If you make a living on the internet, you will come across a scam eventually. Anyone can fall prey to a scam, not just gullible children or your 80-year-old grandma. If you’re a blogger, video creator, influencer or anyone else who makes their hard-earned cash online, you need to take extra caution.
Paying attention to details is the most important thing you can do to spot scams a content creator. Not everyone is whom they say they are. Here are 6 ways to differentiate between scammers and genuine opportunities;
1. Check if The Listed Contacts Are Real
Always double-check the listed contacts. Although small companies and individuals may contact you from a personal email account, every large company has an email address tied to their company website. Below is a screenshot of a scam email sent to A Curvy Mom which was sent from a fake SHEIN email. A company that size would never contact you from a Gmail address.
It gets a little trickier with social media. Over 9500 people were scammed on social media in 2021 alone. If you are contacted on social media, you should be concerned if the account contacting you is brand new or has no information about the alleged brand.
2. Pay Attention to the Language Used
In the screenshot above, you can see that the email has a lot of grammatical and formatting errors. While everyone makes mistakes, most companies have experienced professionals who would not send out such sloppy communication.
It is also clearly a copy-and-paste message. There is nothing to show that they’ve even heard of A Curvy Mom before. Such generic emails are usually sent en masse to multiple recipients at once.
3. Research the Company
Look up the company or individual’s official website and social media to get a better idea of their work practices. If they have no online presence, you should be concerned. It’s also a red flag if the only information about the company is on its own platforms. Unless the company is brand new, there should be external information like reviews or social media posts from their customers.
Sometimes the person contacting you isn’t using a fake identity, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not a scammer. It’s as simple as Googling “company name + scam” to see if anyone has posted about it before. If you know other content creators, ask them if they’ve ever been contacted by this company.
4. Don’t Do Too Much Too Soon
If you’re a passionate new content creator, you probably want to start work as soon as humanly possible.
Slow down. This business is a marathon, not a race.
Don’t let a company push you to start work immediately after they contact you. It always takes some back and forth to iron out the details of the project. People might rush you in the hopes that you’ll forget to ask them questions which they don’t want to answer. This brings me to our next point.
5. Read the Contract
This almost goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Read the contract; all of it. I know it’s annoying, but you’ll be shocked how many people get scammed because they only skim their agreements. In most jurisdictions, you will be legally bound by a contract even if you chose not to read it. Don’t skip the fine print.
6. Don’t Pay To Work
No genuine work opportunity will require you to pay a fee to start a job. There are also lots of ads on job boards which are framed like freelancing gigs, but once you click the link to apply, they’re actually platforms which need you to pay a subscription fee to see the jobs available. Some might argue that these aren’t technically scams, but they definitely are intentionally misleading and manipulative.
In Conclusion,
Being a content creator is hard enough without being scammed, so follow our tips and keep your eyes peeled. Remember; if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Cynthia Kinyera is a freelance writer specialising in women’s wellness. She uses her easy-flowing prose and digital marketing skills to craft engaging high-converting content. Find out more about her work at cynthiawrites.com.