Offshore Outsourcing & Scammer

Where ever business is done, fraudsters are not far away. You’ll get scammed if you have to trust to someone met over the internet.  Make in each case a background check of your future business partner.

If you get the offer by using a professional membership site like LinkedIn and the profile has no picture from a real person uploaded then forget the offer. You even need not continue using this script. The possibility that you got the offer from a scammer is in this case already 99%. Only scammers are in need to hide themselves in the anonymity of the Internet.

Start with the picture search if a picture of your business partner is provided. It is easy if you are using Google Chrome for browsing.  Put your mouse pointer over their profile picture and by doing a right click chose “Search Google for this image”.  If you don’t have this option then you can save the image at your local hard disk (right click at the image and chose “Save image as..” from the context menu). Afterwards you go open http://images.google.com, click at the camera symbol and upload your picture. Google is able to take a picture from an url too, but it has no access to some membership sites.

Don’t let yourself get fooled from the result set, because you will also get the same picture with the name from their followers on the social networks and even from similar pictures (googles computers are thinking that the picture is looking similar).

Try to find negative comments and the use of different names in the profile on other sites used for the person shown at the picture.  Most of the scammers are using pictures found at the internet, which are showing important persons or celebrities.

If your search has been negative until now, then continue with the real domain name of your business partner. Use the email domain or the link, which they have sent you. Use http://www.scamadviser.com for checking their domain reputation.  If the given postal contact address is not matching with the registered domain name or they are using an anonymizing service for the domain name, then your business partner has something to hide. Real companies are proud about their products and their name is their trademark. For this they will not hide themselves in the anonymity of the Internet. Only scammers are hiding themselves.

Locate the place or the area of the world from where they have sent you an email. For this you need to consult the documentation of your email client or you use Google to find out the way how to get the Internet email headers for your email client. In the Internet email headers is the way described which the email has taken. Simple copy the Internet email headers into the form shown at the free online tool found at http://mxtoolbox.com/EmailHeaders. You get a route list, which the email has taken on it way with the ip addresses.

You can check the location of this ip addresses by using the free site http://www.iplocation.net/. The location shall match the promoted location and country of your communication partner. Be aware, that the location can be the next larger city next to the address of your communication partner.

If you have did not find something negative about your new business partner, then you should continue with using Google search.

Google has few search options, which can help you to find something out about your new business partner. This search will take a lot more time. Search for the name of your business partner, the name of his company in all possible combinations.

Search with an exact phrase:
Put quotation marks around words "[any word]" to search for an exact phrase in an exact order. Keep in mind that searching with quotes might exclude relevant results. For instance, a search for "Alexander Bell" will miss pages that refer to Alexander G. Bell.

I use this function for searching names and domain names of my business partner. Especially by searching a specific domain name is it very helpful. Scammer sites are getting very fast documented by others and you are able to review their comments.

Search within a specific site:
Precede your query with site: if you know you want your answer from within a specific site or type of site (.org, .edu). For example: site:edu or site:nytimes.com.

As you can search inside a specific site, you can exclude specific sites, by excluding them. To exclude them from the result set you need only put a dash in front. Example -site:linkedin.com for not listing all the contacts from LinkedIn

Find related pages:

Use the related: operator to find pages that have similar content by typing related: followed by the website address. For instance, if you find a website you like, try using related:[insert URL] to locate similar websites.

In any case, even if you did not find out something bad about your new business partner, you should take the lowest possible risk for making business. Sorry, but a perfect instruction for not getting scammed is not available. Think every time that even companies cannot give you money for doing nothing. Every offer, which seems too good to be true, is only scam. So don't turn off your brain if you get a very good offer. Don’t get greedy. One side wins in each in each business, which is done. It is the seller - otherwise he would not sell it.

Other Fraud Warning Sites

A list of proved scammer can get found in the menu entry Scammer Exposed.

Offers from trusted and validated brokers can get found in the menu entry Fair Campaign Offers.

Recently I found a call center campaign at LinkedIn, which has been looking good at the first view:

LOOKING FOR CENTERS FROM (INDIA, SOUTH AFRICA AND PHILIPPINES)

5 year old Tech Support Company based in Texas looking for "experienced" call centers to outsource our outbound tech support sales. We have centers in India working for us from more then 4 years and generating good profits.

Pay-out from $50 to $185 for per sale.

Analyzing the product:

The product is not really a bad idea. As the company is based in in a small city, with a population of around 40000 people, called Hurst in Texas, the local possibility for offering a computer service has not really a big chance. Remote service and support can be a possible income.

Negative aspects:

• A remote service works only if the computer is still running and has a connection to the internet
  
  
• It can be only a software service for optimization of the performance, virus removal (as long the virus is not blocking the Internet connection), spyware scan and malware removal.
  
  
• The service is limited to Windows and Office
  
  
• The offered service "Setup a new system" cannot get done from remote. A transport of the computer can result that the computer does not work when it arrives back to the customer. The reason is very simple: From the vibrations during the transport a card or a plug can lose the correct contact. For this is it better for the customer to visit a computer repair center locally.
  
  
• The company exists already nearly 5 years. They are offering 4 different plans for home users and 2 different plans for business use. The monthly rate is with $15.95 the same for all plans. The initial price for home users varies from $195.95 until $349.95 only the contract time is different. At the website is no reason written why someone should make a contract for 3 years for $349.95 initial with additional $15.95 per month instead of a contract for 6 months for $109.95 + $15.95 monthly. The only difference is the initial price. What the benefits of the higher price and the longer contract time are is missing. Maybe they don't know it by themselves. In this case the telemarketer has no arguments to sell a higher priced plan.
  
  
• Compare at Amazon the price of a new computer in the USA with the maintenance plan what the telemarketer should sell: a complete computer set including monitor, keyboard, mouse and Windows 7 is actually at Amazon for $160 (Dell) available. The setup can get done with the help of the Dell Hotline. An argument for the price is in this case really missing.

In sum is the product not really a runner. In the USA is it normally that the monthly price is coming less as longer as the contract is running.

I try now to translate this advertisement for you:

You need to know that the average call center agent in the USA gets $27000/year ($2250/month or $15/hour)..I have simple divided the yearly salary by 12 and the monthly salary by 150 hours like it is in Europe usable. This company is located in Texas, There is the average income for a call center agent even lower. It is there $26000/year, which makes a hourly rate of $14.45

The offered pay out from $50 - $150 per sale is looking at the first view good, but only on the first view.

Let's take the lowest offered commission per sale, which is $50. A one is not really realistic, because for this the arguments for selling it are already missing.

The company would be positive in labor costs if she would sell each 3 hours and 33 minutes one product per agent by having own telemarketers. The company itself does not believe in their own sales possibilities at such a rate. For this they try to find a call center from a low wage country, which even takes the risk of the product. Maybe the call center should even provide the data for the sales.

My opinion is that very good and very experienced agents will be able to sell in average one product per day as long as the marketing of the product will not get improved. If the marketing will reduce the sales price, the pay out per sale will go down too or the company will not be able to survive and pay you.

So centers think about how long can you work for $50. Maybe you sell one product per 10 hours per agent in average. Are you able to survive with this income?

The sentence "We have centers in India working for us from more than 4 years and generating good profits" is only promotion and for this I can say only: "Never trust a statistic which you did not fake by yourself"

Source offer: LinkedIn offer

Source product: www.fixmycomputerdude.com

Call centers be aware from the “refundable” security deposit. All this offers are nothing else then SCAM. In the normal world a security deposit is given to this one, which gives a value, which cannot get retrieved fast (in leasing, rentals, etc.).

In the case of call center work the given value is the phone bill and the work of the agents, which cannot get retrieved. For this you are able to ask for a security deposit. Especially if the agreed billing period is longer than 1 week you should ask for a security deposit.

A security deposit should include the agreed counts of agents * hours of work during the agreed working time * hourly base + any payment for the broker! A security deposit can be done by an irrevocable bank guarantee, which needs to get accepted at your bank. Don’t start working if your bank does not accept the given bank guarantee. In this case you’ll never see your money.

Call center friends, don't get scammed, a contract should be only valid if you get your security deposit paid.

Definition of a security deposit from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_deposit):

A security deposit is a sum of money held in trust either as an initial part-payment in a purchasing process (often used to prevent the seller selling an item to someone else during an agreed period of time while the buyer verifies the suitability of the item, or arranges finance) - also known as an earnest payment, or else, in the course of a rental agreement to ensure the cost of repair in relation to any damage explicitly specified in the lease and that did in fact occur.

In certain taxation regimes a deposit need not declared as part of the gross income of the receiving party (person or corporation) until either the depositing party or an arbitrator agrees the funds may be used for the intended purpose.

A 1990 United States of America ruling[1] provides that a deposit differs from an advance payment because the depositing party has dominion over the funds and retains the right to insist upon repayment in cash. On the other hand, the party making an advance payment retains no right to insist upon the return of the funds as long as the recipient fulfills the contractual agreement.

The rationale behind the court’s decision is that the recipient of the deposit does not enjoy - complete dominion - over the funds and is subject to an express obligation to repay so long as the customer fulfills his or her legal obligations. Additionally, both the timing and the method of refund are largely within the control of the depositing party, as he or she can choose to insist upon repayment in cash or apply the deposit to purchase services. The recipient’s right to retain the funds of the deposit is contingent upon events that are outside of his or her control.

An important note is that although the recipient may receive an economic benefit from the deposits - i.e. interest - the prospect that income will be generated provides no ground for taxing the principal. However, any income that the recipient may earn through the use of the deposit money is, of course, taxable.

 

In leasing

Security deposits are required most often by lessors of automobiles, apartments, and commercial real estate.

The security deposits required by many residential landlords of their tenants are the source of much dispute and litigation. Many states and municipalities have enacted laws that specifically regulate the landlord's ability to withhold tenant security deposits after a tenant moves out. Some states and cities require that interest be paid to the tenant as it is earned on the security deposit.

In some legal regimes the deposit has to be placed with an independent escrow agent or licensed deposit taker such as a bank so that the risk of fraud is reduced and the funds earn interest at a fair market rate.

In the United States of America, Washington DC, Alaska, Illinois, and Wisconsin have notably more tenant-friendly legislation in place than states like Indiana or Michigan, for example. The cities of Madison, Wisconsin and Chicago, Illinois have in place substantially greater protection of tenants' security deposit rights than the surrounding areas.

The most of this “FREE” eBooks are not really free. You have at least to drop your email address and mostly some more information about yourself. In the best case you get some usable information from the eBook, which is belonging to the general knowledge. In the most cases you only get a promotion for any other services or the eBook ends where it is coming interesting. There you find a link for continuing reading. If you click the link, you’ll end up at a pay site.

The result will be in any case that you get flooded with spam, because your data get traded together with the topic of the eBook. For this reason the scammer will know already in what you are interested. As more information you need to enter as higher will be the earning for your information.

So don’t forget, nothing is for FREE at the world. You have to pay with your personal data. This data are getting used to spam you and this data are getting sold. For this be AWARE from FREE eBooks. You pay in any way with your personal data for information, which you can get free from the Internet if you know how to use some search engines.

If something is free, then it will be written on a web site or it will be downloadable without any registration.

A few days ago one LinkedIn member even tried to earn money by using ad.fly for a self-compiled list of scammer. The greediness is endless from some people.

Yesterday I got a call from Esperanza Consultancy. They have been calling my New York phone number by using a dialer, which even did not work correct. I have already picked up the phone and their dialer continued dialing. They have tried to open 17 lines at the same time.

Anyway, they asked me to remove my negative comment (I called them to be a scammer) from LinkedIn. They even offered me a project cheaper or for free if I do what they like. I’m not for sale, but I have reviewed their offer.

For the unbelievable case if they are really not a scammer by themselves, then they are getting scammed by themselves. I try to explain my result in detail now.

Someone, who has a real offer or is thinking that he got misunderstood, will not offer something for free or with a big discount. Such a person will explain why he/she feels herself misunderstood and try to solve the issues. On the other side Esperanza Consultancy is a young company. Maybe they have no experience in business and are learning by doing. In any case they have chosen the wrong way.

I’m coming from the technical and programming side to the call center business. For this I made a technical review about their offer. I have attached their offer at the end of this posting that everybody is able to comprehend my review.

The demo data, which Esperanza Consultancy has submitted, are machine readable and have 5 different datasets. Such a dataset can get transformed with tools into a complete resultset for the destination system.

The “Housing Loan Application Form”, which should be the destination, is a simple form consisting of 5 forms, which have a lot of fields. With another tool, the same which is used from forum spammers, you are able to fill out this form with the prepared dataset from the input in less than a second.  The open question is only how many forms can get submitted during one second without flooding the destination system. I have enough Internet bandwidth available, that I’m able to make a destination system unreachable. So I have to build in some waits for not flooding the destination system. We are directly connected to the international Internet backbone in Austria with our systems.

For this I need not waste manual power. I can use machine power, which can make around 10 complete conversions per second and per computer, if their own capacity able to handle this. In compare, they are saying that one agent needs 15 minutes for filling out one destination form set and the full process is planned for 3 years. Additional is an automatized transcoding error free and repeatable.

As the computer based process is up to 9000 times faster than the manual process, the work of an agent from 3 years can be done by using 2.9 machine hours. I have offered them this solution. A few days later I have seen the offer in the groups from LinkedIn again.

So make your own decision if Esperanza Consulting or their client is the scammer?

Demo data.html (524.98 kb)

email from esperanza consulting com.txt (5.16 kb)

Housing_Loan_Form_Details.pdf (62.73 kb)

Sample Form (Open in Firefox Browser).html (275.68 kb)