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.