I try to find good in people for the most part, but I’m also a pretty good judge of character. In the last few months I have received various emails of people wanting to post a guest post on our site. I was feeling some kind of a vibe from the whole thing because:
1. They started flooding my inbox, so that screamed some new scam to me.
2. Most were willing to pay but it was not content fitting my blog so I declined or deleted the emails.
One lady Kandace Heller <kandaceheller@gmail.com> sent me the following email on May 1st:
Hi Carolyn,
My name is Kandace. I’m from Orlanda, Florida and I am new to freelance writing. I have an article I think you might be interested in. It’s about hobbies that can help keep kids busy during the summer months. I mention gardening, exploring and creating a family journal, among other things. Let me know what you think. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
Thanks,
Kandace
I did not reply to the email and she was persistent and 2 days later sent me the email below:
Hi Carolyn,
I sent you an email a couple of days ago with a guest blog post. Since I haven’t heard back, I just wanted to check and see what you thought? I am re-attaching the post and photo for your convenience.
Thanks,
-Kandace
I responded to her that I had an ear infection and was very behind with things and did not have a chance to look at it but wanted to know the details and what the compensation was. I received the email below in response.
Oh no! I am sorry to hear that and I hope you get feeling better. As far as compensation, since nothing is written on your page is written about guest posts, I wasn’t planning on being charged. I am a freelance writer and am not usually charged for postings. However, if you have a policy of charging bloggers, I may be able to work something out. What do your other guest bloggers usually pay?
Thanks,
Kandace
I was in a generous mood, thought I was helping a new freelance writer get some portfolio material and so I responded with this:
Alright let’s do it for free this time, so do I just post your article. Do you have graphics?
She responded:
Thanks so much. And yes, I’ve attached a photo to this email.
Thanks so much!
-Kandace
I then sent her the following email:
Okay thanks I will get it up, do you have a bio I can use for introduction?
I found it funny if she was really trying to get her portfolio built why she did not have a bio ready and really did not seem to care about her name being on the article or anything someone trying to get exposure for as a writer would.
She sent this back:
Kandace Heller is a graduate of the University of Florida and a native of Orlando, Florida. She is a freelance writer and enjoys writing about health and fashion, but will write about just about anything.
Thanks Carolyn!
Now being extremely busy her guest post was not on the tip-top of my list as I had many other pressing things and I soon received this email from Kandace:
Hi Carolyn,
A couple of weeks ago, you said you would post an article I sent you on your site, but I haven’t seen it yet. The article talked about ways to keep kids’ brains engaged over the summer. Have you been able to post it and I just haven’t looked in the right place?
Thanks,
Kandace
I let her know that I was busy and such and at the moment she wrote that I had a very bad cold, and was playing catch up.
Ok, sorry if I seemed impatient. I thought you had maybe changed your mind. I hope you’re feeling better.
Thanks!
-Kandace
Anyway, I posted the article last night which in fact was no great work of writing and looked like it had been something copied from a magazine article. In the Word doc she sent there were two links which I broke and did not post. I wondered what she was up to. I posted and sent her the link. I also let her know I disabled the two links. Now remember no where did she ever mention posting links.
This morning I received this email:
Hi Carolyn,
Thanks for posting my article. The only problem is that I need to have those links in there. If you don’t like having links on your site, that’s fine, but I will need you to take the article down.
Thanks,
Kandace
Aha Kandace!!! You are a scammer!!! I did a search on Google and found that there are many of these scammers who target blogs and while most will put they are going to put links in, many like Kandace do not and in fact they are earning money by placing backlinks for other companies in these articles. Some are willing to pay because the amount they are making must be worth the price. I took a look at her twitter account which was only started April 30th and contains tweets to many blogs saying that their contact pages are not working and she wants to talk to them about a guest post. Also she has a Facebook page that even has a status saying, “This whole freelance thing is fun.”
Well Kandace Heller as Arnold Diaz would say, “Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame on You!!!” You are inducted into the Mommy Ramblings’ Hall of Shame!!!
