Sick of this shit
for online service providers who are tired of getting burned by the same industry they work in
You're here because something Isn’t sittin right.
Maybe it happened to you. Maybe you watched it happen to someone else. Either way — you already know the online service industry has a problem. but wtf can we really do about it?
it’s a lawless land out here
There is no governing body for the online service industry. No licensing board, no complaints process, no regulator watching what happens when someone takes your money and disappears. There's just absolutely no governance anywhere, and it's so unpredictable.
The only thing people have to go on when deciding who to hire is whether they trust them. Trust has become the substitute for credentials, contracts, and accountability. And trust online isn't built the way it used to be — through reputation, through referral, through someone you actually know vouching for someone else. It's built through content. Through consistency of presence. Through feeling like you know someone because you've watched them long enough.
That's not nothing. But it's also not evidence that someone can actually do what they're selling.
In the last little while I have watched people get burned in ways that would make your stomach drop. Money taken. Work not delivered. Apologies instead of outcomes. Ghosting when someone asks where their stuff is. Business partners walking away and leaving debt behind. The numbers are different every time. The shape is always the same.
Overcharging. Underdelivering. And counting on the fact that you probably can't do anything about it — and that you might be too embarrassed to say anything publicly anyway.
No one really CAN hold anybody accountable for anything…. So the cycle just keeps going.
why smart people get taken advantage of online
The framing that people who get burned online are naive or bad at business is absolute insanity to me.
They are responding completely rationally to a system that was designed to make them respond exactly that way.
Our whole online culture right now is built on trust. And the way that trust gets built is through parasocial relationships — you follow someone long enough, you hear their voice enough, you see their life enough, and it starts to feel like you know them. By the time they're selling something it feels personal. Like buying from a friend. That feeling is real. It is not the same thing as knowing whether they can actually deliver what they're selling.
And then there's proximity. The closer you are to the thing everyone is talking about, the challenge, the course, the movement, the more you feel like you're actually part of something. Nobody wants to be excluded from that. That's not weakness. That's human.
Most of us know on some level that this is all marketing. That's literally what their business is supposed to do.
If you bought something from someone it means they're a very good marketer.
That's it.
I buy dumb shit too.
Free Accessible Ways To Verify Before You Make Money Moves
The most effective thing you can do before hiring anyone online costs nothing and takes less time than you think.
Be nosy. Don't look at someone and think wow, I love that so much, I trust them. We can't be doin that anymore, unfortunately.
Start with Reddit. Search the person's name. Search their business name. Search their offer name. Reddit is one of the few places online where people tell the truth about their experiences because there is no social cost to doing it. If someone has burned people before there is a reasonable chance someone talked about it somewhere.
Check their socials. Not for aesthetics or follower count. For consistency. Does their story hold up across platforms? Does what they say on Instagram match what they say on LinkedIn? Are there gaps? Claims that don't add up when you look at them side by side?
LinkedIn specifically is useful for credentials. Anyone can say anything in a bio. LinkedIn has a paper trail. Employment history, education, endorsements from real people. It is not foolproof but it is harder to fake than a sales page.
Look at the people they say they've worked with. Those people are reachable. Send a message. It doesn't have to be complicated — I saw you worked with this person, I'm considering hiring them, would you be open to sharing your experience? Most people will tell you the truth if you ask directly and privately.
Their information is out there. Use it. You are not being rude. You are being responsible.
Bitch Better Have My Money
Sometimes you do everything right and it still goes out the window. You did the research. You asked the questions. You felt good about it. And then nothing. Or worse — excuses, delays, and eventually a blocked number.
Here's what you actually have available to you.
If you paid by credit card, do a chargeback. Contact your bank or card provider and dispute the charge. This is your most powerful tool and most people don't know they can use it or wait too long to try. Before you do anything screenshot everything — conversations, receipts, any record of what was promised and what was delivered. Your bank needs evidence. Give them as much as you have.Do this before too much time passes. Most card providers have a window for disputes. Don't wait hoping it gets resolved on its own.
Small claims court exists but realistically it only works if you and the person who took your money are in the same jurisdiction. Online that is almost never the case. It's worth knowing it exists. It's also worth knowing its limits.
Tell your network. Not necessarily as a public callout — though that is absolutely your right — but honest private conversations with people who might hire this person next. You are not obligated to protect someone who didn't protect you. Staying quiet keeps the cycle going. The most effective consequence most people in this space will ever face is word of mouth.
The online world is insane and I think we all know it. We can either speak up or we don't. I'm choosing to speak up because I am not cool with these practices and I am done pretending like it's not happening all around us every single day. We can't legislate it, we can't regulate it, and we can't force anyone to do anything about it. The system was not built to protect you. It was built to move fast and ask questions never.
What we can do is change the culture around it. Stop carrying the shame of a system that failed you. Start talking openly so the next person doesn't have to learn the hard way. The only thing that disrupts this is people telling each other the truth before money moves.
We need to protect each other.
