Would you consider this a "posting service fraud"?

Hi,

I recently hired a few forum posters to post in one of my forums, but a simple search I did in Google showed me that every post made by one of the posters I hired had been copied from another forum which is covering a similar subject.

I believe this is a clear fraud and that I shouldn’t pay him for his services, but just to make sure, I would like to hear the opinion of other members here.

I even believe this could be prejudicial for my forum, as the owner of the other forum could find out and (rightfully) get angry, and also believe Search Engines could see this as duplicate content.

Should I erase them?

Boy… this is annoying!!!

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Well I certainly wouldnt pay for it.

I guess its down to the terms you signed them up with? Was original content part of the deal? Dont get me wrong - I do think you have been ripped off however it all depends on the small print of the deal.

 

Well... this poster is a DP member that I contacted here.

I certainly didn't specify in the description of the job that content should be original, but I have not seen anyone else having to specify that they want original content only, when they make a thread requesting forum posters.

I guess it's just common sense that you expect posts not to be copied from anywhere else... particularly not copied from a competitor's board.

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This is a very bad thing to run into and without you posting specifically that you wanted content that was fresh I think you are still forced to pay the posters that you did hire and did post for you. Hopefully I am wrong because it seems totally unfair what they did. Just my 2 cents.

 

Well, some posters say " ORIGINAL WORK, NO DUPLICATE OR COPY/PASTE JOB" If you didn't say that, then.. "technically" they didn't do anything wrong..

Mabye you should just give them 50% of the job price?

 

I agree that when you post in forums, it should be original content. If you can't add any value in a new thread, I think it's ok to look at other forums for topic ideas but never a copy/paste job.

JMO

mary

 

I'll pay him the amount for the posts already "copied" to my forum, even though I’ll probably have to erase them, as I don’t want to have any trouble with the owners of the other boards… because the posts were literally copied, word by word.

I'll take this just as bad experience to learn from... and will make sure to leave a big fat negative iTrader feedback for him, warning other possible clients of his fraudulent practices.

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Why don't you save us the hassle and post who is perpetrating a fraud in this thread.

 

Yes please give us the name of the culprets so we don't get stuck in the same boat

 

Was it his posts or someone else? If it is stolen I don't think you are under any obligation to pay for it. If he copied his posts and you did not say he could not unfortunately you do have an obligation to pay. I would also say who it was to prevent him from pulingl the same stunt again.

 

It doesn't matter if he is the author or not, you're paying him to post, not to copy and paste. Do not pay, hire someone who will do the job correctly.

(me!...sorry that was shameless)

Regardless of the self promotion, really dont pay.

 

If I'm not mistaken, this would at least fall under "unsatisfactory workmanship." If the work doesn't meet industry standards, ie is at least original, then you don't have to pay.

What's he going to do, anyway, complain? "Yeah, this guy wouldn't pay me for this work I stole from these other sites." I don't really see it happening.

 

It doesn't make a difference if you specify or not.

Some people are too dumb to understand that no one gets paid 10-20 cents for copying few lines from elsewhere.

I hired a few guys for my forum too..see this thread.

I had mentioned in my first post that I do no want copy paste work and still so many of them did exactly that. .

 

Tapantico, have you paid him or not ?? From one of your posts, it looks like you have't paid him as of now but are going to pay him for his copied posts.

Some people just want to make a quick buck. They don't care how they do it, they just want the money in their hand.

It would be in the best interests of the community if you could reveal the name of the person, so that people are not cheated again.
And, if you are not satisfied with forum posters, please do try this
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=228744

I am not affiliated in anyway with the thread, but I think you will get greater value for money from that rather than paying for people who just copy paste.

 

Ok… I guess it’s my responsibility with the community to reveal his name (or username in this case).

He uses the username frank123 and his profile is here: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/member.php?u=65193

And no… he is not the author of the posts he copied. I found he took the posts from two different boards and he used posts originally written by different members of those boards… even some made by the sites’ administrators!

That is why I’m removing those posts from my forum, as I don’t want to get in trouble with those website administrators… and at the end I have decided that I won’t pay him. It is the same case as if I was returning a product I bought in a store because it was defective.

On the other hand, I have found many other great posters here at DP who have delivered much more than what I was expecting from them. So, anyone in need of hiring forum posters here, don’t get discouraged by my experience… just be careful who you select and make sure you clearly stipulate all the details of the job you need them to make.

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Ps. Thank you for that link gr8liverpoolfan... that service sure seems like a great alternative... I'll certainly give it a closer look.

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Thanks for the heads up and good luck to you next time.

 

Why can't people just write their own responses?

 

I have encountered this problem before as well.
I would definitely say that this is cheating and you should not pay the person a single cent for it.
You should also delete the person's posts, just to be safe.

 

I wouldn't pay them anything. It's common sense not to copy and paste work from other sites. It's against the law as well as forum rules.

 

Exactly if you want the best work . You pick a good poster me. I would make this longer to impress you all but it is 10:59 pm and I am really tired..But I guess my reply was more then one line. BAM. I am a moderator for two sites l33t web@$ter here.