Phishing/Scam emails - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and other new website scams

Ok, so you've just registered your domain and uploaded your content

Now you have an email in your inbox telling you how hard it is to find your website on google.  Only the spammer has managed to find you anyway.  Or maybe your apparently not on Google or Bing, or have a ton of problems with your site - but they've still found you

Now it is free to add yourself to Google and Bing

You can add yourself to Google via https://search.google.com/search-console/about

You can add yourself to Bing by visiting https://www.bing.com/webmasters/

Telephone Preference Service

If you have your phone number listed on your website, you should consider registering your number with the telephone preference service to try and limit cold sales calls.  However, you will still get some, so we'd recommend recording your calls, even though a cold sales person knows your calls are recorded they will still try their luck.  Using call barring is usually the best option as even if you tell people to stop calling, they probably won't

PAT Testing

Other "new website scams" we've discovered are PAT testing, but we were able to find a self PAT tester for £39.99 inclusive of VAT.  We've read various scams concerning the price quoted on the phone as not being the price charged,  However, since it is possible to get your own tester, that would seem the best option, especially as you can test items as you buy them, rather than waiting until your next testing

Fire Extinguisher testing

We've also received a cold sales call about fire extinguisher testing, now the lady who called asked to speak to the director of the company but as she was calling after 5pm, the director did answer the call and she was clearly flummoxed as she took in a deep breathe and clearly wanted to get her speaking to the director telephone voice ready

Employment agency spam calls

If your going to advertise for new staff, even if you state for employment agencies not to call, you can bet it that you'll get most calls from employment agencies, in fact, in the last advertisement only employment agencies called and everyone enquiring about the advert sent an email, so think, do you really need to have your phone number listed with the advert?

Google Maps Scam

A scammer tried to scam us with a Google Maps listing scam.  We'd already added a company to Google Maps, so we'd know how to add more companies to the site.  However, in this case, you couldn't actually visit the address as it was a PO Box address, but they carried on calling and calling and in the end we had to ask them if they had checked Google Maps already as we'd already added ourselves, they hung up very quickly and never called again

Call answering service

This item is so old because it involved a spam sent in the mail, it was for a call answering service and the price seemed a little high.  We stuck with using voicemail