Ezine

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Writer Scams

Have you come across writer scams? I do not mean fake projects posted on content mill sites, but fake clients, who buy your article at low rates, as low as $1 for a 500 word article, then they slap their name on to the article and pose as writers and sell that article at higher rates to other clients. This is honestly not even ghostwriting. Some even use your samples to win projects and then do not give you work.
Many content farms are thronged by such people. Their project description reads something like this: “ I’m looking for a writer to write good quality 500 word articles on various niches. I’ll pay $1 per 500 word article, or $3 per 500 word article. Rates are not negotiable, please do not bid for the project if you do not agree with the price. Only native English speakers please. You must meet the deadlines. Article should be 100% copyscape free, no grammatical error, no plagiarism will be tolerated.”
After all this when you bid for the project, one person will ask for your gmail/msn id. Will begin chatting with you, completely ignore the bid amount even ask you to lower the bid amount, one wonders why are such people allowed to post. They should not be allowed to contact the service provider other than through their system. This not just gives a bad name to the site but to the people who are posting projects there. There are several good clients too. I also came across a client who asked everybody to do a free sample and I’m sure he gave different topics to each writer. He said only if I like your sample I’ll pay for it. I did not send him the whole article. I just sent him 3 paragraphs and told him if he likes the tone, I’ll continue, he later wrote to me that the project was closed because he had sent a sample of another writer to his client who had rejected it. This way he might have got some 20 samples without paying. I’m already wise about such clients so I just sent an excerpt, but many sent the whole article ( especially newbies). I appeal to all freelance bidding sites to watch out for such people who have great reviews but do not write on their own.
They are responsible for the low quality articles found in article directories.
I request all writers to watch out for such scams.

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