The ex-president of Zimbabwe is not going to troll the Internet to find someone to transfer 70 million US dollars for him. Bill Gates is not going to mail you $1000 for forwarding a bunch of email. And deleting files in your Windows folder because someone emailed you that there was a virus going around is a Very Bad Idea.

Likewise, there are a number of bad sorts of people out there who would love to take advantage of a naive Elfwood member. Here are some ways to filter out the scams and spam that may come through your inbox.

Things to watch for

If it sounds too good to be true, it undoubtedly is. Publishers who pay a great deal do not spend time surfing the Internet looking for talent. Anyone emailing you out of the blue is highly unlikely to be a credible, high-paying client, and warning bells should go off if they are offering you large sums of money. They may very well be a client, but be wary of those promises of high pay. Look for other warning signs in their correspondence, and be honest; is your work of the caliber that someone would spend the time to seek you out and offer you that much money?

Your warning bells should go up in volume when they start asking you for personal information. No one needs personal information during the initial stages of a business transaction. This is usually the sign of an unscrupulous person attempting to steal identity information. This has occurred at Elfwood before.

Is it personal? If the message is composed without a single mention of your name, or any specifics about your art, chances are very, very good that you have received the same message as dozens, perhaps thousands, of other people, and you have simply been spammed. You may still wish to reply, but understand that any compliments are not honestly aimed at you, and that if any job is being offered, you are competing against everyone else that bothers to reply.

Check out the email To and From lines. Is your email actually the only To-address? A good sign of spam, or bulk mailing, is that an email is addressed to someone else entirely, meaning your address is hidden in a BCC, possibly with lots, and lots of others. Less sneaky spammers will simply have all of the email addresses on the To-line or on the CC-line, and you can see how special you really aren't to them.

Be sure that the claims in the email match the construction and professionalism of the presentation. Someone from a major, established RPG company will not be writing to you from a Hotmail account. This is not to say that you may not find a valid client using Yahoo or some other free email; people commission art privately all of the time, and not everyone has their own domain, but watch for conflicting information. Check for glaring spelling errors or a lack of capitalization in an email claiming to be from a professional; an established corporation does generally take the time to have their correspondence spell-checked, and hardly ever uses cute-isms like 'UR so good!' or slang.

Take a peek at their webpage. If it's badly constructed, or if they claim they don't have a webpage, or that it's being built, back away. You are likely dealing with an ambitious project that simply isn't off the ground yet, and hunting up an artist at that stage of the project is premature on their part, and likely a waste of your time. Naturally, you are still welcome to take a gamble that it becomes a good thing, but understand that the odds are steeply against it.

Validation

It is perfectly reasonable, and admirably professional, to ask for some kind of validation from a potential client. I'm not suggesting that you hire a detective to scope out every $20 character commission client, but I can suggest a few ways to find out about the people you want to work for.

If they are claiming to be from a major corporation, find out what their corporation name is, and what state or country they are registered in. Business licenses are public record, and a rather minor search should turn up a valid company. A second search can turn up any lawsuits filed against said company. The Better Business Bureau also keeps records on companies that have behaved in ways against public interest.

Do a search on a client's name, preferably in conjunction with the kind of art that they are inquiring after. The Internet is a gossip-mart without compare, and if others have had run-ins with this person with very unfavorable results, it is likely to be the subject of peoples' public logs and message board rants. Do a search for products that they claim to have published.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. Generally, a few well-worded questions about the structure of the business, past experience with artists (ask for specific names), and the contract will scare off anyone who is in the scam business, because they won't be able to provide suitable responses.

Ask your friends, and the communities that you are an active member of, if they've gotten similar requests, or if they know any more about the matter than you do.

Go with your gut. If you get a creepy, sleazy salesman-vibe off of a transaction, don't dirty your hands with it. Make a polite excuse, if you like, or simply don't reply.

What Not to Do

Do not give anyone money. No publisher or client is going to ask *you* for money. It works the other way around.

Do not ever give your social security number, home address, phone, bank number or name or other personal information without some serious validation.

Do not do a lot of work until you have seen a contract and/or payment, unless it is work that you can resell. Be absolutely sure that you would be able to resell said work before banking on that fact.

Do not agree to anything you have not thought out and do not wish to agree to. An agreement is legally binding. You do not have to sign a document or provide your mother's maiden name to have entered into a contract. A contract is simply an agreement. Emails validating agreement constitute proof of a contract. So be very careful about what you tell someone you will agree to do, and what you will agree to do it for. Consider every email that you send as legal proof in a future lawsuit.

Sad But True

It's a big nasty world out there, full of big nasty people who would care nothing for ripping you off in any way that they can. Hopefully, some of these tips will help you distinguish the big bad wolf from the grandmother when the time comes.