I have recently been astounded to discover that I have been a victim of an unscrupulous small business operator. I have discovered that even when you have been around for a while and take due care when dealing with people, you can still be taken for a ride.
This is the story: I was approached via the Contact Form on my website and asked to provide my hourly rate, there was a detailed description of the work given so I provided my rate and a bit of other information and asked a few questions. Nothing unusual there.
I then noticed a joblead go out on one of the networks I belong to which seemed to be for the same job. Again, no alarm bells went off because people generally look for more than one quote.
The work being quoted on was quite a large task and would be followed with more of the same. The prospective client asked if I could do a quote for the entire job based on a sample of data she would provide. No problem there, I’ve done that before. The sample was a bit more detailed than what I would usually do to provide a quote but if I landed the client then it would be worth my time to do so, so I did it. Now here is where I made a mistake. I provided the completed sample of work back to the client in final format. I would usually save it as a secure PDF with Draft or similar stamped on it so it couldn’t be used but the work could be viewed.
A few days later I did a follow-up and was sent a polite email telling me that unfortunately my quote was too high for the small budget available. Okay, still no alarm bells went off because, well sometimes people just don’t want to pay for a quality job from an experienced operator. No big deal.
So what’s the problem I hear you ask? Thanks to a colleague posting a question to a VA Network about doing quotes and being paid to provide samples of work in a usable format, I was alerted to the fact that this prospective client has approached not two or three or four VAs but MANY VAs and had us all provide her with a ‘sample’ of work using different sections of data in the original document and then told each of us that our rate is too high – which of course means that she has received the entire job for F R E E!
This is not just getting a ‘quote’, it is in fact getting ‘work’ done. There is a very big difference.
Did I make a mistake in providing the data in a usable format? Yes, I believe I did (and won’t ever do it again!).
Did this woman operate in an unethical and unprofessional manner? Yes, I believe she did.
It can sometimes be assumed that just because a lot of VAs work from home it must mean that we are isolated. That is not the case at all. We are a tight knit community where referrals, jobleads, advice and information is shared. The internet gives us the ability to connect easily and frequently.
Word of mouth is so important in small business, it really pays to maintain your professionalism and a high ethical standard at all times as you just never know who might be listening.
