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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

10 comments:

Krshna said...

This is great! I mailed in my complaint and here it is :)

Thoroughly appreciate the work that you guys do. It's an act of selflessness that not anyone(meybe even me) would do. I know it has been months since I mailed in , but i suddenly remembered your website after seeing "Nicolene" as a "potential friend" on Facebook. (Facebook lets you add friends from your emails). I have mailed her the link to this posting and I'm glad to see that this post actually ranks up pretty well when her name Nicolene Van Der Poll is Googled ! :) Thanks again guys :) I really appreciate the work! :) :)

Anonymous said...

Hi… I was just now made aware of the page you have in my name… I am Nicolene Van der Poll and wanted to set the record straight… in the beginning of working with the writer I made it clear that I pay for work when I get paid by my client… I did not and do not have an abundance of money sitting in my account so that I can pay people for work I was not paid for… this is why I wanted to do it that way… I told the writer that I would pay him weekly because I was getting paid weekly… then my client said he would pay me bi-weekly, and I told them that they would get paid bi-weekly… then my client went on vacation…. I still did not get paid – that was a year ago… I was not making up stories so that I can keep the money they have made… I am not that kind of person – and I felt really bad about what had happened…. The client eventually did not pay for the work that I sent, and scammed me out of $1500 US… I could not pay rent either… I am sorry he was in the mess, but I was too… this is the kind of thing that happens, and I am sorry that it happened to him, and the others.. Over the years I have been in this business I have been scammed out of a lot of money, with the most recent one being two months ago from the amount of $800 US…

This writer has to think twice about ruining other people’s names – because there was a reason – and I am truly sorry about this.

Thank you so much, and I hope that this matter could be resolved and that article taken off of your site…

Kindly
Nicolene

Anonymous said...

Hi… I was just now made aware of the page you have in my name… I am Nicolene Van der Poll and wanted to set the record straight… in the beginning of working with the writer I made it clear that I pay for work when I get paid by my client… I did not and do not have an abundance of money sitting in my account so that I can pay people for work I was not paid for… this is why I wanted to do it that way… I told the writer that I would pay him weekly because I was getting paid weekly… then my client said he would pay me bi-weekly, and I told them that they would get paid bi-weekly… then my client went on vacation…. I still did not get paid – that was a year ago… I was not making up stories so that I can keep the money they have made… I am not that kind of person – and I felt really bad about what had happened…. The client eventually did not pay for the work that I sent, and scammed me out of $1500 US… I could not pay rent either… I am sorry he was in the mess, but I was too… this is the kind of thing that happens, and I am sorry that it happened to him, and the others.. Over the years I have been in this business I have been scammed out of a lot of money, with the most recent one being two months ago from the amount of $800 US…

This writer has to think twice about ruining other people’s names – because there was a reason – and I am truly sorry about this.

Thank you so much, and I hope that this matter could be resolved and that article taken off of your site…

Kindly
Nicolene

Krshna said...

This lady has to think twice before she hires people to work on projects that mysteriously never get paid. Just because she gets scammed doesn't mean she's NOT a cheat does it? How stupid can that be? Every business has risks involved- I was barely 18 years old, funding myself through college, and I managed to work over time and pay all my writers who I owed, because of this mess up. If I could do it, working at outsourced rates, why can't she?

Just because you're miles away and legal action cannot be initiated, doesnt mean you're completely off the hook you dim witted moron!

You also happened to accept the fact that my work WAS indeed passed, and I did deserve payment for it. Nicolene Van Der Poll never even mailed me to report that something was wrong at her clients end- she just stopped replying to my emails. With all due respect, WTF? Oh, and If she's so stupid to get conned every alternate month, she probably has to stop hiring others to share her god forsaken misery along with her! What an idiot! So is she trying to say she didn't have the brains to even pick up a 50% advance from her client- this mysterious guy that she has never met her whole life that she trusts with about 2000$ who suddenly goes on vacations? Give me a break. Nicolene Van Der Poll or Shanickeye are BIG time scam artists. Or terribly stupid. If the former isn't true, the latter definitely is. I think the next best thing for Nicolene to do is GET HER SORRY SAD A$$ EXCUSE FOR STUPIDITY OFF THE FREAKING INTERNET so that other people with brains in their head can do legitimate business. So much for the foreign relations between our countries! Retard!

Kindly,
The same guy above that got scammed by Shanickeye

Anonymous said...

Hey Krshna

post your email address. Don't worry I will prove that I am legit. Shaun and Nicky will probably try to pose as me, but ignore this. You will have proof.

I can't give away any info here... just trust me.

I will check this page over time to look for your post.

You will know it is me. I will give you proof.

Krshna said...

Hello Anonymous,

My only guess is you're the invisible client on vacation :)

My email ID is copycant@gmail.com
and I will keep checking that email ID over the next few days to see what you have to say.

Cheers,
Krshna

Krshna said...

Hi Anon, I've responded to your email. Thanks for contacting :)
You can mail me at the other email address I've given in my mail to you now on :)

Anonymous said...

Krshna

That was not a very nice thing to say. I am terribly sorry that you did not get paid, but what Nicolene said is the truth... We were scammed out of money as well, and we are not out to scam people online. This has happened over and over to us over the years.

It was not nice of you to say the things you said about my wife, you are an angry young man. Sorry about the inconvenience to you financially, but it could not be helped, and no, there are not many clients out there willing to pay half the money up front so that we could pay our writers...

I have to say that we do not have writers working for us at the moment because of what these clients did. However, we are still writers online, working just like every other writer out there, putting our faith in our clients and hoping that they are going to pay when they need to. You said it yourself, and it is a risk, but we, along with everyone out there, do it, because we have to. Dont act like a kid online because you live far away and think that what you have said will be forgotten. It was not nice!!!

I hope that you do well in your future envedours, god bless...

Shaun

Krshna said...

Shaun,

I am a very well mannered young man- I got "scammed" of my money by your wife and I still have my team- and that is because I had the manners, the respect and the decency to sit down and explain to them what the current situation was. On the other hand, your wife just disappeared. Not one e-mail was sent explaining your position.

Now you tell me in your post above, I quote
"Dont act like a kid online because you live far away and think that what you have said will be forgotten. It was not nice!!!"

Now it seems that you have ignored my e-mails, refused to give me your phone number after numerous requests from my side and that is exactly because you stay on the other side of the world!

It is a shame that your wife does not have the integrity to accept that the way the situation was dealt with was very very stupid/wrong.

Do you not think my anger is justified after so MANY hapless e-mails to you/your wife/and whatever I could troll off the internet?

Please do not shield your wife from reality. The truth is she has committed an act of fraud. I do not have to technically worry about who you do business with. I do not ask you how much you make in forwarding our work, or whom you are dealing with. That is none of my concern. You make a profit out of outsourcing- why are you scared of owing the losses?

This is not legitimate business- no wonder you have no writers! Even once did you ever mention you have a history of being scammed ten trillion times? No! Because if you said so, no one (in their right mind) would work for you! So you didn't!

You know what, you're lucky I am on the other side of the world- I only wish I stayed in Fish Hoek so I could lodge a complaint with the local police.

I hate carrying this out on a public forum like this- but what choice did you leave me?

Maybe you should both stop trying to justify yourselves here- because now you have accepted yourselves again and again- that you guys are repeat scam victims (boohoo). So since you don't tell your new writers that anyway, I'd say we let this be the signboard for them to decide whether or not to work with you. If you really DID get scammed- muster the courage, the public concern and take the effort to submit a complaint against your client.

Try to get smarter, and believe me- if someone can afford a website, they can afford to pay 50% upfront. Or they can write the damn content themselves.

Try not to fool too many people.

Cheers and fears

Anonymous said...

Krshna

You were wronged, I do know that, but maybe it would be better if you understood where we were coming from too. Yes, maybe she mishandled the situation a bit, but what you are doing does not help. Do you really think that, if we were going to scam someone, we would use our real names? Does that make any sense to you?

We are not out to take money from people by scamming them, we work long and hard for the money we earn, and yes, sometimes we still come across a client that does not contact us after the work is done, it is a reality, and I am glad that you did not come across those clients, no one should, but they are out there.

Sorry for what happened to you, but this will be the last time I reply to your post.

Shaun