We’ve talked about various scams and schemes in this blog, and we’ve covered at least one fraudulent company or scam artist. But, how can a small business owner or consumer avoid these creeps to begin with? Some of it will not sound too earth-shaking, while other tips you may not have considered. So, here goes!
1. If you contact a company for services, or they’ve contacted you and you feel you’d like to work with them, don’t rush into anything. Request an actual proposal from them and a contract. If they balk at this or try to worm their way out of it, cross them off your list and don’t give them a dime!
2. If all seems legitimate with a company, investigate them anyway. You can do this in a variety of ways. Look them up on Yelp.com or other review sites. Google their business or personal name with the words ‘scam’ ‘fraud’ ‘complaints’ or ‘lawsuit’. It may not be foolproof, but if there are complaints against them, or any reported lawsuits, you just may find it before it’s too late.
3. If the person is in the USA, try “Beenverified.com” and pay the small fee to search them for criminal records. This site will also show you any lawsuit judgments against them.
4. Never give out your credit card information over the phone unless you are already familar with the company and have done business with them in the past. Many scam operations work by cold calling you, then insisting you hand out your personal information over the phone. Don’t do it! Instead, request something in writing from them first, be it more information about their company or services, or an actual agreement, proposal or contract. If they refuse, hang up!
5. If someone claims to be contacting you from your bank or some other well-known company, tell them you will call them back, and hang up your phone. Then, call your bank to verify that the call came from them. Do likewise if the caller claimed to be from any company you hold an account with. If you were expecting the call, that is one thing, but for any call to ‘come from the blue’, verify!
6. As a general rule, it never hurts to look a company up on the BBB’s web site. BBB.org Not every company is a member, but complaints will still often appear anyway. In addition, they are very good at documenting the steps a company took to resolve a complaint. You may find that while a company received a complaint, they were cooperative in resolving it to the customer’s satisfaction, which means they could very well be a business who deserves a chance. Conversely, if it shows the company showed little, if any interest in resolving a complaint, then you know you’re better off staying away from any business with them.
7. Never ever, ever pay by wire transfer. This is the same as sending cash, so once you’ve sent the money, it’s gone forever! Any business insisting on a wire transfer as the only form of payment they will accept is fraudulent, plain and simple! This should be a giant red flag to you.
It’s not complaints alone that matter, but how a business responded. How did they treat the customer? Were they willing to take blame and responsibility when something happened? Were they prompt in resolving the matter once they were made aware?
A business worth your support, would do ALL the above.
Here are some tips from a couple of sources you can read to improve your scam-detection powers
Scam Watch 