Those are not "professionals." I am not saying they are bad writers, but they are not professionals when you take a look at current industry rates. I know it stinks to be scammed like that, but as you said, next time you will definitely know better.
What makes someone a "professional"? - Dictionary.com Someone who does it for a living, and does it well? Tons of people do that here. And I don't get what you mean "current industry rates" people charge what they want - if someone charges less for a service, most likely will end up getting more work in the end.
Heh, since I've gotten into this rant more times than I can count on DP and in real life, I'm going to end it here. I wish you the best of luck finding writers in the future who don't blatantly plagiarize. At least you brought this member to the attention of other webmasters on the forum so no one else can get sucked into paying for work that isn't original.
Since we're bringing in dictionaries (as opposed to using our common sense), dictionary.com also defines a professional as: "13. a person who is expert at his or her work." Other variations include: Having or showing great skill; expert A skilled practitioner; an expert. Of a very high standard [adj] Just because someone writes for a living doesn't mean they're an expert in their field. I don't mean any disrespect, but you'll find an uncountable number of writers here who can't even construct a grammatically correct sentence, let alone write a decent article. Yet, they insist on incessantly advertising themselves as "professionals." Does that mean they're highly-skilled experts in their niche? Probably not. If you choose not to hire a professional, that's your prerogative. But don't try to make it sound like there's no difference between someone who accepts $.01/w and someone who charges $.5/w, because there is. There is a hell of a lot difference in the quality; if you ever decide to pay for professional writing, I'm sure you'll see that for yourself. Having said all that, even if a writer is working in a sweatshop, they have absolutely no right to plagiarize content. However, they do have the right to produce exceptionally bad writing, in English - to borrow from Jason (MarketJunction) - as an eighth language. On a less sarcastic note, I'm really sorry to hear you had such a bad experience; I wish you the best of luck in the future. Oh and about your last statement: while someone charging pennies/ word might end up getting a large numbers of order in a day, they'll also have to invest a lot more time than a professional writer who might earn the same amount from a single order. It's really all about the quality of life one wants. You can either spend 20 hours a day sitting in front of your computer screen, writing on topics ranging from hand lotion to light bulbs; typing till your fingers go numb (and waking up the next day with a migraine) OR you can spend a fraction of that time writing on a topic you know a little something about, and spend the rest of your day organizing other ventures and actually getting a life.
Hello FanAddict - Thanks for the PM, wouldn't have found the thread otherwise, really busy and a little backlogged right now, catching up though. I'll have these done for you in the next couple days no problem. Let me know if you need anything else.