I got this response to my newsletter about an OFS resigning early.
You should do a blog post making sure the people know not to pay in advance. I tried that and got no work in return. My bad, obviously, should have known better.
I’ve talked about this a lot, but in case you don’t know, I’m going to say it again:
DO NOT PRE-PAY FOR WORK.
Online Filipino workers who are serious about work won’t ask you to pre-pay for work.
If they’re asking you to pre-pay for work, it’s a red flag.
Just DON’T do it with a new OFS.
Don’t buy them a laptop.
Don’t pay their internet bill.
Don’t pay for their sister’s medical bills.
Not with a new OFS.
If you want to prove to them that you’re not out to scam them, you can offer them a paid test task. It’s a good way of assessing their skills and one of the hiring steps that I talked about on OneVAAway.com.
During the first couple of months, do weekly payments. This may seem like additional work, but this is a way for you to build trust and see how well you work together.
But DON’T pre-pay.
Just last week this happened to me. I hired 4 designers to create a bunch of uniform designs for my kids mountain bike team. 3 of them did great. The 4th one did a sample design for free, then asked me to pre-pay him for more designs. I said no to the pre-payment. A week later he came back to me and said “here are your designs, now pay me through PayPal.” But there were no designs. No attachments. No link to the designs. I pointed this out and he did it again. Actually, he did it over and over again for a week, never sending me any designs but asking me for payment each time.
Don’t pre-pay for work.
John
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