One of the most exciting things you can receive as a blogger is emails about business opportunities/partnerships. Sadly, a lot of these emails often end up being scams. But, in receiving one, you can sometimes get so excited that you’ve been sent this email you forget to look for the small details.
It’s important to be able to tell if an email is a legitimate business opportunity for your blog, or a phishing scam. Lately I’ve both received, and heard of, a lot of different scam emails being sent to bloggers. If you have a ‘Contact Me’ page on your blog, or offer your email address on your blog, you may have even gotten some of these yourself. Here are some things to look for that can help determine whether or not the request you’ve gotten is legitimate.
- The email should be addressed to you, not to the name of your blog, or a generic phrase such as ‘dear customer’. If you do not provide a first name on your blog, a legitimate business request will include them introducing themselves and asking for your first name
- The email should have proper spelling and grammar. (This email I’ve included as example is a hot mess) Scams will often exchange ‘o’ for ‘0’ to bypass spam filters that services like hotmail, gmail and yahoo mail have in place.
- The email should include a company name, at bare minimum, in the signature. If they’re smart, they’ll include it elsewhere in the email as well. If they are self employed, they will acknowledge that.
- The email should NEVER ask you to do something in direct violation of law. IE Post a paid for advertisement to your blog whilst not disclosing that it was paid for.
- The email should never request for personal information such as a phone number, access to your blog, pay-pal account info, and so on and so forth. If no business relationship has been established (yet) why would they need this information immediately?
- A legitimate business opportunity for your blog will never come from someone who ‘expects’ anything from you. Initial emails should be a request and nothing more.
- Take a close look at the email address, not just the sender name. Often times the domain can be a dead giveaway that an email isn’t legitimate. And, while it is true that some self-employed/small business owners do use services such as GMAIL for business, they will always have their name, or their company name used in the email. In the case of the email example I have attached, the name in the email address of who the email was from did not match the name on the bottom of the email.
- Do not open poorly labeled or unlabeled attachments. And, if attachments are labeled, be careful to make sure that it’s not a scam before you open.
Last, but certainly not least, does the email make your ‘spidey sense’ flare up?
This list may sound obvious when you’re reading it, but there are a lot of people in this world who fall for email scams. People get so caught up in the excitement of them that there are a lot of Nigerian Princes with a lot of money right now. And, a lot of Lawyers in Monaco that won’t be wiring that 4.2 million they promised from your dearly departed relative that you’ve never met that they set up the will for.
I would strongly encourage that, if you feel an email could be a scam, you do not respond. Even a simple ‘No thank you’ can send them after you for months on end, request after request, annoying the crap out of you in an effort to wear you down.
If you think it could be a scam just hit delete.
Have you ever received a business request/opportunity for your blog that you felt could be a scam? What did it say? How could you tell that it just wasn’t quite right?
Stop orthodox methods – seems legit. You should jump at that offer. Great post, Vee.
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Yes. I gave them my phone number immediately. I am hoping the call and ask for my credit card information and Social Insurance Number.
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I’m so glad. Better have that information ready so you can give it to them straight away. Can’t let great opportunities like this get away!
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Can you write one of these for phone calls? I know some people who really need it…
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True story
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I got an email like that, but once they asked for admin rights to my blog I immediately felt suspicious. Great post!
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Oh dang, that one is a GIANT red flag.
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I know right!
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Good to know!! Thanks for sharing!
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Thanks for reading!
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It’s interesting that you posted about this because lately I have received an influx of these types of emails. So annoying!!
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You must be popular! Hopefully you haven’t given away your credit card information to any of them!
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No ma’am, I have lived long enough in the world to smell a scam a mile away sister😉
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But when the Prince of Nigeria wants to help you with your blog and sell you medicine at a deep discount, you’ve gotta do that. He’ll split his fortune with you!
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I am not helping him unless he marries me so that I can officially fulfill a dream I’ve had since I was a little girl, being a real life Princess.
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I have not received emails like that ( yet). Thank you Vee, for the information and your insight. I’m glad you wrote about this…Blessings.
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Well, hopefully when they come you’ll be able to tell which ones are straight up scams so you don’t ever get taken advantage of! Knowledge is wealth with this kind of stuff!
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The thing is, they don’t even take their hustle seriously – can’t even have some respect for these people LOL
At least try your best, fools.
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Sadly, they don’t have too. They’re not trying to fool the smartest people, they’re trying to do the bare minimum so the stupidest people will fall for it. True story – I knew someone in 2018 who wired $100,000 to a Lawyer in Monaco who claimed he needed it to transfer 4.2 million back to her from the will of a dead relative she’d never met. There are people in this world who don’t question it. Some people just jump on the opportunity.
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Here is my latest scam email: Hi, My name is Charles Koch, a philanthropist and the founder of Koch Industries, one of the largest private foundations in the world. I believe strongly in giving while living I had one idea that never changed in my mind, that you should use your wealth to help people and I have decided to secretly give $2,000,000.00 Million Dollars to randomly selected individuals worldwide.
On receipt of this email, you should count yourself as the lucky individual. Your email address was chosen online while searching at random. Kindly get back to me at your earliest convenience, so that I will know your email address is valid.
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Ballsy of someone to claim to be an actual Billionaire to try and trick you.
“Email me back so that I can harass you for the next 12 months every single day, wear you down and drive you crazy. Maybe even hack your accounts while I am at it.” lol
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Got another one:
From: Terry Walters but when I hit reply it will go to : benken877@gmail.com . It doesn’t make sense that someone would use one email to send something and want you to reply to a different email.
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That’s what happened in the email I sent as an example. The name in the email address and the name in the signature did not match. At all. Good thing to be watchful over!
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I get at least five scam emails every week. Totally infuriating. Worst way to start my day is seeing a very promising-looking pitch and then finding out it’s bullshit.
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I bet! You want your email out there for legitimate opportunities but then you don’t want your email out there because the bullshit that comes is such a waste of time.
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Damn it! I still only ever get emails about questionable and likely illegal pharmaceuticals. Still waiting..!
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You should jump on those pharmaceuticals. You might need to use those so you don’t get ill. I don’t know what it’s like on the coast, but up here… the vitamin aisle is slim pickings.
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OMG it’s fucking mayhem here! I’m disgusted with society. More so than usual. If you want toilet paper, cleaning supplies, tinned goods, pasta, rice, flour, meat.. you’re shit out of luck. Because people have lost their damn minds. And while they’re filling up their trunks there’s a person without a car and can only buy what they can carry home – meaning they have zero padding to their food supplies and can’t buy anything they need when they head to the store because everything is gone.
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I know what you mean. We’re almost out of TP and I don’t know when we’re going to find it again…
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Thank you so much for sharing
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Thank you for reading.
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As an author, I’ve received a bunch of phony offers to review and advertise my books. The usual giveaway is that they don’t include any information about themselves (whether they have a blog or a Goodreads page, somewhere to see what they’ve done) and usually request a free paperback book.
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My other half opened a dodgy email attachment once – I had to format her laptop…
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Yikkkkkkkkkkkkkess
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These are amazing tips. Thank you!
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Thanks for this. I raise a great point…how do u know with scams online being so rampant? I ignore every unknown phone call, and nearly all outside emails unless from a reader…appreciate ur tips as it helps to decipher legit vs scam!
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