$5 may not seem like much, but when converted into ruble (in india i believe), you can buy quite a bit of merchandise? Go after the scammers! don't just laugh it off!
I suppose I have been as guilty as anyone on this subject (not leaving a neg. iTrader for a bad deal) - but we need to start leaving a negative iTrader when people actually deserve it.
I'm glad this worked out in the end through karma for the buyer. As a provider, I'd definitely say to use iTrader to your advantage and not be afraid of making legitimate, supported comments in a thread by the scammer. I know I appreciate positive feedback in my threads offering services, but when someone calls me out on a typo (which has happened before, much to my embarrassment), the way I handle that feedback tells future clients more than almost anything else I claim to be or do. If you have a legitimate complaint such as the copied content you described, I'd first privately request it be corrected by the original "author." If the author refuses to cooperate or ignores the request, there is no reason not to mention it in his or her thread. A simple warning to others or publicly questioning the author shouldn't be flagged, especially if you attempted to work with the individual privately first. Often, if you post something simple like, "Please respond to my PM about the material you provided. I'm not willing to accept material that has been copied from other sources," the "author" will show his true colors to everyone else. For some reason, scammers are often highly combative and totally unprofessional when called out or they simply disappear and never post a rebuttal or correction. Then your casual question is enough to warn off everyone else. Unfortunately, I've had to use this technique once before on a buyer who stiffed me $50. Fortunately, he didn't own the copyright to his material until he paid me for it, so I used it as a submissions piece for my own website. I never did see payment, but I did what I could to warn others without sinking to his level myself. Thanks! Rebecca
I think before you accept the articles you should have a clear agreement with your writers that your articles should never be published now or in the future. Whats the good of copyscaping them and they will be republished the following month. While it is true that there are lots of 'bad cheetahs' lurking in DP but still there are 'good angels' making their living out of DP. Creating a negative comment to the writer can warn others. Before I engage business to other DP members I always look at the comments they got from their prior transactions. Although I am still new in DP but this does not mean im new in the business. It's just everybody starts at 0. So with this in mind, I don't think shutting my doors to members with 0 iTraders is beneficial. Afterall, if we don't help them as others helped me, I wouldn't be able to get out from the dreaded 0 iTrader. But as always keep vigilant.
I should have copyscaped it before I accepted delivery... but I figured nobody's going to scam me for $5 especially considering it was supposed to lead to some long-term work. As far as making agreements, that's also only as good as the person accepting your terms. So many people on the forum are under 18 years of age and unable to enter into a legally binding agreement, or reside in countries that would make enforment of your contract impossible. Besides that you'de need them to fax signed contracts and such, prove their identity and so on... too much trouble for small/low cost jobs. The bottom line is that these people are cheats/scum and a contract isn't going to change that or prevent them from ripping you off. If you're doing business with an honest person then their word is better than any written agreement or contract. I think reporting bad deals via iTrader is the best way to go... it's viewable by anyone and even if they reciprocate with a negative, people can still see the details and YOUR feedback as well.
yeah, thats the problem with iTrader, if you gave them a negative feedback, expect you will get one too. I've read few arguments with people exchanging negative feedbacks and it's not healthy on either side at all.
Well said quest. Requesting 100% copyscaped articles with a $5 pricetag will fetch some bad apples. Also doing the work for cheap will drain the writer in the long run. Getting it checked prior to payment is the best option for buyers. The second problem is claiming full rights of those articles. This can be easily misused as there is no contract/legal bindings etc. So when you take all into consideration, the writer providing services at $5 is the loser.
I don't see how the writer can be the loser?? Every writer has a choice to take the job or not. Therefore, the writer can't lose unless he/she isn't paid. In either case, when we're talking about only a few dollars it's not that big a deal... live and learn.
I run a writing services agency. With around more than 10 people to handle, at times it becomes difficult for me to manually check what's going on under me. I've once had a bitter experience of sending some duplicate work to my client which, I still am ashamed off. But now, all the work undergoes "Copyscape" check before it's delivered. My clients/customers are my asset and in no means, I would want them to be unhappy. For all the other writers here: my only piece of advice is, ensure that all the articles/writing work you deliver is at least "copyscape" passed. ~G
Has anyone seen my thread in the S&F forum about making user names red in the itrader area for banned members? http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=326146 I think this would have help with your situation, because I pretty much know who the culprit is you are talking about. If he/she would have had the user names of the other duplicate accounts he had going red in his itraders you probably never would have entered into business with him. That's the whole reason I want to see this implemented. To keep members from starting duplicate accounts and giving themselves itraders so that they can get some business from other people. They know their service is terrible that's why they have to create duplicate accounts to make themselves look good. Please go vote on my thread
Definately a good idea in principal. However, these people will just come back with different usernames etc and continue their ways.
Realize that if you publish someone else's copyrighted work they can sue you for actual damages or statutory damages (if the copyright is registered). In other words, their little "oops" could cost you six-figures if things really went South...now ask yourself if it's "just five bucks". I've dealt with the same things and would definitely at least out them publicly to protect others.
ITs like sites like Rentacoder you get people say I can do the coding job and they have no feedback or posted fake feedback and they are absolutely crap.
True, true. But not everyone checks this stuff. You may be saving the next guy a legal nightmare...not that it excuses them for not double-checking. I get this kind of thing on Rentacoder a lot. I've completely quit using them as almost all experiences with writers there are awful for me. Guru/elance has been much better. Their favorite scam seems to be to submit an awesome writing sample to get the job and then have their Indian writers do the actual work or use an article spinning software.
I am not sure if this is a typical paypal response...but when I complained to paypal about a product that did not correspond with the sales letter their response was that they could only refund in the event of non-delivery. If this is their official line then I don't think there would be much point in complaining to paypal.
Well to fill you all in, I just left negative feedback... the DP member is banned anyway so I don't think it matters much. I also rewrote some of the articles myself and deleted the ones I didn't feel like rewriting. Cheers to all, Pete.
There are also many ways to get around copyscape... I wouldn't use that exclusively to check for original articles. We check every article before we approve it on Constant Content, with over 4000 writers we have seen it all. Our best tool for plagiarism and content theft is our editors. Our editors check each article for proper English, if an article is pieced together or rewritten it doesn’t make sense or has many grammar related errors. One thing we found out a long time ago is that some over seas writer companies will take content from magazines or encyclopedias that are not published online. Without giving away all our secretes we use software that professors use to check students work for plagiarism. It checks online sources as well as offline. My point is to many people rely on copyscape and some people have found away around this. The last thing you want is a magazine after you for content theft...