I’ve recently joined another forum (why do I do this??). I must be a forum junkie or something

Anyway, my heart went out to many there who are seeking work online but don’t know where to look, how to start, or what might be real versus a scam.  I posted a very long item on the forum but thought that the information would be useful outside of the forum so it was more public as well. Here seemed a good place to post it.  Your comments are welcome!

Hello everyone, I’m very new here but have been reading through the threads and contributing where I can.  I’m hoping that the advice I give here will help many of you who are seeking jobs or online businesses.

As you know it’s so very easy to get taken in by scams these days. So easy for people to set up a website, make it look impressive and make it sound
like they know what they’re talking about and that they have experience on
their side. Unfortunately it’s all too easy to hide behind a website and
you don’t get to see the real person for what they’re worth.

Whatever your skillset, research becomes a very necessary skill you need to
hone and develop.  Because the internet allows people to remain ‘invisible’
and only show what they want to show (there’s both good and bad in this)
then it’s important for you to check out who it is you’re planning to work
for or do business with.

There are some things you can do to help you:

• When you visit a website and you’re not sure of its longevity – has it only been around 6 months or 6 years, there is a way to check.  Visit the Wayback Machine and enter the URL.  It’s interesting to see how sites have progressed and matured over time. http://www.archive.org/web/web.php  If the site has only been around a month then you might need to tread carefully.
• Investigate the head person or the contact person for that business.  Do they show up on the web much or are they a non-entity?  Have people discussed them at forums and is the feedback good or bad?  If that person is really business savvy chances are they will have a profile at linkedin.com and have a website of their own. There may be articles written by them or about them or they may have shown up in newspapers and magazines online.
• If you’re looking to go into business with someone, or register with a
  business that requires you to pay a membership or subscription fee, then again make sure you research the company or person first.  No business opportunity is that urgent/important that you have to sign up today.  If the opportunity is good it will still be here tomorrow and next week, or even next month, so take your time to research and consider.
• Compile a list of pros and cons for joining that company or running that business.
• Look for discussion forums online that relate to that industry and if the forums are free (most are), then join it and hang around for awhile. Get to know the people and how they conduct themselves.  Let the industry speak for itself via the forum(s).  There are many board forums like this one, oryahoogroups.com has tons of forums there on almost any topic imagineable.  Ning.com does too.  And there are others so the research is worth doing.
• If you’re not sure what kind of work you’d like to do, make a list of your skills and abilities and then start doing searches on those skills and abilities. Google will show up all sorts of things – the adwords of people selling their services or products, lists of forums, websites and all sorts of other things relating to those items. This research may well open your eyes to possibilities you hadn’t considered before.

Who am I to tell you this? My name is Kathie Thomas and I’ve been in
business for over 16 years.  I began as a homebased secretary BEFORE the
internet so was well placed to adopt this ‘new’ technology when it entered
my country (Australia) back in late 95.  I was online early 96 and had my
first website by April that year.  My business has grown with the internet.
These days I’m known as a Virtual Assistant.

I get a lot of people (mainly women) emailing me, writing to me, phoning me up, just to make sure I’m a real person before they decide to join my VA
network. Others write to me for advice because they’ve seen my name on the web in lots of places and consider that I am well known in my industry.  I
get women from other industries seeking advice simply because they know
I’ve worked on the web for a long time and they want to know what they
should or shouldn’t be doing and what to look for.  It doesn’t matter that
they might be planning to do something different to what I do, they just
recognise that experience counts and they want to benefit from that.

There are always great new opportunities out there and once you’re in that frame of mind, they will keep showing themselves up.  I often get approached by people, mainly from the US, because their business is reaching my own shores and they’re looking for someone to join up, sign up, become a distributor or something along those lines and because I have a huge network of people I know, I’m an ideal target for those approaches.  Some I look at with interest, others I turn down immediately. But I only
get approached because I have a web presence and am visible to many.  Which brings me to my next point.

All of you can have your own website at no or very little cost to you.
There are services out there that are free such as blogger.com,
wordpress.com and similar.  Whilst these are known traditionally as
blogging tools you can create static pages instead of posts.  Why not set
one up in your own name and add your profile, almost like an online resume.

Don’t put in personal information such as your home address but do make it
easy for people to contact you if they need to. Anyone in business usually
has a contact form, or email address and a phone number for easy access.

If you have topics you’re passionate about and if you have good writing
skills, then use that site as a platform to share your knowledge – you
never know who might see it.

A good example: one of my daughters is into horses in a big way. She’s
almost 26 now.  3 years ago she got an email from someone who had been
reading her blog about the horse studies and work experience she’d had in
the industry. It kept showing up in their Google searches on the topic.
When she contacted me to find out if I thought the email was a scam I told
her ‘no honey, that sounds very real, you better call them’. She did.
Turned out to be a local Technical College of Advanced Education and they wanted to engage her as a teacher for their Equine Studies course. She’s now been teaching for them for 3 years. No, she didn’t have a teaching degree but the college recognised she had the experience and skills for the topic and they agreed to put her through a ‘train the trainers’ course. She’s now studying for her teaching diploma part-time while teaching at the college.  She’s making money she didn’t think she would be making as the industry is low paid but her passion outweighed her desire for a high income.

So, if you want to stand out and get noticed, start creating an online
profile for yourself.

While on that topic, it has been documented by the media many times now
that prospective employers can research their employees by checking places like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter and so on.  What does your profile online say about you?  Is there anything you wouldn’t want a
prospective employer or business partner see? Best you get it cleaned up
now – before that time comes.  What you put on the web is there forever and
it pretty darned near impossible to get removed so take care in your online
presence – always.

Sorry for the long post but I hope this information helps someone here.

All the best to you in your searches!

This is a laugh!

Just got this email with an attachment which no doubt has some script installed in it.  What makes it so funny?  Well, apart from the obvious things like not addressing it personally to me (I don’t even have a NAB account), spelling errors, etc, it talks about paying me in Euro – from an Australian bank?  Doh!

I have notified the real NAB of the new phishing/spam email doing the rounds.  To date I’ve received 3 copies in less than half an hour.

Subject: Reward 20 Euro (31 AUD) ,take our survey jurney

Dear NAB Credit/Debit card Holder,

For better cooperation between NAB and his clients, NAB Survey Team has
initiated a new poll on the functionality of our banking services. By
completing the attached survey form emailed, you will receive an amount of
20 Euro. This amount will be debited to your credit card account in 2 days
after verifications. To participate, download form attached to email !

I noticed in my spam filter two messages that are supposed to be from the Australian Tax Office telling me about a Tax Refund. I don’t believe for a moment that they would contact me that way – I still get mail direct from them or via my Accountant, however just to alert you to some other things about this email.

• It is not personally addressed.
• Any correspondence from the tax office would include my tax account number details.
• Email is not secure so why would they anyway?
• Why does it list AUD? I didn’t think the Australian Tax Office dealt in other currency with Australian tax payers?
• Why would I need to submit a tax refund form?  Didn’t they just say they’d done a calculation?
• If I hold my mouse over the hyperlink I can see straight away it’s not the ATO website address but some other scammer’s address. I hope they get shut down quickly.  It started with http://pool-96 for those interested in knowing.

When are these idiots going to spend their time on something worthwhile that helps people rather than trying to rip them off?

Dear Australian Taxation Office customer,

After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of AUD $250.50.

Please submit the tax refund form and allow us 3-5 business days in order to process it.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access the form for your tax refund, please Click Here.

NOTE!
For security reasons, we will record your ip-address and date.

Thank you,
Australian Taxation Office Online Department.

I received two of these letters this past week and was shocked to receive bills I wasn’t expecting. They were for my trademarks and I couldn’t recall having to pay bills of that size before. It worried me and was unplanned/unexpected.

Needless to say, research online shows that there are warnings about these letters which are not official.  Below is a link from a legal organisation and the other is ‘hidden’ information I found on the website of the organisation that sent the letters.  I say ‘hidden’ because that page is not linked in their menus and not visible on the site – I only found it through a Google search.

http://www.holdingredlich.com.au/urgent-alert-warning-to-trade-mark-owners

This information is on the Trademark Publisher website but is a hidden page in that it’s not listed on their menu.

INFORMATION ABOUT TRADEMARK PUBLISHER (TMP) – DATABASE SERVICE:
THE TMP WEBSITE WWW.TRADEMARKPUBLISHER.INFO DISPLAYS THE TRADEMARK, THE NAME OF THE TRADEMARK OWNER, THE NAME OF THE ASSOCIATED BRAND AND PRODUCT/SERVICE ON THE INTERNET. IT IS ONLY AVILAIBLE TO PAID, REGISTERED TRADE NAMES AND DESIGNS WITH THEIR IP AUSTRALIA REGISTRATION NUMBERS AND CLASSES. PUBLICATION ON THE TMP INFO REGISTER PROVIDES WORLDWIDE PUBLICATION ON THE INTERNET. THIS PUBLICATION IS AN ELECTIVE SERVICE AND DOES NOT SUBSTITUTE FOR REGISTRATION, NOR DOES IT PROLONG THE VALIDITY OF YOUR TRADEMARK REGISTRATION WITH IP AUSTRALIA.

Spare a thought for Winweb who are experiencing a problem with mistaken identity and a malware program that carries a similar name to their business. I’ve known Stefan Töpfer for a couple of years now. We first spoke December 2005 and I met him February 2006 when I was visiting in London. We’ve maintained a business connection ever since and you may have noticed a recent post about a business competition – it was through Stefan that my connection took place. Rather than rewrite what he says, I’ll share with you his dilemma.

Dear All,

In the past week a malware program has surfaced, which calls itself WinWeb Security (winwebsecurity.com – don’t click on any links on this website). It has, of course, nothing to do with us. If you Google ‘WinWeb Security’ you will get a picture of what is going on, that is only the public side of it. Please see my post:

http://www.sme-blog.com/comments/winwebsecuritycom-more-facts

and WinWeb’s Statement recently:

http://www.winweb.com/latest-news/winweb-winwebcom-vs-winweb-security-winwebsecuritycom

Despite the fact that we have been providing free support to anyone (1000′s) who contacted us, we have sometimes been falsely accused of being winweb security, which we are not; this is still causing real damage to our reputation, due to the name association.

I wonder if you would be willing to help us to set the record straight with your readers and maybe forward this to some of your other blogger contacts to do the same. I have provided WHOIS lookups in my posts, that should be one of the most helpful ways to show people what is what, and hopefully stop them associating us with this menace.

I’m sorry about the bulk email, but I have to react fast. If you can help – I thank you very much for your support, I of cause do understand if you do not what to get involved.

Kind regards

Stefan.

Poor Stefan and his staff. So if you have heard of Winweb please know they are not connected to winweb security.

Have you had a problem with a domain or business name that is similar to yours and has this caused problems for you? I would love to hear about them here. I think it’s important to put people straight on incorrect assumptions wherever possible. What do you think?

mistaken identity, malware, similar domain, winweb

For the second time in a month I’ve received a message on my wall at my Facebook page saying that my photo had been seen at a site.  The first time I clicked on it unawares and immediately my antivirus program (Trend Micro) warned me of a problem and wouldn’t let me view the page.  I went to the guy who posted a message on my wall and saw there were heaps of wall messages he’d left within a few minutes – a sure sign something was wrong. I left a message for him to say he had a virus and also sent a personal email to him.

I then removed the wall notice from my Facebook so that no-one else would click on it – important you do that!

This morning one of my clients left a similar message and I immediately contacted her and her VA support to advise that one of them had a virus and it had infected the Facebook profile.

I’ve researched articles on it but haven’t found any fixes – just best to keep your antivirus program updated every single day.

Internet News – Facebook Attack

Now Public – Facebook Virus Attacks Again

Reuters – Koobface Virus

And even UrbanLegend is confirming there is a virus.

Facebook has told members to delete contaminated e-mails and has posted directions at www.facebook.com/security on how to clean infected computers.

I have a free online virus scanner (owned by Trend Micro which is the program that saved me from grief) at my site at http://www.acs-webhosting.com/ in the bottom right-hand corner of the page.

Last week one of my clients contacted me as they’d been approached from a company in China who was ‘concerned that a domain’ similar to my client’s was going to be registered by another business.  As soon as she asked me about it I had a feeling that it was most likely either spam or a scam.  Sure enough, once she sent me a copy of the email I was positive it was a scam, however I encouraged her to seek advice from a govt dept here in Australia just to be sure.

Today I received three of these same emails – each for a different domain I own – and all along the same lines. My suspicions have been more than confirmed and just to take it further I decided to do some searches of my own online.

Below are links to just three sites warning of this scam and there are many more too.

How scammers trick you out of your domain name (1)

How scammers trick you out of your domain name (2)

Net in China domain spam

Domain scammers list

If in doubt, always best to seek advice (as my client had sought to do) and doing a search on Google or your otherwise favourite search engine is a good thing to do.  I usually copy and paste a key phrase from the email and place it into the search engine to see if anything comes up.  Sure enough, it did!

domain scam, domain name, scammers, China

It keeps coming doesn’t it?  It seems someone must come up with a ‘fantastic’ idea of how to scam people out of their hard-earned money and then others pick it up too.  A wave of emails with the same topic but different send from addresses.

For awhile it was job offers to Virtual Assistants, last week it was VA Certification applications and this week it appears to be bookings for airline tickets.  Or should I say ‘Your Flight Ticket Nxxx’.  To date I have received several of these from different airlines - I mean how many flights did I book recently? Ummm, none that I recall.

For the uninitiated or those very green to the Internet, they may well take these emails as genuine and for those who have been around awhile they might be a tad wary, whereas the rest of us, just hit delete and move onto the next email.

If you are in doubt about the genuineness of an email and you don’t know the sender personally, then I encourage you to Google the subject of the email – if it’s spam or a scam, you’ll soon find references to it.  And if it doesn’t come up, then possibly it’s worth checking with someone you know who is more internet savvy than you, like your ISP or webhost for example.  And even if it was sent to you by someone you know well – always worth checking anyway.  They might have been infected by a virus or trojan and are unaware the email came from their address at all.

I’ve written about it often in newsletters and in blogs and I’ve emailed everyone who includes me on a list using To: and CC: and advise them of the proper way to send broadcast emails. I’m astounded at how many business people just do not seem to know or understand this simple way of protecting their lists.

My series on Email Etiquette has been republished in many articles and publications online and in printed publications also. They are also amongst some of the most viewed articles at Evan Carmichael’s Motivation and Strategies for Entrepreneurs. Pity the staff at Ticketek didn’t read them.

Last week my husband received an email from Ticketek with a long list of email addresses in the To: field. What a blunder and a public blunder at that. We were astounded at the time that they would do that and he emailed them advising he was unsubscribing from their list.

In The Age today there is an article about a Spam Alert after Ticketek email blunder. They’ve highlighted how it is a privacy breach but I have other concerns about what this could do.

If any of the recipients have a virus or Trojan on their computers the rest of the recipients are at risk if they don’t have up-to-date antivirus programs active on their computers. But more to the point, their email addresses have just been given away to any of those people on that list keen to build their own lists. What a giveaway!

Let this be a lesson to all who broadcast emails to lists of people. DO NOT USE the To: or CC: fields if you are sending email to a list of people. It should not be done. Get into the habit of using BCC which protects and hides the email addresses of everyone on your list. Each individual will only see their address and no-one else’s when this is done properly.

Broadcast email, spam, To:, BCC, Ticketek

I’ve just come across this article which I think is worthwhile reading for anyone who has content that could be copied.

Copyright Infringement: What If Someone Is Stealing From You?

Located perpetrator is key

By: John Dozier

As attorneys specializing in the litigation of Internet disputes, not a day goes by that we do not hear about a small online business getting ripped off through the theft of online content. Sometimes the property taken is a website or part of a website. Other times it is certain code or an e-book. But whenever it happens, you can be sure of one thing: It has value to the thief….

Click on the heading link for the full article.

copyright, stealing content, website, ebook