4 out of last 5 buyers were scammers. Is it really this common in online freelancing?

[humanissocial]

Hey crystal, thanks for bringing in your opinion as well. Once again, gotta say that I’m not with it either. Strange to see you seeming to side with people scamming others. Anyway, I’m glad you took the time out of your life to drop that line here in the forum.

Crystal said nothing that should make you think she sides with scammers. That’s irrational and unfair.

[anishdhakal718]

You may still get scam messages but my point is that a higher ratio of your messages would be legitimate if you were visibly proficient at ALL of the things you are selling.

Seeing someone sell something they aren’t proficient at it still a huge red flag even if people are interested in other things you appear to be proficient. It hurts your image regardless.

If I’m a grocery store selling stale bread, you’re going to think poorly of me even if my other products are fresh.

On top of all this, you have literally thousands of competitors. Many of them are more proficient than you. So how would you even be discovered and why would you stand out against them?

Might be a coincidence. Most of the buyers are genuine as per other threads. I hope there would mostly be legitimate messages in the long run.

[power_design]

You can learn to recognize some red flags and stand up for your business.
There are good info in this post and you can find more by typing “red flags” in the forum search bar.

I just freaking love buyers that start off their first contact with something like: “I just got done with another seller and my experience wasn’t good. Hopefully you’ll be better.” Um…great. Like that’s not a freaking huge red flag. Do you know what that tells me, buyer? It tells me that yeah, that other seller might have sucked, but you think it’s appropriate to whine to me about that seller, as if it will somehow inspire me to do better work. It doesn’t. It makes me worry that you were actuall…

[sarmin_123]

i will people hate when you don’t agree with them.