Bloggers, Be Aware Of Scam

There was an email sent to my personal email offering $100 to post a few posts about finance and would be relevant to my blog. See the message I quote here:

Hi,
We are interested in submitting a relevant and original article for publication on your website, wellroundedinvestor.com.
The piece will include references to one of our clients. In addition to providing you with a fresh article, we’re also willing to pay $100 through PayPal for your time and effort.
We are very excited to submit a draft for your review. Please let me know if this offer interests you or if you have any questions.
Hope to hear from you soon,

Olivia Wood

Senior Outreach Executive

olivia.wood@letsgetwise.co.uk

http://www.letsgetwise.com

The message looks legit, the website they provide looks pretty good. I was skeptical, but I responded anyway. I asked for details. They responded with promise of $100 paying through PayPal, and relevant article is coming.

The article was not anything exciting, the writing is mediocre. But what I noticed is about “forex” trading. Refer back to some random website about how to forex trading. How do I conclude this is a scam?

1. They wrote in such fashion that only “foreigner” would write (their website has .uk, that means they are native English speakers). I can’t pin point the exact word or sentence. But non-native English or the use of Google translation makes their sentences look weird to me.

2. There is no free money coming from the sky. You’d have to work for it. Certainly, it’s not a mediocre writing posting on my blog would give me $100. Hahah. Not to play down on my blog, but I don’t have enough traffic to get easy $100 from the sky.

3. I ask for details, a serious company would give me a legit contract, instruction, things that’s relevant to me. When they would go for the kill and asked for my paypal account, that’s when they draw money in and out of my banks.

4. I also notice recently there has been some bloggers having sponsor post about forex trading, where they are value investors or dividend growth investors through and through. Most people would not sell themselves short. I went back and check their blogs. Those  blog posts are now off their websites. That gave me the confirmation that they also facing the same scam.

5. Their article gave instruction on posting pictures, grabbing from Flickr not from their own company. A little “weird” off things.

Here is another quote from our email exchange. See of you can pin point the weirdness:

Hi,
I hope you are well. I’m back in touch because I have the article for you to put on your website.
You can make slight amendments if you feel the need, but please make sure the tone stays the same and you leave any anchor text as it is. The article has been specifically written for your site, so you do not have to worry that it is ‘duplicate copy’.
Simply publish the article as you would a normal post on your site, so it will initially appear on your home page before being replaced by a newer post.

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I write this hoping that my fellow readers don’t fall for the same scam.

Have a great day, everyone!