However, with that said, this time it really was entirely my fault. I could have prevented this situation ENTIRELY if I'd taken the time out to do a little more homework, instead of getting totally wrapped up in the minutiae of taking on a new client. I guess that sometimes, we're all guilty of missing the forest for the trees.The company that hired me was known as www.ASIB.org - claiming to be the Association of Small Internet Businesses with chapters and events all over. After a cursory exploration of the site, I was intrigued and asked the leader, John Mitchell for additional details.
As the story was explained to me, I needed to "fill in" for a full-time employee named Gwen Dickinson who was out being treated for lupus.I was given the personal and professional background information about the woman and the last series of emails that had been sent and received with her Etsy.com contacts and asked to fill in for one month. I was told to just "chit chat", talk about the weather. Talk about some of their product listings. Give a little advice. Avoid business talk too much. My ultimate goal was "just to keep the conversation flowing until Gwen got back."
Now, as a dedicated writer and marketer, I take my job seriously. I was interacting very well with a number (7 actually) of Etsy sellers and was actually loving it. I'd known very little about Etsy up to this point, and I was astonished at how awesome some of the pieces I was seeing actually were! It was incredible. Even better, the people seemed so real, so authentic. I love to see the passion of artists...
However, they began to ask questions that my bio information didn't cover and I couldn't get a response back from the "real" Gwen Dickinson or my training team, so I decided to Google her. If I'd have been smart, I'd have done it already!
Among other frightful things, this is what I discovered: a VERY long thread of people on Etsy complaining about Gwen Dickinson and the sheer number of Gwen Dickinsons that were out there doing it! You can read the thread (and laugh your butt off in the process) here:
http://etsycallout.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/e-books-super-shilling/
Suddenly, I was terrified, and knew something was up. Since I'd signed an NDA, my first action was to get in touch with my employer to find out what was up.
Instead of giving me anything close to the truth, they instead fed me some strange story about Gwen's daughter having hired out all of these other people without letting them know, and could I please accept a promotion to their Ambassador program, where I would continue to be Gwen, but Gwendale Richards now, not Gwen Dickinson...
I fired them promptly and asked them to remit payment. They've failed to do so, and since I've not been compensated in any way, my NDA is now null and void and I thought I'd share the story of why you absolutely MUST Google all of your potential clients and vendors before you take them on.
You never know when you might suddenly find yourself serving as the deposed King of Nigeria...
Don't let it happen to you!
www.ASIB.org is a FRAUD!
Gwen Dickinson (www.mereiana.com) is a FRAUD!
Gwendale Richards (www.mereinay.com) is a FRAUD!
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Came here from Callin' Out On Etsy; wanted to give you props for going to the effort of notifying people and letting them know about this scam.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement!
ReplyDeleteI fell in love with the artists I was typing to and I couldn't bear the thought of someone rooking them. It was keeping me up at night.
As a self-employed creative professional, I don't want to see anyone else with a dream see it squelched over something as stupid and senseless as this "scam" or "experiment" or whatever it is...