I'm one of those folks that likes to believe that people are generally good and honest, especially "ordinary people" as I imagine most of us are and can't really see the attraction for someone to rip of another forum member/webmaster... Recently (about 2 weeks ago) I had several people do small writing jobs for me... ranging from $5 to about $20. While most of those people delivered UNIQUE content as per our agreement, ONE person did not. While copyscaping my site today I found that all of the articles (from one person) where simply cut-and-paste jobs from other websites. This particular person only got paid $5, but really they stole those $5 as they sold me articles that weren't theirs to sell. That leads me to my question to you all... Should I just laugh it off (it's only $5 after all), or make it my personal mission to slam this cheat every opportunity I get and publicly post their user name and file a complaint with PayPal as well?? Yah, it's only $5... but the principal! I mean really, scamming someone for a measly $5 just shows what a slime bag you are. Opinions?
I don't think pursuing this negative issue will be productive, beneficial or successful. Write it off to experience and carry on. There are more productive things to do.
I have had the same thing happen to me. I have hired quite a few writers and here is what I found: 1. Most of them didnt seem to have an understanding of the English language and their articles had to be severely re-written. 2. A few of them copied and pasted "thieved" content directly from wikipedia and other sites or very minimally re-wrote it. 3. Several "writers" used a PLR article and a 'spinner' which produces terrible results. 4. 3 or 4 writers did excellent work. I will never go back to any of the writers in the first three categories, nor will I do any other type of business with them in this forum. Whenever I get ready to hire more writers I will go to those that have given me good service in the past first. I agree with Webray, about the only thing you can do is write it off as experience and avoid them in the future. You could possibly give them a neutral or negative iTrader, but of course in most cases, they would do the same for you.
If you hired them on DP, just post in their offer thread with your experience to warn others. Complaining to Paypal will get you nowhere, as it is a non-tangible product.
yah, it's probably not worth the hassle... Keeping an eye out for their threads is a good idea though. Cheers all. Pete.
I basically 'boycott' them. I wouldnt submit a link to one of their directories or use them for any service whatsoever. Most of the time I wont even reply to a thread that they created. I dont want to help them in any way if I can avoid it. Some people may think, or say, that I take this too far, but hey they ripped me off and they proved to me that they are dishonest crooks.
I believe that they should be exposed through negative feedback (after all, thats what it is there for).
Expose them here on DP. I think we should have a "bad business" section. A similar thing happened to me when I was starting up a forum. I hired a coder to code a very unique idea for me, everything went fine until about a month later he gave the code away for free on a very popular message board.
People who rip others should be exposed... Perhaps someone should list them so others dont get scammed by them also.. Of course this idea was only generated from the thought of a community taking action against unwanted scammers/rippers... Greetz LTEli
I had this happen to me yesterday on 3 articles. He copied and pasted the content. I check it with copyscape but 2 almost pass and the 3 was really bad. I send them back and ask for them to pass the copyscape test. He did apologize and correct his mistake saying this with a gesture.
Without knowing how big your writing assignment was I can't say whether you should have known better or not. I'm a freelance writer working on DP and time and time again I have seen complaints from employers about the quality of work turned in by some of the writers on here. In nearly every case the writer is performing work for bargain basement rates. If I hired a guy to repair my roof and he charged 1/10th of what another guy quoted me don't you think I would be suspicious of the quality of work that I'm getting? A lot of people don't think writers should be paid a fair rate (5-15 cents a word). Well then, you go do the work. It may make you mad at me for saying that but cheaper doesn't always mean better, it just means cheaper.
Initiate a chargeback through PayPal. Give the thief negative i-trader. And, tell us who did this. Then, move on.
I think that if you go on people's threads and trash them, you'll get a warning. You should leave a negative i-trader and explain why. It goes both ways, too. Buyers who don't pay. Buyers who disappear after offering work. Buyers who give insufficient requirements then aren't happy when they don't get what they want. And then there are some that are great. They give bonuses when they are especially pleased with something, raise your rate after you've done a few things successfully, and generally make you feel good about working for them. However, if you are only offering a penny or two a word for researched articles, you will either get good work from people who are just starting out writing, or have the problems described above.
This happens essentially when you aren't able to make out that the person is essentially a writer or not. If you are able to figure what the writer is looking at, then you would definitely find the writer trustworthy. I am a writer and I cannot imagine these things when I am here to do business CREATIVELY. I mean, just not copyscape, It's a matter of self esteem and pride, and you cannot make any reasons for such things like :-(. It does not happen. It means that the writer is not willing to give you the best or he/she does not know how to write. I generally take advance payments and if I can't make it right, I generally reach an agreement with the buyer as to what his requirements are and re-write the whole thing. Still, if that does not work out and I find I am unable to meet the client's requirements, I return the money back. Even If the client is generous in letting me keep the money, I had one of the generous clients as well.. I make sure I keep asking them for the work equivalent to the money offered to me. It's a matter of self-awareness, self-consciousness, self-confidence, self-growth and self-esteem. How the hell can you avoid hard work and smart work??? Copying someones work is not my cup of tea and I don't prefer or rather avoid re-writing stuff; it's difficult to do that rather than write from your own creative mind. If you don't like my service, I had return the money back if my work does not give results rather than receive neg feedback. Being a writer is a matter of self-esteem and this is a white collar job, essentially not everyone's cup of tea. Moreover, ask if the writer has joined any writing school like I have. Generally, you wont find many who join writing schools to become a writer. For me, the concern is to receive the money from the client and by experience, most clients pay. Still, It remains a concern. Building a relationship is most important in this business and I had say, if you find good writers, ask for a sample, order only one article first and then evaluate how you find the writers work. If you find that good, build a relationship rather than dog hunting every time for a new writer. similarly, Even I had prefer to work with one client for a longer period of time rather than keep looking for new clients which is a waste of time, money and energy. And not to forget, my time is more precious than the money that I earn and even more, my sense of my energy. Now, folks tell me, did I speak right? If you find this good, green rep me. I had be glad to push my enthusiasm levels higher and, work smarter and harder than before. OmShanti
leave negative I-trader with comments about it. I always look there before making a deal for anything. To many scammers are having a field day with no real consequences.
For this particular project I was looking for cheap, not quality articles. Obviously you can't have both so you have to be aware of that. I am not really upset about poor quality but the fact that it was coppied! No matter... I just looked to find this user was recently BANNED from the forum so I guess that's that.