Even The Bad Guys Use Biznik – Don’t Let Down Your Guard
March 31st, 2009You know how when people are on vacation, they tend to be more trusting of other people than they would be in their own city? I think that Biznik and other social networks have a similar effect. People who use Biznik (including myself) are typically using it to network with other people in their region. It’s a friendly place where users post smiling photos and information about their businesses. Everyone is nice and happy to offer you free advice. But don’t let down your guard, because the bad guys are on Biznik too.
Just because someone opens a Biznik account, posts a photo, links to their website and writes articles, does not mean that this person/business is legitimate. You should apply the same suspicion and due diligence to anyone who is offering services – don’t automatically assume that if they’re on Biznik, that they’re trustworthy.
I had a client of mine hire someone on Biznik recently to perform Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on her website. She told me that the Biznik profile of this person looked nice, and that they had written many articles on internet marketing. But after spending nearly $1000 and receiving no results, she became uncomfortable and asked me to look into their services and give her my opinion. She provided me with a copy of her contract and a list of work they had performed.
The details of my investigation can be read here. It’s now obvious to me that based on the contract and documentation of work performed, she’s been cheated. It really gives you a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when you realize that there are people out there who are taking advantage of small business owners, especially in these tough economic times.
If you are tempted to hire a person or a business that is part of a social networking site, like Biznik, please remember that they are no more likely to be trustworthy than a business you found by using Google or some other means. The only way to know if a company is reputable, is to talk to several of their customers.
Please be careful out there. (There will be more articles that follow on this topic to hopefully help you identify and avoid being cheated by SEO scams.)
Jill--------------
J. Olkoski
Aldebaran Web Design, Seattle
Jill Olkoski has a BS in Engineering, a BS in Computer Science and an MA in Clinical Psychology. She delights in using her advanced technical, psychological and interpersonal skills to help small business owners develop cost-effective and successful websites.
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March 31st, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Your observations are absolutely correct, Jill. Just because someone has created a free profile, there’s no “seal of approval” that goes automatically with that.
Social networks like Biznik do, however, offer an excellent safeguard – for example, you can “out” people who don’t deliver what they say they will, and bad news travels even faster on the Internet than good news.
Also, there’s a form of peer pressure that exists on social networks like Biznik that I’ve observed tends to encourage people to do what they say they will. In an networked world, honesty and transparency are even more important than ever.
Dan McComb
Biznik cofounder
April 1st, 2009 at 9:59 am
Hi Dan,
While that’s true, and while I certainly hope in this instance the member does “out” the person – it would be easy for the scam artist to change their name and business name and continue. Ironically the scam artist was not in our city (my client and I were both in Seattle and the other fellow claims to be from Colorado).
I also fear, and I’m hoping this doesn’t come to pass, that she’s feeling some shame for falling for this person’s scam, and that shame might prevent her from talking publicly (in Biznik at least), about what happened. I’m certainly going to encourage her to do this and hopefully she’ll warn other folks.
There’s also retaliation to consider – when I’ve “outed” other businesses who are less than honest, some of them have retaliated against me and written fake online reviews – and so “outing” a business is not risk free, unfortunately.
Great job monitoring blog articles about Biznik!
April 1st, 2009 at 11:20 am
Doing business of any kind is always accompanied by risk. My belief is that doing it as openly and transparently as possible makes it less risky, and that’s why I think social media takes us a giant step forward toward the kind of world we all want to live in.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:54 am
But let’s stick to the point of this article – that people who use social media and who hire other folks from these networks have no guarantee that the businesses and people they’re dealing with are legitimate – they are doing business with these people at their own risk – and they should not let the fact that someone has created an online profile be used in place of appropriate due diligence. And in fact, there might be people out there, who are taking advantage of others on social media sites, because these sites often do feel like online communities. While we can hope that these communities are made up of good, open, transparent folks, people must be reminded these online profiles are easily created and destroyed – and losing $1000 to one of these people is a very painful lesson.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:59 am
Another thought. Does Biznik have a place on it’s site that gives their users guidelines for dealing with others via their site. I remember many years ago when I was on Match.com, they had this really good list of Do’s and Don’ts for people to help keep folks safe and out of trouble. It gave tips on how to avoid getting duped. I’m wondering if Biznik has anything similar. Surely there must be advice for folks to help them weed out the bad guys/gals.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Craigslist has a page on how to avoid scams:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams
I’m curious as to how many of these Craigslist tips should apply to people on Biznik.
When visiting national parks, you see signs that say “even thieves go on vacation”…remind people not to let their guard down.
April 1st, 2009 at 5:33 pm
That’s a fantastic idea, Jill. Frankly, it hasn’t come up enough to have been an issue until now. As of today, Biznik has 26,000 members, which is very tiny by social networking stands, which tend to count memberships in the millions before they are on mainstream radar. I think now would be an excellent time for us to create that page.
April 1st, 2009 at 6:05 pm
That’s great to hear! I hope you’ll post a link to the new page here when it’s completed.
April 1st, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I appreciate this conversation! Thanks Jill for writing your article and Dan for tweeting it! My experience so far with Biznik is terrific but I do always wonder how to know how much info to share and with whom on any on-line social/business networking site. I’ll look forward to the new page!
Penny
April 1st, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Here’s where we’ll put the new page – give us a couple of days to get real content up: http://biznik.com/about/trust
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:01 am
I think there is one essential part missing from this conversation, and that is the personal, face-to-face nature of Biznik events.
One of the key strengths of the Biznik community is that many of our members have met each other face-to-face at a Biznik Event. You can’t say enough about the importance of meeting someone face to face.
It is the nature of the connected world we live in that you won’t always meet (face to face) the people you work with. But Biznik goes that one step further and enables our members to make this all-important connection.
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:28 am
Hi Christian,
While meeting others face-to-face is certainly one of the ways that you might be able to lower the probability of getting scammed, in this particular case, the solicitation came from someone in a different state (we are in Seattle, the solicitation came from Colorado). I belong to the Seattle Community, and perhaps preventing others who are not in my region or flagging them would be beneficial.
In addition, it’s important to note that Craigslist’s “how not to get scammed” page recommends “DEAL LOCALLY WITH FOLKS YOU CAN MEET IN PERSON (their emphasis) – follow this one simple rule and you will avoid 99% of the scam attempts on craigslist.” Perhaps Biznik will add similar language to their “Trust” page.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:08 am
I like the Biznik “compliment” tool because I can see what people have written and even contact them for more information.
I would encourage your friend to challenge the person to show what he has done. (Is it possible that he did work and her webpage is still not pulling for other reasons?) I guess I find it a bit hard to believe that someone would go through the trouble of building websites and writing “many” articles for the purpose of getting $1000 out of someone, knowing that he’ll be outed if he does not do the work. If that is indeed happening, it’s a huge problem that must be stopped, but it also sounds to me like she needs to challenge the guy she hired and give him a chance to respond directly to her. (Maybe he has people working for him who didn’t do the job, and he’ll be horrified and eager to make it right.)
I’d be interested to hear how this resolves…
April 13th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Hi Kate,
I do not know if my client used the “compliment” tool before hiring this particular person.
She’s received a “report” from the company which details their activities. Here’s the problem though, unless you’re someone (like me) who understands exactly WHY this report clearly shows that this activity is worthless, you could certainly take it as evidence that they did their work as promised. I’ve already started writing a very detailed blog article that goes through the report and explains why what the company did won’t help my client’s website.
Unfortunately, there are many, many folks out there who attempt to scam folks regarding search engine optimization services. I get solicitations all the time from illegitimate companies, and my clients forward them to me as well. I try to always write a blog article detailing how to spot one of these scams, but obviously, it’s impossible to stop them.
As soon as I publish the article I’ll post a link here and email it to you and I’ll be very interested in your feedback. It’s really not a matter of “challenging” the person who did the work – the details of what they did came directly from him. It’s a matter of digging deeper into the details of what they actually did with an understanding of the rules of Google, that ultimately give you an understanding of it’s value. Now, I’m hoping that once I finish my article, it will lead to her getting a refund – in my opinion, that would be fair. But not prevent other people from getting taken.
Thanks very much for your comment!
April 20th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Jill:
I think it’s a given that you just can’t trust EVERYONE. Your friend handed over $1000 without checking references, this isn’t the fault of Biznik or anyone other than her and the scammer. Just common sense 101, especially in this day and age. I REALLY don’t think Biznik really needs to go out of it’s way to nerf-coat the edges for the idiots of the world, do you?
April 20th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Yes, I do think it’s appropriate to encourage online communities to help their members avoid getting into trouble. If Craigslist does it, why can’t Biznik? Rather than insulting people and calling them idiots, I’d rather help them by giving them advice and also encouraging companies like Biznik to do the same. It’s not a big deal to add a single page to a website with these kinds of tips. I’d also like to point out that this wasn’t a friend, it was a client, and let’s not make assumptions about what she did, and didn’t do. Hindsight is always 20/20. Let’s try to help other folks avoid getting caught, rather than insulting the ones that do.