This is an important fraud alert that you should be aware of, if you are using guest posting as part of your internet marketing, or businesses strategies. This trick is being played rampantly to cheat money from advertising businesses and guest posting companies, and also to defame the authority bloggers.

Understanding the modus operandi –

The scammers will target the victims through emails. They will pose as an authority blogger or a blog owner and say that you or your team has used their website for posting guest posts, and the payment has not been done to them.

guest post scam

Text version:

Hi

One of your SEO team members takes Guest Post on our website and now he /she is not replying to me.

You can see your links placement by opening the following posts URL:
https://www.blog post link

If you’ll not paid within next 24 hours will publish your email ID in Article as a scammer, and also will start negative SEO on your sites, i have many sites adult and casino related will publish your links there and also will spam your site in google, Last and final warning, just pay for it, otherwise you’ll get response from google for your site,

Just Pay us, otherwise you will be responsible.

Thanks

Here is one more screenshot:

guest post sa

They might even add a link to any of your posts to make it look like real. The scammer will then demand you to make the payment within the next 24 hours, and threaten to give negative reviews for your blog posts, if you don’t give in to their demand.

 

The scammer will blackmail your further by saying that they are connected to many adults and casino websites and will link your guest posts to such pages. Their plan is basically to scare you about the reputation of your business, so that you pay them off immediately.

 

They play this trick on companies offering guest posting services, and also their clients. Even individual businesses which use guest posting for promoting their businesses are targeted with this trick. Therefore, it is important for you know about this trick, so that you don’t fall victim to such blackmails.

 

Before you panic and make any hasty decision to pay them off, take a deep breath and think about the situation with a cool mind. There is no need to worry, if you have been using the services of premium guest posting companies, who use only white hat techniques to promote your website.

 

How to identify the scammer?

Firstly, you will need to look at the email ID that they use to send you the email. If they are using free email IDs like Gmail, you must see it as the red signal. If the bloggers had to send you emails about pending payments, they would obviously have used the email ID of their own blog domain, instead of free email accounts.

 

How to confirm if the email is a scam, or if it is real?

If you see that the email is not from the blog owner’s domain name, then you must double check about the authenticity of the email by contacting the blogger directly. Make sure you send the email from their ‘Contact-Us’ page, instead of replying to email that you received. Also, you can contact your SEO or the guest posting company and confirm with them. That way you can confirm if the email that you got is genuine, or a scam.

 

This post is meant to make people become aware of the fraud attempts being made on guest posting and SEO platforms. You will need to be smart and not panic. Do the due diligence and block the scammer from contacting you from that ID again. They might make more attempts to cheat you from other email IDs too. Stay alert!!!