Beware of spam, creeps and scams from People You Meet on HARO (Help a Reporter Out)
HARO is really good as a service. What isn’t their fault but they won’t investigate thoroughly is the unsolicited junk mail you get from people you connect with: the many people you meet there when you’re a source who end up asking you for investments, money of some kind like crowdfunding, voting for them in contests, being creepy towards you romantically, bothering you 24/7. Half of these are HARO users writing off e-mails not tied to HARO and HARO won’t do anything, and when they are tied to HARO accounts, they still won’t do much to fix this.
This is troubling as a female user. I get bothered plenty when I’ve been a source. My worst case was when I was acting as a reporter user. When I posted an article seeking plastic surgeons some years ago, I recall one proceeding to outside of the HARO system bother me to without me ever being flirtatious, go fly across the country to California to stay with him romantically and I was a “sensuous woman.” I had to threaten I was going to contact the medical board if he kept contacting me. Nothing is worth that. NOTHING. HARO is not acting on its end to make this a safe environment for female users.
HARO won’t research this because when you give them one person’s e-mail address, if it isn’t officially one listed in the HARO system, they won’t reach out to the people pestering you. When they do, IF anyone at HARO will contact a user, HARO does very little. Why? Because these are “working professional” users? Can we get HARO a viewing of Promising Young Woman to show them people on proper paths can be creeps too, who ask for money or creep on women?
Articles can be good, if you sift through the reporters seeking clickbait pieces you wouldn’t want any part of. As a source, I have been a part of a few great pieces from this.
Is it worth it? No, without weird money peddling and creepers, I’ve gotten good press placements on my own away from HARO. HARO *is* always a great place to start if you come prepared.
Use a burner e-mail if you use HARO. Each round of me using it, I always deleted my inbox because of the weird contacts I had afterwards. Maybe one day HARO will wake up when it has an all female staff as to how serious this is.
I haven’t used it in years.
Of course asking men, I’m sure they’ll say how great it is and no one bothers them. There are two sides to every coin. HARO, shape up and fix this so people are not allowed to contact you after the article is over. Please enforce that people can only contact you via HARO! No more compromised data with enabling e-mailing back and forth, sharing our real contact info!