was also believable. Talk of millions of dollars would have raised a red flag, but $100,000 seemed reasonable.

“Contact the agent now,” Steve concluded. “His number is XXX-XXX-XXXX. Tell him that a friend saw your name on the list.”

“Okay, I will. Thanks.”

Moments later I fired off a text to the number provided and within minutes I received a text back.

“Your name is indeed on our list of grant receivers. Since we place high value on security, I will need your personal information so there can be no duplication of the grant.”

“Okay, I understand.”

“Are you ready to fill in the form now?”

“Yes”

I was mentally doing a dance of joy. $100,000 … could this be for real? Common sense told me this was too good to be true, but this message came from Steve and I trusted him.

Moments later I received a set of questions from the online agent:

Full name:

Address:

Gender:

Date of Birth:

Copy of Driver License or other photo I.D.:

Hm, now I did see a red flag. I’m notoriously hesitant of sharing my personal information, especially where it comes to government issued documentation. Before doing that, I wanted to verify with Steve that this grant program was for real and he had indeed received $100,000.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get hold of Steve, so I tried his girlfriend next. Doreen (not her real name) told me Steve has stepped outside for a moment, but he would be back shortly. When I got to talk to Steve, he sounded a little flat, not at all like a man who had just received a sizeable amount of money.

“Hi Steve, congratulations on the money.”

“What money?”

“The hundred thousand dollars.”

“What hundred thousand dollars?”

“You didn’t receive hundred thousand dollars from the grant program?”

He immediately knew what I was referring to.

“It’s a scam. My Facebook account was hacked and several of my friends were contacted by the scammer.”

“Oh I see.”

"You didn't fall for it, did you?"

"I did, sort of, but I didn't give him any vital information."

"Do you really think that if I won $100,000 I would tell everyone about it?"

That made sense. Mentally I saw $100,000 go out the window.

The scammer didn’t give up easily though. Throughout the day he send me messages such as

“When can you send me photo I.D.?”

“We have been waiting for you, we have a lot of people attending to.”

And then his last one … “Should we terminate your grant?”

This, I suppose, was to spur me into action. I took action of a different kind, I notified the authorities, if for nothing else than to have a case number in the event of identity theft. I kept Steve’s name out of the conversation. Not that my call was necessary. Mr. Scammer was known to them and an investigation was underway. Mr. Scammer’s days were numbered. They knew who and where he was and his scam would soon be terminated.

Day 81: Scam targeting self-published authors

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 81: Scam targeting self-published authors

If there’s one thing I hate it is scammers, particularly those who target self-published authors as they are such easy prey. They are looking for exposure leading to sales and scammers zoom in on this.

The other day, I received an email from Aimee A. stating:

 “I hope you do not mind me emailing you; I am emailing you because I would love to review your work on my website. My site is a book reviewing website which has received a great response from readers and now that I have a loyal following who I adore, I am always on the lookout for great books I can feature for them. I discovered your work and I loved what I saw, so that is why I am emailing you today! Your work looks wonderful, and you clearly are passionate; passion is a quality I love because I am very passionate about reading so I hope we are able to work together”.

My guess is that Aimee never read or even seen my work and that a few hundred other writers have received the same message.

Having been around the block a few times, I can smell a scam a mile away and so I cut right to the chase. I asked her how much she is charging. Her response … $75 per book. Her excuse is that she charges this fee because her reviews generate sales. She added that she is a mother of four.

I don’t know what this has to do with the price of eggs. Whether she’s single, married or a mother of a dozen, that’s none of my business and it is certainly not going to influence my decision whether or not to work with her. It was her decision to have four kids and she shouldn't ask others for support to feed and clothe them.

Other self-published authors may not be so wary though and actually believe the nonsense this woman is selling. I had a look at her website and there are indeed a number of books there, mainly mainstream published and yes, they have a good deal of comments. There are also a few self-published works (obviously self-published authors have already fallen for her scam) but they have no comments at all.

Most noticeable is that the mainstream books have quite a long review, too long if you ask me. The book isn’t just reviewed it is summarized. The self-published books on the other hand only have a rather short review, like Aimee couldn’t be bothered with them.

What I do wonder about is … where does she get the time to read all these books? I know a few women with one or two children and their main complaint is that they no longer have time for themselves. They have a husband and their kid(s) to look after, a house to keep clean, laundry to do, shopping to do, meals to cook, etc.

My guess is that Aimee doesn’t actually read any of the books she features on her website, but goes on Amazon, reads the synopsis of the book and a few comments and then elaborates on what she’s read. Also known as creative thumb sucking. 

And for that, she charges $75. Not a fortune, but if ten people fall for her scam that’s a nice sum for her.

I very much suspect that she hasn’t read any of my books, so how can she review them? The email that she sent me is clearly generic and not well written. You would think that for someone who reviews books for a living, her grammar and sentence structure would be better.

Fortunately, I’m not dumb enough to fall for her scam and neither should you. Be on the lookout for someone called Aimee A. and when she contacts you via email or Facebook, and tries to sweet talk you, send her packing. She's a scammer.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

Day 57: How to spot a scam

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 57: How to spot a scam

There are very few people on earth who wouldn’t like a little extra money. Students to pay their tuition fees, the unemployed to have some income, those who are underpaid to earn a little extra, and seniors who want to supplement their income.

Scammers know this and come up with a variety of ways how to put money in your pocket. Usually, it requires registering with a site, doing little jobs, or doing absolutely nothing, and see the money come rolling in. Unfortunately, after all the time and effort you put into registering, you’ll never see one cent.

The latest scam is http://fixwork.online/index.php

The site requires a call name, your address, email address and a name to which you would like your cheques to be made out to. After registration members are provided with a unique code which they are required to post on social media sites. For every hit their unique link gets they get paid $10. Once they reach $300 they can request payment.

Sounds legit, right? Unfortunately, if you stop to think about it for a second, it’s a scam. Who is going to pay you $10 for simply posting a link to a website? Nobody. If you want to earn money, you have to work for it, as simple as that. Something for nothing should send red flags wagging. Or, if something is too good to be true, it usually is.

A sure way to find out if a ‘job offer’ is legit or not, is to simply Google the name of the organization. It’s what I did and I found the following info here:

https://benjisdad.com/is-fixwork-online-a-scam-review

as well as a very helpful video on YouTube here:

That’s the thing with scams, you’re never the first one to fall for it, someone’s been there before you. Some keep quiet about their experience, others post reviews to warn others. Unfortunately, as soon as one scam is exposed, another one pops up. So stay alert and learn how to spot a scam.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

Contena - scamming freelance writers

As a professional freelancer, I constantly keep an eye out for new opportunities. So when I noticed a website called Contena, I was quick to apply.

I received the response that the website currently didn’t take on any new writers, but that I would be notified when there were vacancies. True to their word, a short time later I received a notification that Contena would be “opening its doors” to 50 new writers on February 28^th at 12:00.

I had high hopes, kept myself available on February 28 and visited the site for registration as soon as I got the green light.

My hopes were smashed within seconds. To become a member of Contena, writers were required to make six payments of $97. I’m not in the habit of swearing, but on this occasion I thought … WTF!

I’m a member of two other freelance sites and they never asked me for a penny. On the contrary, they pay me.

No sooner had I said no to Contena’s offer, or I received an email …

“Earn $1,000 a month. You complete our course and use Contena to land one client. This client is willing to pay $100 per article and wants 3 articles week. Each article takes you about an hour to write.”

The next day another email …

·  You are making $100 / hour.

·  You are making an additional $1,200 / month.

·  You are working 12 hours a month.

As an experienced freelance writer, I didn’t believe a word of it and neither should you. If this were true, just about everyone who can string two sentences together would quit their job and become a freelance writer. No more getting out of bed at the crack of dawn, no more commuting, no more braving the elements, no more working for peanuts.

Cortena promises people who work only 12 hours a month to make $1,200. Can you image how much one would make if you were to apply yourself from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.!

This is all bogus of course. Clients don’t pay writers $100 for an article. Most clients offer 3 to 5 cents per word or $20 to $25 for a 500-word article.

Established writers might get as much as $50 for an article, but that is still a far cry from the $100 Cortena promises.

Cortena itself is doing very well though. Imagine if 50 writers fell for their scam, that is $97 x 6 x 50. That is $29,100 and all they had to do was set up a website, make some promises and then wait for unsuspecting, naive writers to fall for their scam.

Whoever visits the Contena website will see that they have plenty of jobs available, but all of them are bogus. Click on a link, any link, and you are forced to register and pay. After you've paid, the jobs disappear, supposedly taken by other writers. When I asked some to the point questions, I never heard from Kevin (the founder of the scam site) again.

If you’re a writer, far better to become a member of Constant Content or Crowd Content. You don’t have to pay a penny and you’ll have plenty work to keep you busy.