How Our Site Works

Welcome to our friendly writer to writer warning site. This site allows writers to warn others about clients who have not paid them for work done. The person that maintains this blog makes no claims to any validity of any of the statements made by others on this site. This is not a site where we pursue any legal action, and we intend no harm against anyone mentioned here. It is simply a place for writers to talk about clients that they have had who did not pay them for their work.

email us at : writerstowriterswarnings@gmail.com

If you are mentioned on this site, and you think that you have been misrepresented, PLEASE comment to explain to others the situation. This is a place for writers to leave their own experiences about what has happened to them. If you have worked with a writer that is angry with you and has posted your name here, PLEASE defend yourself! We seek to explore all of the options and we want to hear your side of the story!

What If A Scammer Approaches You For Work?

If someone listed on this site, or on others sites approaches you and asks you to do work, how should you answer? The polite way is to say "No, thank you" or simply not to reply to the email. BUT THIS WONT STOP THEM FROM SCAMMING!

The only way to make things like this blog work is to reply to them with the truth. Say, for instance, "I saw your name and email on a blog warning me about scammers. Because of that, I will work for you, but only on a pre-pay basis. You pay me first, and then I will do the work." The only way that we can stop these people is by making them aware that we all know what they are doing. Let them know upfront. Make them go to the trouble of changing their email addresses again and again again. It is one of the only things that we poor, unrepresented writers can do to try to stop it. Stand up for yourself. TELL them that you know they are a scammer.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

scammer warning! Nicolene Van Der Poll

Hi

I came across your blog . I was scammed about 10 months ago. I was completely lost. I thought i would wreck her name by posting on forums and even SEO'ing her name to come to my sorry story, but i was in debt and had my work to worry about. Here's what happened:

My name is Krshna, and i am an Indian student writing part time with a team of article writers. We churn out articles and seo articles that are plagiarism free(we check with copyscape), have good grammar, incorporate the keywords @ relevant places and every other normal thing that a good copywriter puts into an article. As you may notice from my English, it's kind of understood that I would not employ incoherent babblers to work with me and expect them to do quality work. Anyways, me and my team used to work for one Nicolene Van Der Poll from Cape Town, South Africa. We started work with her in January this year, and though she was paying weekly initially, she said bi-weekly after two weeks and then kept postponing and delaying citing various reasons. So finally it became monthly payments, and she would ignore my mails to her regarding contact details like address and phone numbers. All this while she kept sending in work for us to do, in order to give us the impression that she was still around and that she would definitely pay up if she wanted so much work. It gave us the impression that she focussed on the work at hand and was motivated etc. So finally, she owed me a lot of money, and i owed all my writers. So i ask her for payment and she said her lcient was on vacation. She replied to my mails after long gaps, and i repeatedly told her, in the softest ways i could ever imagine, that i was getting worried about payments.Finally, she stops replying to all my mail, my work and my team's work is on her clients sites, and there is no response at all. In between this whole fiasco, she paid me half the money she owed, from a paypal address with the name "Shaun Van Der Poll". Of course, her husband- I googled the couple out. And also, they sent a message on Paypal that said "Here is more of what i owe you for Jan - the rest coming soon...." in the exact same words. She owed me $220 US odd. I was of course a student(still am :) ), and i had just moved out of home to continue college. Maybe $200 is not a lot of money in the West. But $200 is 8000/- Indian Rupees. And I can survive on that money for two whole months, confortably!!! So thats the gravity of things. She used to pay me 50 cents for 100 words, and i thought that was fair. So, then I had to pay all my writers by sitting and writing articles myself. I had to write scores of articles to earn that money again. My writers belief in me was broken. It was insane. I skipped dinners and lunches and slept at the oddest hours possible to stick to deadlines and give her work on time. I even tried getting her number but the number i found by googling her didnt work right. I have been more careful since then. This lady has a young daughter, imagine how that girl would feel if she realized her mother was a thief? I even have emails from her accepting that she owes me money and saying that she will pay me soon.

Here are her various email ids:

shanickeye@telkomsa.net
nickyvdp@openweb.co.za

I think she uses the latter email ID now.


She posts on GAF, rentacoder etc, under shanickeye.

Getting a bit emotional"

Nicolene Van Der Poll, I will get you one day, or someone will put you out of business for two months the way you did to me. And when your daughter asks you why you dont have money to feed her, you will remember that engineering student you decieved.

Man, if you were so poor, you could have told me. I would have helped you. What's worse than a beggar is a thief."

:)

I have proof of her shifting payments from project wise to weekly to bi weekly to monthly. I even have her emails. I can submit them for cross reference or publishing them online at your own request.

Thank you very much. I am proud that you have taken up such an initiative. its a pity that people get cheated. But i read this quote and moved on

"Just because a deer is vegetarian, it cannot expect a lion to be a vegetarian and not devour it. The world is mean, and just because you are good, it doesnt mean that the world should be the same to you"

I'm now heading a much bigger team, and we churn out upto 50 SEO articles everyday! And I'm still a student! :)

Cheers,
Krshna

Friday, November 14, 2008

Prefab Marketing, Hope Digest

From an Email
I had a contract with these people and everything was fine until around May or June when the checks, which werer contracted to go out on the 5th of every month suddenly started getting later and later. When I inquired I was told the signed agreement was not a contract but "merely guielines" and I could leave if I didn't like it. Myles Weaver, the CFO got nastier as the weeks went on when I disagreed about the obligations the instrument held them to. I was told my services were no longer needed. It has been more than a month the check has been due. I wrote the CEO who has not responded. I am in the process of notifying their advertisers of their unfair practices and my only alternative is to bring the company and those who support them to court.




Calvin Dee

From A Comment:

There is a guy by the name of Calvin Dee. His email id is mistermotivation@gmail.com

He does not pay for the work ho gets written from writers like us.

Please avoid him at all costs. Well, if you work with him, you are not going to get paid anyways.


Monday, April 28, 2008

Sign-Up Scams

This one has been floating around for quite some time now on freelance writing . com and other work sites. An ad is put out for a freelance writer - sometimes saying they need articles of a certain type, sometimes mass articles and sometime just a few. Any emails sent to apply for the job are responded to with an email telling you that you have been selected as a finalist for a job, and that in order to be put "in their system" you need to go to a site and fill out information. This is anything from a book club to a site about online schools and degrees. Turns out you're being put onto mailing lists, and as soon as you do fill out your info you'll be contacted by people from the sites. Here is an example of the email that one person received:

"Greetings, thank you for applying for this position! I have reviewed your work and think it looks good. We are going to continue to review applicants at this time and we ask you to visit our website and register by getting information on one of the schools, the link is http://www.justdegreesonline.com/. We will wait for you to do this and then contact you for next and final part in order to work with us. Thank you, we appreciate your interest.

Sincerely,
Robyn Stone
Just Degrees Online
"

It is obviously a scam to get as many people to sign up as possible. No one has been offered a job from these people yet, that we've heard of. Let us know if it has worked for you!

Meisha Parrott, Two Write hands, MLP Writing and Editing or Sharon Parrott

** From an email**

I have been dealing with a non-payment issue for over a year. I am curious if anyone else has reported having problems with payment from Meisha Parrott, Two Write Hands, MLP Writing and Editing or Sharon Parrott. This is all the same individual, that has published or sold work I did without payment. I was able to track down an individual that was sold many of my articles, after a long relationship with this individual. I was informed my articles were paid for. A completely different story than I was told. If I am not the only one that has been wronged by her, I feel obligated to get the word out. I am actually hoping this is an isolated account.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Andre Steele

From an email:

Classic scam. The "gentlemen" lures writers with a $700-a-month promise, then sends a list of "test" subjects to write about, upoon which completion the writers "might be selected". I wanted to go through and see if it was a scam, and sent a perfectly well-written article. Alas, I was right- Mr. Steele refuses to reply to many emails following the article submission.
Here is a sample of the email Mr. Steele sends when writers reply to his adds. Note the section where he warns-off scam busters.

Thank You for expressing interest in my position. I would like to start off by saying I believe you have made the right decision in looking into this position. This is a permanent position and will have more work than you can handle. You will earn your pay in this job. You will be doing 10-15 300 word articles a day and also 5-10 700 word articles. You will be paid per article batch you turn in. I want to make this clear up front that if you miss a deadline you lose the job no questions asked. With that said I will also inform you that each pay we will withhold a percent that should cover any costs we may occur if you should miss a deadline. I will give you enough work to make the $700 plus or more.

Now that we have a little information about the position out of the way lets look at the second phase of the application. Attached you will find a list of jobs that you will submit one writing sample for. If you are hired you will be paid for it. All decisions will be made within 24 to 48hrs. For those of you who think that it’s a scam to get articles and run you need not to even reply. I do not need someone working for me that feel that way. I will pay each writer that works for me every time on time. Please look over the attached file and select a job and respond back to me with the topic. You have 5 hours to reply and you have another 5 hours to submit. The 5 hours will start at 6:30PM EST.

Scammer uses the following known addresses:

andrewsteele31@gmail.com

customwrites4u@gmail.com

Please help make it impossible for him to further abuse writers.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Brian Wall (Taken from freelancewriting.com)

Has anyone ever worked for Brian Wall? I wrote a number of articles for him last year which he never paid me for and I am now finding these articles published online. I plan on posting this info where ever possible. Many writers that hang out at this job site are here because they desperately need the money. I am tired of seeing those that can least afford it being ripped off by others for personal gain.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

ME Consulting

Do any of you readers have a take on ME Consulting?

We've been looking around the internet and have found a few posts about problems with this company. It seems that they are NOT a scam, but have major problems. First of all, they pay very low - 2.50 to 3.00 an article. Some people take lots of work for this amount, and it doesn't bother them. However, not only do they pay this low, but they expect constant work. At least 10 articles a day. Some might say that this is good, solid, and constant work. However, they also only pay you the full amount of money if your articles are "accepted" by them. Not only that, but they don't tell you whether the articles you sent in were accepted or not. You just have to wait until payday to see if you are getting your full amount of money or not.

I don't have anything to link to, so please, if you have information about this group, post a comment!

Rahul Valia

We had this guy's name up here for awhile, and then it was taken down. However, we have gotten more and more complaints about him and not paying for work that has been done. This is an email from a person who has been scammed by him. He is very angry - and from the email you get the idea that even 24 dollars is a major deal to writers.

PAY THE WRITERS. EVEN SMALL AMOUNTS. Employers who do not pay writers will end up with major problems. Like this guy.


i just realized that the concept of being a gentleman and being a man of honor does not mean anything to you. I am not a man who would fight over a measly $24.00 but it is the principle of fairness that I need to meet your calousness head on.

You have had 24 hours to tell me to cancel the assignment but you did not. You even received the second installment and you still did not tell me anything. You only told me you're not going to use my articles after i sent the third batch. You even have the temerity to insult me as being lazy.

Unless you pay me for my trouble and apologize for the insult, I will reveal to the entire writing community all over the internet what a dishonorable person you are. I am not debasing myself by running after that $24. I am upholding my sense of honor. But then again, you may not understand such concept.

I am a writer, and I can write hundreds of articles about people like you.
I WILL. and I assure you that I will reveal your name and your different identities and e-mail addresses. I still have the transcript of our conversations and they speak a lot about the kind of person you are. It will be a worthwhile quest that will be picked up and followed by others that may have also been victimized (perhaps by you, too!)

It will be a worthwhile quest on the internet to expose this kind of brazen callousness. This brazen callousness that will also be written about by others will have a name: RAHUL VALIA a.ka. ailav_blossom, a.k.a champfreelance.

I am a writer, and I can assure you how effective i will be with words and evidence in this quest of exposing the kind of a person you are.

Don't be complacent if you see that I remain honorable with my choice of words in this correspondence, as I am giving you one chance to rectify the trouble you have caused me.