Another approach is to keep working but explain that you’ll have to stop soon unless the pay issues are resolved because you have other clients lining up to work with you. The idea that they could lose you to the competition is a powerful motivator. There are plenty of other ways to resolve the freelance pay problem, but try to keep your negotiations friendly–more often than not you will gain a loyal client if the situation turns out to be one where a good company is just having trouble sorting out their freelance pay system.

But what if you are new, naive and hungry? In the case of this scam, I would say the biggest clue is that it is nonsensical. I mean, just because you have a PhD doesn’t mean you can write well…but you should be able to write better than this.

Second, there is no need for them to know where you are from, so that part of the email should raise your hackles.

So, what’s the point of this scam? What do they hope to get out of you? Maybe an article, maybe your Paypal information, maybe your address. Who knows–does it really matter anyway? You have real jobs to find

But like most things in life, you get what you pay for. Our advice–don’t bother trying to be the lowest bidder. Set the price you are most comfortable working for and let the quality of your samples speak for themselves. Setting the lowest price? Let the amateurs worry about that…you’re a professional.

First–read the instructions. If the freelance job ad says “no attachments”, don’t send any. Copy and paste all required documents into the body of your e-mail. You’d be shocked at how many people ignore or disregard this basic step.

Send only relevant samples of your work. If the freelance job is a technical writing gig, don’t bother sending copies of your articles from the college paper. If you don’t have relevant samples, try to find those with ANY tie-in to the job you want.

Finally, make damn sure there are no typos, spelling errors and abused apostrophes in your cover letter and resume. Again, a surprising number of people blow the gig before they even get to the interview stage because the cover letter reads like a poorly thought out, hastily dashed-off mash note.

In our experience every time a call for freelance jobs goes out, at least 50% of all responses have all these problems. Sad, isn’t it?

Tailor your resume package for the job and target your skill sets accordingly. You’ll see better results. Not all freelance writing jobs were created equal.

Don’t forget to ask your fellow freelancers how long they stayed at their former pay level. That should give you a good benchmark to shoot for when setting those early rates.