Hi DP friends, DP is supposedly to be a great marketplace that all of us can work hard up here for things we have passion for and believe in. Many of us are the "good guys" but apparently, half of us must have met at least one terrible writer or one terrible content buyer here. The thing is, my lucky stars are not with me, though I have worked with some fantastic content buyers who honor payments right to the letter, I have come across not one but TWO hardcore lying content buyers that simply have no regards or respect for online workers like us. 1) Let's call this person 'A' - he hired me to do editing for him and guess how long I let him drag the payment? 3 long months and yes, he still hasn't settled it, he just don't have the money for it. Though my heart goes out to him, it's my bread and butter, 3 months is way too long, would you let your content buyer owe you 3 months for your dues? And his excuse everytime is nothing in the pockets. So I mean, why hire someone when you don't have the money to pay for it in the first place? Please be fair to us who are writing hard for a living, especially those of us who do this as a full-time job! 2) This 'B' person is even worse, not a native-speaker but poses as a native speaker and goes around the whole DP forum sending people dual messages. One to buyers and immediately one to sellers, asking for jobs and then in the next message hiring someone. That's no issues with me, you know, but it's NOT ok to do this when he does not have the money to pay for the work and the best thing is, we all knew the Indian Paypal thing was coming, it naturally became a hotbed for him to nest his excuses there. And what's more is that he is still trying to hire people in DP even though he don't have a CC, don't have a working debit card, his paypal balance can't be used so he basically can't pay. So why lie to people this way? I have personally gave him many options but he just have 1001 excuses to counter it. Plus he got like at least 6 usernames on DP which some are banned. Well, we know DP can't do a good barrier net for such people because of the sheer number of freelancers here. But they are trying their best and once in a while, I do see them working their police effect to good use. This is all prompting me to ask for advance payments for people like this in the future. How long would you let a content buyer drag payment? It's already the last straw for me - if I don't get my payment back today, I will let you guys know who these people are and then forward all their chat transcripts and ip addresses to the administrators so that everything is clear as crystal. Friends, we are here to work, it's our living, don't make use of our efforts and kindness to your advantage. All real writers want is to write and write well for the payment that is due to us - it's that simple. Have you had a similar experience? Cheers, Chad.
I completely agree with you Chad.. i guess you should not waste any more time and inform the admin right away....
I'm giving them the last chance of last chances. You see, Ria, real good guys appreciate such chances but probably if they don't have that bit of gold in their heart, last chances are nothing to them. That's life. Have a nice day!
Its so true Faithchad. I have been writing content for over 4 years now. If there is ONE thing I have learnt in all my years as a full time content writer is - ALWAYS ask for upfront payments. Its just a waste of time and energy to run after people asking for money. Sending 10 follow ups and receiving one lame excuse in return is just not how I like to work. I am more than willing to lose a client , then to negotiate on the upfront bit. I do have regular clients , from whom I never ask upfront (coz I know and trust them.. and I built this trust through several upfront payment orders we worked on before). So, take my advice and ask for upfronts so you don't have to get frustrated and end up worrying and hating the business later on ! Not getting paid can be a HUGE morale buster ! Been there and learnt my lessons - Once bitten, twice shy !
Its very bad and sad, but it happens, we come across both the good people and bad people. Did you check whether your customer used the content yet or not? If he used it and the content is online, you can track it back, contact the publisher, ask him to contact his vendor! The B guy you mentioned, i believe to know him, it is his way of doing, he is active everywhere, a complete ***. I had the scope to pin him down like tracking my works back, getting his customer to publish my entire email, on his sales thread. Luckily, then he realized, its not easy to steal. If the content is not used yet, just drop a mail, that you are selling them else where and kick that *** out. Upfront is a good thought, but unless the content provider has convincing writing personality, traceable, it might become a bit difficult for new guys! And 3 months are long brother, do not keep sad things in mind, keep moving forward. Cheer up!
Hi faithchad, thanks for this great post its nice to see someone putting the bost out for us writers as it were. And firstly faithchad, I know who one iof the writers you refer to is - I myself have had a minor dealing with him - he tried to change the price to pay me once i'd competed the work - I ended up giving him nothing and got nothing - so wasted my time completely. He is one of the worst DPers i have come across and if he is from Princeton NJ I am the king of england. But anyway enough ranting. I think you have a point about upfront payments but I tend to choose this on a client to client basis. If you can get a good feel for a client then sometimes its ok to trust them to make payment afterwards. I think on DP reputation comes first and it is ok to trust people who've been around the block a few times. My final two cents - buyers quit insulting us all by offering us two cents for "quality" work. Sam
How true indeed! The hating the business part is exactly how I was worried I would end up. You see, I got lots of regulars and I still do let them make post payment. I still believe in the ultimate good in humans seriously. It's just the occasional few but yup, it stings!
Thanks, pal! I know all these tracking stuff you see and I love your encouragement but the main frustration stems from what simplyjo puts it "just a waste of time and energy to run after people asking for money". I'm starting to feel better with so many writers' kind words
Sam, Sam, Sam, I don't know you but your words are basically hitting the 1 million lottery for me. Good one dude and you've got a friend in me. And your last sentence? I am not even there, I write for 1.5 cents a word (2 cents for special work but well, that's also an insult like you say) so you know man, I agree to every single thing you have put out here. (wink)
News update guys! My day just got better - B has paid up! At least the bit of gold I mention in his heart does exist Have a nice day folks! Person A is gonna get a whacking soon if he still hides, I need to alert everyone he is hiring so that people know the truth!
I completely agree with you too. How do you report users to admin? I mentioned a problem I have had with unpaid work to a moderator and they say they do not like to get into members disputes. This is fair enough and I should learn from my experience with this specific buyer but on the other hand his threads on this forum show he is advertising for more people to sell things to him... should the honest writers and sellers on here not be advised that he has scammed people before and is likely to do again. If anyone can let me know how to report this buyer to admin I would be very happy. I cannot even leave feedback for him as his agreement was done by private message not on a thread on the board
Ok Crimebuster, my suggestion is to always take up work on a thread or if you have an advertising thread, you can use that thread since it was from that thread that the client hired you.There must be a starting point you two connected so it should always start with a thread usually. That's the one you use. You see, this problem is rampant, content buyers often getting into sticky situations involving payments and then go on to hire new writers. That is fine if they don't repeat old tricks again but as you can see, it's an addictive habit for some. I now learnt my lesson to ask advances from new clients and what MagicMonkey said is what I do, judge by a client to client basis and of course for trustworthy buyers who are regulars, we can go by post payment. As it is, this situation will not be solved with a single universal cure. Regarding the problem of getting agents disguising as clients, only the real content buyers who are behind the hiring can help the situation. Get to know your writer more before hiring. Don't just jump in, it will guarantee that you get the right person to provide the right work. I have written some articles about content writing in my site, I suggest content buyers to read these articles as they share tips to help the content buyers hire the kick butt writer they have been waiting for all these time. We might feel down because of these rogue clients but we always know that majority of our DP clients are the ones who still make us smile. Good luck!
You know what's really not fair? All of us, all of us content writers, we bust our humps all day long trying to make a living. Content buyers want to take advantage of us by paying us 1 cent per word. This isn't fair! I mean, if we are going to do business legitimately and pay our taxes, 30 percent of that is gone. Just gone! I think it's time that the content buyers took a major responsibility check in the way they do business. Having 100,000 dollars invested in article marketing for a content buyer is nothing, and it's time they realized that as well. They take a 25 percent profit on what they make off of us. 25 percent! This means that unless they have a substantial amount of cash behind their marketing efforts, they won't make much. How is that our fault? We have to pay the price for business people that aren't what they are supposed to be in the business to begin with. Name one other business that takes a 25 percent profit off of their clients. Would you feed one of your work horses garbage to eat? Well it's the same difference. It's time things changed around here for all of us. We should all make a stand because the longer we let them rape us financially, the worse quality articles they will get and the worse off we all will be. Does anyone agree with me? 2 cents per word minimum. Out.
As a buyer, I have no problem paying 2 cents per word for good, original, content, but most of the time I end up with garbage that I have to rewrite because the person who wrote it wasn't an "American" native English speaker, or by the time they were done "spinning" the article they stole off Ezinearticles, or some competitor's website, it doesn't make any sense at all. And, the problem with the rating system is that it doesn't record total jobs done, and their score, but just the score on the jobs that were reported. Lots of poor, and mediocre, jobs don't get rated because it's not worth the ding you'll get back on your own rating by giving someone a failing grade. Sal, ps. And yes, I am looking for writers, PM me if you are a native "American" English speaker who would like to write telecom related articles for me.