It is a foregone conclusion that once a business concept becomes successful, the scamsters get a sniff of it. In the same way, freelancing which has been quietly coming into the being one of the mainstream professions today harbors some scamsters that you might find in those seedy shops that have begun springing up everywhere. Of course, recognizing those scamsters there is very easy as compared to searching for Freelance scam. Recognizing a freelance scam is difficult - but not impossible. Keep in mind these tips and you will be better equipped to run away from a freelance scam before it hits you.
Asking for too many Samples at the first go: One thing that all freelancers should accept is that unpaid samples are part and parcel of freelance work. Giving one, or two, or at the most three samples to the client without any payment can be understood, but do not give more than three unpaid samples. Three samples of your work are good enough for any freelance client to gauge whether you are perfect for the job or not.
Giving too much work without any advance or escrow: Some naive freelancers may think that it is actually a good thing to get a lot of work together, without the employer even bargaining about the price. Well, the actual thing is, the employer does not need to bargain about the price because he is never going to pay you anything for ii! Keep this in mind whenever you get a Godsend of work and are told that the payment will be done after the first assignment or something.
Getting their way across, always: If you find yourself asking for your payment too many times, run away. If you ask a person for the payment three times and it isn't getting paid, you have every right to just turn away and disappear. If you find yourself uncomfortable giving the clients because of the way he has spoken to you, or feel uncomfortable working in the deadlines that the client has given to you, make it a point to inform them about it and then move away from the project.
Freelance scams are a reality, and the quicker we accept this fact, the more we will be safe from them. Anybody and everybody who has ever worked freelance has been duped or scammed in freelance sometime or the other. If you are into freelancing, there is every chance that even you would be gullible enough to be scammed out of your hard earned money or professional time.
Though it is quite difficult to decide and judge who would be a genuine client and who would be a scamster in freelancing, it is not a complex task,provided you keep some aspects in mind. However, the best thing is that you can even stay away from the places where these freelance scam artists are a regular feature.
If you ask me that one golden rule to stay away from freelance scams, I would tell you to bid and work only on the Bid for Work websites.
Bid for Websites are more or less safer than many of the freelancing groups and forums that you see people either join, begin or write into. This is simply because a bid to work website actually acts as an interactor between you and the client. This also means that even if the client does not allow the website to communicate with him or her, it might be a case of a con going on right there.
There are several Bid for Work websites out there, and all you have to do to find a Bid for Work site is to google the term and you would find so many website options that you would be spoilt for choice.
