Don't Be A Victim of Online Writing Scam

by JLGerardo


If you are new to the world of freelance writing, you’d immediately jump at good-sounding opportunities or advertisements to work at home. You conjure up images of typing in your keyboard and then receiving payment for your hard day’s work. Why, you’d even think of buying that car or that latest wifi-ready laptop you saw in brochures!

So you answer these legitimate-looking ads in job boards. As per instructions in the ad, you innocently submit resume and sample articles. Then you cross your fingers, toss to and fro out of anticipated excitement, and tell your Mom you’d buy her a gift for her birthday when you get that virtual writing job offers.

But alas, a week passes by with no response from the expected employer. And two, then months. You dispatch another email inquiring about your application but you get no reply.


And then one day, you stumbled on your sample article already posted in a website.


The realization hit you with a bang.
You’ve been scammed.

According to seasoned writers, online writing scams are rampant in the Internet. They proliferate in legitimate job boards like Monster.com, Media Bistro, Journalismjobs, elance, and other sites. These online writing scams abound excessively in public job boards like craigslist.

Even those newspapers promising home-based online writing opportunities can be completely fraudulent.

Types of Online Writing Scam
1.) Send A Free Writing Sample Scam
The ad requires you to submit a free sample of your writing. Sometimes, the ad includes topics for you to write about.

If you fall for this one, you just made a scammer richer with your article. You see, scammers will sell your article to website owners and pocket the whole payment.

2.) TIGHT SCHEDULE ( URGENT) SCAM
The morning ad says that the articles should be in by 1 pm. Payment will be sent to you after receipt of the article.

You feel the urgency, and with barely two hours to complete the article, you rush in to your computer and compose your best. Then you send it, expecting payment to come in the mailbox afterwards.


But no money arrives in the mailbox despite your repeated emails, and you finally realize you became another victim to an online writing scam.

3.) BATCH JOB
Ad posters will state outright that they pay only $25 for a batch of 10 initial articles.
Then they dangle a carrot stick.

You will be paid more on succeeding projects once they get a grip of your writing style.

Sounds fine, right? Nope. Any seasoned freelance writer can smell such scam a mile away.



How To Spot Online Scams
Online writing scammers in craigslist, for example, post in multiple cities, and in multiple directories for maximum results. But they do leave some telltale trail behind.

These are:
1.) Their posts have more than 5 grammatical errors. One of two is fine. But when the post contains a good sprinkling of grammatical errors that even a primary pupil will not commit, that should give you warning signals.

2.) The posts are short. Usually, the post contains around six words or more. Example: “Need freelance writers immediately. Send resume.”

Am I saying that all short posts are scams? No. There are some good ones out there. Just hone up your instinct to determine which is which.

3.) Look closely at the payment. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. “Wanted content writers for pet site. $40 to $70 per 500-word article.”

4.) Scrutinize the qualification of the job. If the poster does not state the qualification, you can bet your bottom dollar it’s a scam.

You see, legitimate posters are very picky about the qualifications of the writers. Online scammers, on the other hand, are only interested for another victim—and that’s you. Yes, you.

5.) If ad contains the name of the company, then you better do some background checking. Google it and find everything you can about the company.

There’s a hitch to this, though. A friend narrated to me that she replied to an ad with the name of a big consumer product company. Following her instincts, she dispatched an email to that company regarding the job offering.

Fortunately, the company replied that there is no such job opening nor do they have an employee matching the poster’s name found in the ad.
Smart move there, sis!

LEGITIMATE PLACES TO FIND PAYING FREELANCE WRITING WORK

A fellow freelance writer named Steve compiled a list of legitimate places to find paying freelance writing work.

Among his list are :
www.associatedcontent.com
www.constant-content.com
eHow.com
Squidoo.com
Epinions.com

These are just some of the legitimate places. Check out Steve’s complete list. Also, try to visit Jodee’s ” 23 Places To Find Freelance Writing Jobs…”

Be careful now and don’t get scammed.