I’m not exactly sure what’s been happening recently, but lately,out of the blue, I have been approached several times both on Yahoo Messenger and Facebook by individuals wanting to be my friend.   Well of course, being in network marketing, I want to connect with as many people as possible, right?

One individual on Facebook that I added as a friend immediately started to harrass me in a chat about being broke and needing help.  This was a perfect stranger!  On Yahoo Messenger, someone engaged me in a conversation and although he had started to gain my trust, since I didn’t know him,  I checked his profile & saw that his profile was blank.   Most network marketers will, at a minimum have a website you  can check out. He kept asking me for my cell phone number so he could call me, which I refused to provide, but told him he could find out more about me by going to my blog.  I started asking questions, like “How did you find me on Yahoo Messenger?”  His answer gave him away (it was impossible that he found me where he claimed) and I decided to extricate myself from the situation as gracefully as possible.  This individual (tried) used emotional triggers to keep me engaged by telling me he had no family other than his elderly grandmother, was in school, needed food, life was hard etc… I told him I couldn’t help him and he got more insistent.  Long story short, I reported him as spam, have added him to my ignore list and am moving on. My main point in sharing this information is not to scare you out of making new contacts; just be smart about it.  On your social networking profile, if in fact you are a network marketer or business person of some kind, make sure you provide that information along with a link to your website.    Don’t  share information that can’t easily be found publicly on the web.  Remember, network marketing is about building relationships based on Know, Like, and Trust.  Also remember that con artists know this too, and are masters of the game!   I’d love to get some feedback on this topic, so please feel free to comment! Have fun, make lots of new friends, and be safe! Deb