When we were starting a consulting company back when, we fell for this once. As the article states, once you're aware that this happens, it usually isn't hard

When we were starting a consulting company back when, we fell for this once. As the article states, once you're aware that this happens, it usually isn't hard to spot the signs. After that, if we suspected we were being suckered for someone else's process checkbox, we'd offer to write a response at our normal hourly rate, and actually got a taker once. But in general, this stuff will bleed you dry when you're starting out, be careful.