WordPress pros targeted in dodgy spec work “offer”
I’m a member of the surprisingly useful WordPress group on LinkedIn, which counts just under 3,000 WordPress obsessives professionals in its roster. This week several dozen of us were targeted by a very dodgy (and likely fake) member recruiting people for a “job” that resorted to every cliche in the book. The candidate would basically use all that hard-earned WordPress wizardry to create up to 500 identical template web sites on certain topics which scrape information from Wikipedia and would refer site visitors to professionals in that business sector who have paid for the advertising space on the site. There would be no salary or compensation, and your income would be based on a share of the sales commission revenues “your” sites earned in profit at the end of successful commercial transactions, which, in this particular business sector, could take years.
As for the person behind the “business model”, one of his claims to fame includes stalking and physically assaulting one of his employees as well as her three year old child over money he claimed she “owed” him. Frighteningly, the job offer asked – illegally – whether you have any kids. Think about it. Not even the most psychotic Glasgow gangster would stoop that low.
One of the tenets of the No-Spec campaign is:
At the end of the day, there is a certain irony in spec work. A prospect requesting it is ultimately saying, “My project isn’t important enough to hire a professional who will take the time to understand my situation and goals and invest the time needed to create a suitable solution.”
You could well amend that statement to say that if someone doesn’t want to hire a professional above board, there’s a reason for that.
Anyway, details are available on the LinkedIn WordPress group.
