A website has become an essential part of the marketing scheme for any business. It is the easiest way to display your products or services to a global audience and increase your reputation, as well as your profit.
But, to ensure your business stands out from the crowd you need a unique website. That’s why so many businesses are turning to website designers. Click here to find out more about a genuine one.
Unfortunately, this is also opening the door on web design scams. If this happens to you you’re going to need a good attorney and plenty of paperwork to prove you acted in good faith. You can click here to talk to a good attorney.
Understanding The Scam
Wed design scams are simple but usually play out over a period of time. This makes it harder to spot the scam and ensures you’ve dropped your guard.
The usual process is for someone to request you to design a website. They’ll talk in detail with you and be particular about the site they want to be created. This process can go o for some time, ensuring you believe they are a genuine customer.
At some point you’ll want payment and they’ll give it to you. In the process, they’ll pay you too much and ask you to forward the extra to their consultant instead of returning it to them.
You trust them and you have the funds so it won’t seem like an issue.
The problem is that the scammer is the consultant and the company asking for a website. The payment made to you will have been on a stolen card, you pay out to them leaving you owing the real cardholder or card provider. You’ll be thousands out of pocket.
Techniques To Avoid Being Scammed
The first thing you need to do is to be aware of what the scam is. The alarm bells should ring when they ask you to forward payment to another person.
Put simply your company policy should never allow this to happen. If you do accept payment from someone and they overpay you then return the funds to the same card. You may be wasting time but you won’t be out of pocket at the end of it.
This is the key point, by returning funds to the card you’ve debited you cannot be funding the scammers.
Under no circumstances should you play along with the scammers. The moment you realize it’s a scam you need to stop contact and report the matter. The best thing to do is tell your card services provider, they may recommend you contact the secret service or the FBI.
In all reality, they probably won’t follow it up, unless money has changed hands. If this is the case you’ll need to prepare your paper trail and get your attorney on standby. You don’t want to become a suspect in the case.
Although web design scams can take different format the common point is that you’ll be paid too much money and be asked to send it somewhere else. If this should happen, stop contact immediately.
In fact, this is a good guide for most business practices.