I just had a look at cashmanufacturing's profile. If I'd seen him before your JV i'd have told you he was a shady bugger.
What sets my spidey sense off?
1) Looking at his started threads I see a HUGE number of JV requests. This is a sure-fire sign of a scammer. No one has time for that many JV's unless he's just ripping off as many people as possible.
2) One of his started threads is "Looking for SERIOUS investors" I'm wary of anyone looking for investors on bhw, period, let alone people who put the word 'serious' in caps. Generally when someone is trying to scam you they act a certain way. They make out their opportunity is *incredible*, or they're looking for only the "best" most "serious" investors which immediately makes people think "Oh, I hope I'm good enough". When you're suddenly thinking like that, you no longer think objectionably.
3) He's looking for replica stuff in another thread. Nothing against people that do that, but it just gives me a little insight into the sort of person he is and that compounds with the above to further solidify my decision.
4) "Event tickets reselling" -- Ticket touting is also fairly shady. Again, by its self it doesn't say he's a bad person, but EVERYTHING he's into seems to be very unethical stuff.
It's generally fairly easy to spot someone capable of scamming. Look at people's threads. What kind of things do they ask, what is their business, what are they ok with doing. You can learn a *LOT* about someone from their posts on bhw.
If someone is ok with doing VERY shady blackhat stuff, the highly unethical stuff, then chances are they're going to be ok with ripping off a business partner. *NOT* always. I myself do a fair amount of shady stuff, but I have my limits now, although I didn't always, but I always maintained integrity when it came to my business partners.
I'm "uneasy" with the very blackhat stuff, and I avoid things that will end up costing people a lot of money. Ie, I wouldn't do shady re-bills, but I will do content locking with mobile offers *IF* what I'm offering is of sufficient value. I won't do it if it's junk like "see justin bieber's wardrobe accident" type crap.
You have to get a feel for someone's ethics. If someone's doing blackhat, but they have limits and they understand that what they're doing isn't terribly good, but that it's a means to an end then that sort of person is going to be ok.
If it's the type of person that doesn't give a flying fuck about who he hurts and doesn't even justify what he does, then you're probably dealing with a sociopath. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE, lol.
If it's someone who is doing very dark stuff, but they try to justify it by saying things like "The world stinks, and people are bad to me", then they aren't a sociopath, they do have guilt, but they keep it down with excuses to justify their actions. Avoid this type of person, although one day they may rise up and become a better person, right now they're very selfish and will POSSIBLY rip you off if it's in their best interest. I used to be like this when it came to blackhat marketing and I'd constantly justify my actions, although I never scammed business partners.
That's 3 types of people you'll get on the forum that do the very blackhat stuff.
In general people you see that are focused more on legitimate business and commerce will make good business partners, but as I said above, not everyone that's doing the very dark stuff is bad, you just have to work out which one of the above they fall into.
One important thing to look out for in potential business partners is how professional they are. You want to find people who are serious business professionals. deki33 to me seems to fit this category, he doesn't come across as some "m4rk3ting k1d" like many do. He seems to be someone who takes his business seriously and is successful.
Anyway, I digress..
I reckon you'll be fine working with him, just don't put all your time into any JV. Devote 1/4 to 1/3 of your time to a JV with him and the rest to your own projects. Using JVs to supplement your own business, not replace them.
Btw, I've never ever been scammed in my entire life. When I said I've had bad experiences with JVs I meant more in terms of the logistics and operations. People either don't do enough work, don't contribute what they say or I end up carrying them. I personally would work with someone like deki33, so you definitely won't have a situation where he takes your articles and doesn't contact you. I can say this with 99.99% certainty.
Hm, but as soon as I read it, and saw you posted under I thought you'd be the one to say it's even a higher risk. I already had that type of JV with this member here: http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/members/59909-cashmanufacturing.html , and he has all of my articles on his domain, works a full time job, and doesn't answer my pm's nor e-mails on two e-mail I addresses I have from him. I've been trying to get a hold of him, and trying to sort things out for months now. I offered him to resume our JV, or to buy those articles I wrote for the project. He kept saying 'ok, I want to proceed', and now he stopped replying. The articles are on two of his domains. He's been a good partner,
but I've spent months writing the content, and haven't seen a dime from it. In the beginning he agreed, without any hesitation to put my adsense code on the sites, even though I was more prone to just spread mine and his adsense code across all of the pages in a 50-50 ration. I'm even willing to do most of the work if he would give me the access to the sites, but he just isn't replying, and just now I saw he's been active on the forum again.
Deki33, I think I'm going to take my chances, but I want to learn along the way, and I also would like to have 3-5 of my own sites for which I'd like the blasts. So I would write for mutual site, and write extra for the blasts/links to my sites.
I can write about anything you need, mostly, and we can always work on what needs to be improved. I'll send you a pm.
And sorry for mentioning that previous JV here, but that's where I'm coming from, nothing to do with you.
