Spotting fools and liars

I can’t stand dealing with fools and charlatans. It drives me mad. The only resource I have that’s finite is my time and I will never get back every second wasted with idiots and liars. 

Every day I meet or contact any number of new people or businesses that I have never dealt with before, so I have a quick system of validating their bona fides before investing time into them.

Here are four resources I regularly use to conduct a quick check on new businesses I interact with.

ASIC

If your company name has Pty Ltd or Ltd on the end of it and you are in Australia I better be able to find you in the ASIC register.

If you’re not there you’re lying to me.  If you’re from the UK or the USA I can easily find you there as well. And by the way, checking your ABN number is as easy as going to Business.gov.au.

White Pages

If your address isn’t on your website (which makes me nervous) I better be able to find you in the White Pages. If not, I have to ask why you are hiding,

Google

If the only reference I can find to a business name when searching on Google is on your Linkedin profile I really have to wonder whether the business actually exists?

And if I conduct a search on your asserted address or phone number and find 50 other companies sharing that address I can be fairly sure your business is not substantial.

Whois

Sometimes the Whois database comes in really handy, because it can tell you who owns a domain name and the registered address.

That information isn’t always available but it gives me two more reference points for ferreting out information on you at ASIC, the Whitepages and Google. For international inquiries, for instance .coms, I tend to use www.Geektools.com.

So why point this out? Because at least once a week I come across someone who’s being less than generous with the truth.

When I gently confront them – for instance “your ABN number doesn’t seem to be exist, can I confirm it?” – I always get a story about some muck-up that’s just occurred. However when I do the same check a week later nothing has changed.

It’s not just scammers you have to be on the lookout for, it’s idiots who don’t play by the rules and therefore waste your time and put you at risk.

Brendan Lewis is a serial technology entrepreneur having founded: Ideas Lighting, Carradale Media, Edion, Verve IT, The Churchill Club and Flinders Pacific. He has set up businesses for others in Romania, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Vietnam and is the sole Australian representative of the City of London for Foreign Direct Investment. Qualified in IT and Accounting, he has also spent time running an Advertising agency and as a Cavalry Officer with the Australian Army Reserve.