Can I trust a company that cold calls me?

How did you hear from them? Did they contact you through the forums?

They contacted me directly by email, referencing my website by name. They said they had seen a post I’d made on a wordpress forum.

I had posted asking for help with a problem on a different website and the only reply had been a suggestion to contact the theme developer.

No, you cannot trust any company that does that. They’re being disingenuous with you and you should avoid ANYONE who does that.

NOTE: This reply is a generic “Do not trust unsolicited contacts from anyone warning.” I do not know this company, I have never heard of them but no one should be using the forums to harvest work or customers this way.

Any company that does is starting on the wrong foot and I hope the read this as a real warning. They’re now on a list that they do not want to be on.

*Drinks coffee*

I’ve modified the topic title. I don’t believe in free advertising.

This is what you wrote.

They contacted me directly by email, referencing my website by name. They said they had seen a post I’d made on a wordpress forum.

Which answers this question.

Can I trust wpscout?

With “No, you can’t.”

*Drinks more coffee*

I do not know anything about wpscout. But I have now added them to a private list based on their behavior.

There is another abusive, spammy as all else company that watches these forums and preys on people in these forums. When they pop up their head they get blocked. Their unsolicited contacting people is a scam.

Here’s how this works.

1. A user posts in these volunteer supported forums. This is good.
2. A user eventually posts a URL to their WordPress site. This is also good.
3. A 3rd party opportunistic low-life looks up contact information on domain from whois or the user’s web site and directly contacts user. This is not good.
4. Email says “For a one time fee that covers many vague things, we’ll fix your site. You’ll need to just hand over the keys to your site and hosting. And provide your credit card info. Trust us.” This is really not good.
5. Forum moderators learn of this and get upset. That’s not good for anyone.

*Finishes off coffee*

I’ve looked over the site of that company that you’ve posted. They have three references to customers only one website. And that link takes you to the wpscout site.

They have no page telling you who they are. There are no details about where they are located. One of their customer photos? It’s from a stock image.

1. Where is their phone number?
2. Where is their real “About Us” page with at least the bio of the company owners?
3. Where are the details about what your one time fee gets you and what it does not get you?

Real companies have real people with real names and bios. The only thing legitimate about that company is their contact form. That’s it.

I’m sorry to be harsh but avoid any company that does contacts you unsolicited via email the plague. Do not trust them, do not trust any company that does this.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Jan Dembowski.

Hi Jan,

Thank you very much! I was pretty suspicious based on a number of the things you mentioned. I just wanted to hear from someone else that I wasn’t being paranoid
and that they were indeed scammers. I’ve been online since ’93 and never once fallen for a scam – nor do I intend to do so!

Their “estimate” sounded too low as well. I’ll just mark their email as spam in gmail
so that I won’t be bothered by them again.

Steve