At LinkedIn in the group Inbound Projects Outsourcing if found a posting from Deva Prashanth about my special friends - the scammer. Please don't understand me wrong. I love scammer - grilled, fried, boiled, etc. The homeless cats in our area prefer them more if they get tortured before they get prepared for them. :)
If everybody, which made actually a bad experience with a scammer shall document it and post it in all the social network groups, then the scammer would not have any chance for doing their fraud business. Centers you need to work together and help each other. Nobody will ask to share your campaigns, but you should keep together by bringing the scammer and their fraud into the spotlight. With this you can reduce your own risk for getting scammed!
If you read the following posting from Deva Prashanth you'll see how easy it is to identify scammer by only reading their offers:
Outsourcing Logic...Missing!!!!
Dear Friends,
As an ardent reader of posts and a person who has seen the BPO space burst out of proportion and grow leaps and bounds I still fail to understand the logic behind scores of Brokers coming up with custom designed and self proclaimed client projects on every possible personal & professional forum.
A Typical Broker Day Offering Projects
There is no trick that is missed by a broker today, a fudged website and a company which in majority of cases will not have contact details and/or which is registered less than a year ago. I fail to acknowledge and understand how these brokers manage to churn out projects every minute, as a professional, one starts wondering, if not feels intimidated by these brokers when it comes to business development and marketing strategies.
However when you dig further one just finds that this is just like a parasite culture baiting and preying on every new company who is out there with little knowledge about such parasites lurking around these forums every minute, luring you,exciting your,attracting you with best possible project offers.
Moving further Taglines by brokers as if it were the end of a season sale " Hurry Limited Slots Available", "Direct Client Sign up - No Middle Man (Consulting Charges Applicable) - Sneaky Little Weasels", "No Unfair Charges", "Little Upfront" and this one gets even better, "No Upfront,No Consultancy, No Software Charges" Only one time registration fees/refundable security charges" and the list goes on. A broker who cannot even utter a single phrase in English poses himself as "You Know Who I Am" and claims to posses a bag-full of projects like apples which for sure are going to turn every service provider into a millionaire in a matter of months. I start thinking, how would this guy be carrying out a conversation in English with the clients that he is claiming to have. ( Are Clients Things To Have? or Could You Buy Them From These Brokers)
Then there are these scores of projects which are produced every minute in projects factories based in Gujarat,UP and Bihar, equation of finding the right project opportunity seems to be irrational,illogical and nearly impossible to beat the business development capabilities of these brokers for even professionals who have spent more than a decade in this industry.
There are also people who bring so many scams to light and also do their bit in bringing such parasite brokers and project producers to notice on these forums, having said that I hope professionals like us share and drive a mechanism which could make a beginning to eliminate this parasite culture and help young entrepreneurs and budding companies find a place in this business. This system may not be able to eliminate this scum, but sure can save lot of companies from falling prey to this onslaught of broker scams.
If you spread your information to newcomer too, then you are destroying the income base of the scammer. With this you are helping yourself and even win a friend instead of having a new competitor.
If you read an offer and it seems to be ok, then make in each case a background check. As higher the promised winnings are as higher is the risk that you get scammed! Don't forget scammer are not getting found in one area of the world. You find then everywhere!
If you got scammed you are guilty by yourself. You have only seen the promised winnings and did not think about the risk of the business. Your own greediness for money did not let you see the alarm signs, which are mostly found already in the announcement. Only because the offer has been written somewhere does not make it true!
You are guilty by yourself if you take some offers without proving if the campaign is in the destination country possible. Knowledge is power. Listen and try to understand the messages from other more experiences call center owners. Think about it, if that what you hear or read can be true or not. It is much more cheaper to learn from the failures done by others than on your own. If you are to lazy to get the knowledge or you are thinking that you know already everything, then you have to work hard to repair your failures, which you made - in the case you got scammed you have to work more for compensating your loss.
Outsourcing Logic...Missing!!!! _ LinkedIn.pdf (585.90 kb)
Brokers and people, who are calling themselves to be “Consultants”, try to sell something to you. For this they are promoting their campaigns.
I think everybody knows already what promotion is and that promotion tries to make something better than it is and hiding the vulnerabilities. Good marketers are even able to make from the vulnerabilities of the product to an advantage for their victims (buyer).
If you are a newcomer, then think about my words and read the offers from campaigns with the critical eye of a consumer and think about it, that you are reading only a promotion. With the help of telemarketing mostly low quality products are getting sold for an exorbitant price. Good and usable products are getting sold inside of shops.
- Campaigns which are sounding too good to be true are SCAM.
Don’t look only at the money, which is promised. Think about it, that you cannot get more commission than a percentage of the sales price.
- As higher the proposed winnings per sale are, as harder will it be to sell the product. Nobody pays more than it is seems to be necessary for him.
- A serious company will give you all the necessary information and arguments, for selling their products. Compare their products with similar products for getting more information what are you selling and about the competitors.
- A serious company will provide you data for calling. They are able to make a better selection for their future customers then you. Data from other call centers are already many times used and for this it will be harder to sell something.
- Make a test drive by speaking with some people of the target customer base, if such a product is interesting for them and how high they would rate the proposed product.
- If you after all this unsure about the product, than offer only an hourly billing to the broker or consultant.
- Ask if you get a phone number provided by your customer, which you can use as caller id.
- Don’t register a phone number by yourself, because in this case you are getting the fraud complains and the fines from the telecom regulatory, for which is your customer responsible. You are working only for him. Fees from the local telecom regulatory can get executed internationally.
- If you shall make anonymous calls, then you would very seldom reach somebody. Very much people are not answering anonymous calls by suppressing even from ringing of their phones.
Don’t forget that you are doing the work and you should get paid for it. Don’t pay anything that you can get a contract. Contracts, which should be international valid, need to get signed in front of a notary and need to get legalized by the government of the involved countries. This procedure is not really cheap, but it is necessary in the case of a fail and one party likes to bring the other one in front of the law court. International contracts, without a confirmation of a notary and without legalizing them, have no value. The legalization process only confirms that the document has been signed in front of a legal and public notary. The last instance for legalizing a document is the ministry for foreign affairs. Your rights cannot get executed in another country without all the confirmation of the ministry for foreign affairs all involved countries.
How to identify scammer by using free tools