Paid DP member for content that turned out to be plagiarized!

OK, so I found a writer on DP who wrote some good content for my sites. So, I gave the writer more assignments and everything seemed OK until I discovered, using copyscape, that all the content this writer submitted and which I paid for had been plagiarized and is duplicate content.

This means I must now pay another writer to rewrite the content at further expense, which is annoying and will cost me additional expense of course.

Does anybody have any suggestions how to handle the matter of warning others here on DP about this problem and this DP member in particular? I would hate to see any fellow DP members get burned but am not sure what is the best way to handle it.

 

Trust me, swallow your pride and take it as a lesson learned.

 

Thanks; that part is pretty clear already.

But you would let this person continue to plagiarize content and dupe DP members huh?

 

you pay for what you get, so if you paid $1 for 300 words, you get 20 words for your $1 and 280 copy n paste

 

So you are going to fork out another $1??

 

Give him a negative Itrader. Simple as that.

If you paid him via credit card, do a chargeback.

 

Hey, thanks so much for your input everyone. Funny you would conclude that I or anybody here on DP gets content for $1, LOL.

Since we are talking about over 100 articles and $1,100 I think the writer was fairly paid and yet, almost every one of the articles is plagiarized. Yes, I will leave the individual a red rep, will probably open a thread here to warn others about this individual and have opened PayPal dispute.

I find it rather sad that anyone here would suggest that openly plagiarizing other writers' content and selling it to DP members is "ok" if the writer agrees to do the work at a given price, even if that price is what some writers might consider too low. One has to think that writers ripping off publishers this way only further devalues the prices writers can get for their hard work and talents.

Anyway, if you are paying for content from people here on DP or elsewhere, my advice after this very hard lesson is don't pay in full until you have received copy from your writer and verified that it is original before paying in full.

 

Pay half upfront and half after completion of the project. That is what most people do. You might find it difficult to get writers who do not accept down payment of any sort.

You might consider asking the same writer to reproduce it all again, at no extra cost ( since the articles delivered were plagiarized in the first place). I'm not sure whether he will agree, but it is worth a try.

PS- Rep and Itrader are two different things. I meant a negative Itrader, which would visible to everyone who checked his profile and Itrader out.

 

Thanks gr8liverpoolfan for your advice. I agree and find that many writers actually expect to be paid in full before delivering content, so yes, I will be working for now on only with those who agree to 50% deposit and balance upon acceptance and stipulating in my agreements that I will not pay for any plagiarized content. Unfortunately, this was an individual I have worked with several times in the past so no thread to leave a negative itrader.

 

$1100 over 100 articles, thats still less that $10 each, 500 word article = about 2c a word.
good writers command good pay, $10 per 100 words = 10c a word

like i said, you get what you pay for at times.
there are good trusted cheap writers that you need to seek out and use. but if you hire a 13 year and wonder why you got what you did, then you can understand why they offer services so cheap. your willing to pay for them and take your chances.

 

lol old sammie is agist isn't she.

how about trying to do a chargeback.
take it as a lesson learned and always make sure before you pay the full payment.

i have to say a person must have to be an idiot to think that the expensivest item is the best one, so if anyone in this thread thinks that is the case (their views should be disregarded) or if you use their views as help than you are on your own.


Reveal the identity of the writer so for future reference people will not use him/her.

 

I have to agree with Sammie, you get what you pay for. Ask for samples and make sure who you are dealing with. Good writers do not often work for cheap and $ .10 plus a word is more common for good writers. Ask for cheap and you get just that.

 

Syed, Mikey ... thanks. Yep, hard lesson to learn that even if you work with somebody on a regular basis, inspect what you expect. I will open a separate thread to warn others about this individual. If she is 13, she's a pretty good con artist for being so young ;-)

 

I saw your content and looked it over good. This person you speak of didn't even change one single word of it, they just simply copied and pasted the whole thing.

 

Thanks MaryMary. Yes, it was the worst case of plagiarism I have ever seen.

Now, so that other DP members can be aware, the individual who did this is musicalzoo

The rock she hides under is advertised in her profile: www.debbiepanell.com

Caveat emptor!!!

 

Content writers who charge less than 2c a word doesn't mean they produce crappy articles. It's quite unfair to judge us like that. We're from different countries dear friends and the rates offered here are reasonable enough for other people like myself.

Unfortunately, this guy hired a terrible writer and there's really nothing more he can do with it but to learn his lesson and be more cautious the next time he'd hire anyone for any project.

 

But wouldn't you agree that the problem of poor or copied content seems to be repeated by writers that are charging very low rates? In the whole year that I have been on DP I have yet to see an employer leave a message warning people about a writer that charged high rates and that handed in poor/plagiarized content. It's always the 1-2 cent writers.

This is why a past iTrader record and a good standing reputation in the DP writing community is more important than finding the lowest bid for the job.

 

I agree with you. It's true that some content writers who charge less usually give horrible contents but that doesn't mean you should generalize all of us. Hiring a content writer surely involves risks and everyone should be cautious with their dealings. Writers like myself have to be cautious too. I got scammed a few times here on DP in the past but I learned valuable lessons from that. Some people are just scammers. I just wish there won't be any form of generalization here 'coz it could offend other peeps and ruin their reputation despite their hard work to build up a good rep.

 

All I can say is that I paid a fair price and this particular writer decided to blatantly copy and paste. This is not meant to generalize about any writers, regardless of their location or rates charged. But if a writer copies other people's work and turns it over to a service buyer as their own, then they only devalue the work of honest, hardworking writers.

Some of these articles were quite short, others up to 1,000 words. She gladly accepted the rates, which were between $10 and $20 per article.

My only purpose with this thread is to warn others that musicalzoo ripped me off and also those who actually took the time to write their own content, regardless if it was good, bad or otherwise.

If you don't like the rates being offered, don't accept the work. It's a free economy. But if you accept an assignment, at least do the work honestly, even if your quality is not that great.