"Can we collaborate?" SCAM - 3 Tips to Avoid It!

The purpose of this blog post is to warn you about a common scam that tries to prey content creators just like you and me.

Thank God, I've never fallen into this scam but I am 110% sure that many people have and I want that you are safe my friend.

So read this post carefully and take notes.

"Do You Want to Collaborate with Us? We Will Pay You."

This has happened to me many times:

1. Someone contacts you on behalf of a company and they want a Collaboration

They will say to you something like,

"Hi Roope!

We love your content. Would you be open to a collaboration?

We offer x and y..."

Most of the time I just ignore those messages but sometimes I've said that I'm interested and it has actually lead to some great collaborations...

But not always!

Sometimes they're just trying to scam you...

2. "Please, test our product first..."

Let's say that you agree to make a review of the product and they promise to pay you x dollars for doing that.

Then they say,

"Here's a link to download our product and test it so that you can make a review."

Now this may sound fine but you should be a little bit suspicious sometimes...

Here are a few things to pay attention:

1. What Kind of Email Address Are They Using?

This is probably the easiest one to notice if you're paying attention.

If you're getting contacted by a specific company, you should get an email from someone that has an email address like, xxxx@companyname.com

What if the email is like, xxxx@gmail.com ?

That may be a red flag! Not always, but often yes.

Sometimes they also use a modified domain name...

For example, they may use an email address like, xxxx@facepook.com

It's not so easy to notice the difference between Facebook and Facepook unless you're paying attention.

2. Do They Make a Pre-Payment?

If you are making a collaboration, a lot of companies will pre-pay you something for the work. If not 100%, they may pay for example 40% beforehand and 60% once the work is delivered.

Scammers don't do that...

They try to get you to download the software or do something before they pay you anything. That's why I almost never start working on sponsored content unless I've got some pre-payment before I started working.

3. What Do They Ask You To Do?

Common scams seem to work like this:

"Here's a link to test our product. Just click that link and download the software and you can test it. Then you can create a review based on your experiences..."

Sounds legit?

Not always.

If you're downloading something to your computer, you must be sure that it's good stuff. If you end up downloading something from scammers, you can guess how it will go.

1. Check the domain where the software will be downloaded.
2. Read the reviews about the software from credible sources.
3. Make sure the company is 100% legit.
4. Double-check everything before downloading anything!

Last Note...

I don't want you to be scared of all collaboration offers.

Some of the offers can lead to great parterships and even friendships.

Just be careful and make sure that everything is 100% legit!

---

I hope you found this valuable.

Share this with your friends and followers.

Stay safe my friend!

- Roope "Stay safe on the Internet!" Kiuttu

PS. Now I'd love to hear from you.

Has someone tried to scam you offering a "fake collaboration"?

Have you also done great content creation collaborations with companies?

Let me know in the comments below!