>1) great promises of future business if you helped them now. Business which not only never materialized, but later on as you learned from other sources, they n

>1) great promises of future business if you helped them now. Business which not only never materialized, but later on as you learned from other sources, they never had any intent to work with you on. I've heard this too many times from our existing customers too. This sounds like the "do it for exposure!" line of reasoning for artists. >2) eager to engage your team due to their recognized expertise in solving problems, and scoping out solutions. Again, usually with a promise of working together on an RFP, or a future contract. The reality was they wanted free consulting. We had this one customer who always called into our support line (and for some reason got ahold of my personal cell!), and every call ended up being a 2 hour-long consulting session on how to get his business set up for e-commerce and his business strategy. He's went through lots of arrogant Wordpress/website developers that I couldn't stand working with, and still hasn't had a site up after two years. I was so relieved when he decided not to renew his service contact.