Do you look up new contacts online before doing business with them?

[Harold Mansfield]

Anytime I'm contacted by a new potential client I search for them online to see if there is any mention of them.
There are many times someone comes off as Joe Businessman, and yet I can't find any mention of them on any Social Media websites including Linked In, or the company that they claim to represent and to make matters worse they've emailed me from a free email address.

When that happens I'm usually a lot less likely to trust getting paid by them and either adjust the terms, or don't do business with them altogether.
Of course there's more to it than that. Some people are just not online and are just getting started. But others seem to be intentionally dodgy and not having any mention of them online is just too risky.

I was wondering if anyone else does the same thing, or if it's just me?

[billbenson]

As you know, we are in different industries, but the short answer to your question is yes. I'm lucky that I'm in an industry with very little fraud. Early on, I ran D&B's for large orders on terms. Smaller orders tend to be on credit card. I did have a $19k order on a credit card once though.

I've been doing this long enough to know the signs of a suspicious order. Bad English, the use of the word urgent, emails in all capital letters etc are all flags to me.

There is also the risk vs reward thing. I've taken some risky orders over the years.

I have my pain threshold. If I get screwed out of a few hundred dollars or even one thousand, life goes on. Might be pissed off, but life goes on.

I haven't done a D&B in years. What I do is a G seach for bad reviews and look at their websites if it's for a large order. Is their site professional? Something I should do is use the wayback machine. I've never done that. I look at whois.

I usually don't touch international stuff, but sometimes I do. There are just some orders that smell bad and I don't touch them.

The thing I have found is that professionals know the walk and talk the talk. I bet it's the same in your industry. Whether I am talking to a lay person, an engineer, or a purchasing agent, they know their jobs and behave in a certain manner. When they don't know terminology or act like they are who they should be, it's a red flag.

Your industry is different I believe, in that you always look for some money upfront. I might do a $20k order that is supposed to be paid in 30 days after receipt of goods. It's normally paid in 45 or 60 days, but it gets paid. Some customers pay early!

I don't know what to tell you about this other than to go with your gut feeling and experience in your industry. You have been doing this long enough to see when to throw up the caution flags.

[Harold Mansfield]

You have been doing this long enough to see when to throw up the caution flags.
Definitely. I see red flags and send people on their way all the time. There's definitely a sub section of people who search out noobs to rip off and you can usually spot them from the first phone call...or even worse...they always have an excuse why they can't speak on the phone.

At this stage of the game you have to try really hard not to have anything searchable about you what so ever.

I recently told a guy that he didn't exist. That nothing he's said to me about himself was anywhere online. He tried to tell me it was my computer or that my ISP was somehow blocking it.

I know people can't see me to know what I look like, but I don't sound dumb. It's amazing the crap some people try to float.

[Fulcrum]

At this stage of the game you have to try really hard not to have anything searchable about you what so ever.

I read this and had to do a search for my company. 1 link on the first page (and the location is wrong):
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fulcrum-saw-and-tool/1443373122566650

I have no idea where this page came from as I didn't set it up.

As for looking up new potential customers, I only do this when I'm hitting the road looking for more work. I'm in a relatively small field and all the major and intermediate players are known by everyone.

[Harold Mansfield]

I read this and had to do a search for my company. 1 link on the first page (and the location is wrong):
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fulcrum-saw-and-tool/1443373122566650

I have no idea where this page came from as I didn't set it up.



Facebook has some kind of automated page creator that does that. It's an attempt to get you to claim that company name and set up a page. I don't know what triggers it or how they do it, but I've seen those blank pages many times.

[Fulcrum]

Good to know. Now if they could only get the location right. I'm an hour west of Toronto - not 2 hours east.

[kimoonyx]

oohh ohhh.... pick me! search me! Michael Elliott :)

[Harold Mansfield]

oohh ohhh.... pick me! search me! Michael Elliott :)
I already know you exist. You have a website, it's registered in your name, you're on Linked In and other social networks and you post on a public forum with your identity which matches it all.

I'm talking about people who give you their name, the supposed company they represent and have no presence online what so ever. That is just strange.

[kimoonyx]

Ryt.... im just a sucker for publicity! :)

[kimoonyx]

And I agree.... I run into it all the time. If someone claims to me to be in whatever business the first thing I do is hit the web...If I don't find them.... I'm done.

[Freelancier]

I haven't had this problem. Instead of researching new clients when they call, I've found that mentioning my $20K minimum first project tends to make the pretenders go away all on their own. It helps to be really clear about the type of customer you want, because I've found I get into trouble when I forget that and take on customers that wouldn't normally be a customer of mine.

[billbenson]

I haven't had this problem. Instead of researching new clients when they call, I've found that mentioning my $20K minimum first project tends to make the pretenders go away all on their own. It helps to be really clear about the type of customer you want, because I've found I get into trouble when I forget that and take on customers that wouldn't normally be a customer of mine.

That doesn't help you with people who are either in financial problems, late payers, or thieves. It does help in qualifying prospects though.

[Harold Mansfield]

That doesn't help you with people who are either in financial problems, late payers, or thieves. It does help in qualifying prospects though.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me it's all about screening, talking to them, getting a feel for the kind of person they are. But for the most part every job I do has a certain amount of risk. Deposits mitigate some of it, but no matter how well you screen someone, the risk that they could turn on you and not pay, pay extremely late, or just start ignoring your communications is real and there's not much you can do about it from 3k miles away.

I usually leave myself an out. So that even if things go bad and I don't get paid I have a way to take back my work, shut down the site, or destroy everything like an old school cold war, self destructing spy communication should I need to. I never give anyone everything until I get paid.

It's only happened once in 6 years where someone just completely ignored me for weeks after the work was done and a final invoice was due. I just reversed the work that I had done, put his site back to the way it was and refunded his deposit. Of course he contacted me within 5 minutes once I'd done that.

[billbenson]

As a customer, he should be able to do backups as the site is being worked on so you can't do that unless he doesn't know how to enter the site via ftp or cpanel. How do you prevent that?

There are also as many shady or bad web designers out there as there are non paying clients. The honest clients need a way of protecting themselves as well. It's kind of a two way street.

That's why I selected someone on this board for a web designer (who I'm late paying because I was traveling...). For those of us who are long time members, we have a pretty good feel for each other, ethics, personality, politics, etc.

[billbenson]

In addition to the above post, that is how I selected my business partner who is also a longtime friend. You certainly can't always do this sort of thing, but we would both loose a lot of money if we separated ways. He is a really hard working salesman and has doubled our company income. I own the website and he doesn't know how to do web marketing anyway. It would not be to either of our advantages to screw each other over. We would both loose a lot of money.

It's a good way to arrange things if you can.

[zetajenn]

If it's at all fishy I look them up b/c a couple of times the names used has popped up as a scammer, so I guess I check them out more to see if they've already been flagged as a scammer as much as I check them out to make sure they are legit!

[KristineS]

We do this when customers apply for business accounts with us. Because those accounts come with wholesale pricing, we do like to verify the company is actually a company. A simple Google search will usually give us enough to know whether or not they qualify.