26 replies to this topic

[austk]

i am not pleased by the many content writing scams [edited by moderator to remove name of list].

Many people now simply make up a job writing for a site and get hits that way.

One of them doesn't even bother to correspond with "applicants", merely puts a supposed list of "hired" writers on their site.
Of course, this section has no writers listed and never will have as long they can expect potential writers to come back and see if there name is up.

Nice scam, eh?

Edited by copywriter, 14 December 2008 - 06:21 PM.

[copywriter]

Welcome Austk

Yes, this is why it is always important to check references of writers... and others.

A good client of mine who is a web designer had her logo, company name, address and phone number used by another company who was masquerading as her's. They wanted to take advantage of her good standing in the marketplace. Thank goodness somebody let my client know and she was able to have the site removed via a DMCA complaint. So that type of scam and others that are similar is not uncommon online.

[austk]

After reading this I reserahced my next submit, and they turned out to be deadbeats.
I am concerned that there are no honest copywriter jobs anywhere now except in the deeps of already saturated writer forums. Good for the SEO buyers, tough for the writers.

[steven b]

i am looking for article ghostwriters and have purchased a few articles to find a good quality company. i would like to make a few points because i have noticed a few things that could save some people on this forum a headache.

firstly, make sure you purchase a cheap sample of your ghostwriter or copywriter's work. if you are looking for a few 1000 words, please don't purchase this length straight away because you will loose your money if youn don't like it. purchase a short article based on the same subject for a fraction of the cost.

this will show you the quality of work they are willing to put in.

secondly, ask the site owner if they have professional writers or if they send your copy requests to freelance copywriters, i dont doubt that there are some fantastic freelance writers out there, but my experiece has been more positive with companies that have their own professional writers.

so just remember to order the cheapest copy from a company to test their writing ability.

goodluck.

[Jill]

And make sure you take snippets from the copy and paste it (with quotes) into Google to see if they've plagiarized from elsewhere. Be sure to do this with multiple bits of the copy, not just one or two.

[copywriter]

Jill is right. A lot of copywriters buy that crappy software that harvests bits of text from others' sites and pieces them together to make articles. That's how they are able to kick out articles so fast. Regardless of what they tell you, that software does NOT fall in line with fair use and is a violation of U.S. copyright law.

[steven b]

Thank you very much for clearing that up. i had purchased quick article pro and was wondering if the articles i made with it would be considered copyed. well they are i guess, actually i got a refund because the articles i produced with it were really terrible.

I was still wondering if it was wrong to use it. thank you for clearing this up for me. i will write an article on my blog about this issue.

[copywriter]

The creators of these types of programs base their claims on the principle of fair use. However, in every instance that I've researched - from authoritative sources, not hearsay from other people - fair use never pertains to for-profit instances. Using others' material to sell the software is a for-profit venture. So is buying the software and creating articles for yourself (or others) in order to promote your business and make sales, earn subscriptions, generate leads, etc. All lead to one end result... somebody is making money off someone else's work.

Fair use is hard to enforce and these guys know that. They are banking on the fact that practically no one will haul them into court and make them pay simply because it would cost too much. Unfortunately, they are right and it ticks me off to no end that money so often stands in the way of justice. <getting off my soap box now>

[ScottSalwolke]

so just remember to order the cheapest copy from a company to test their writing ability.

I wouldn't go by the cheapest route. This isn't likely to tell you much and you still have to pay it. And you still have to wait until its done to review. Instead use that time to research prospective candidates. Do they have a background in writing, are their testimonials from clients, etc. If this is something you think will benefit your business or your site then you should put value into it. Not low cost.

[copywriter]

Good points!

[austk]

i am looking for article ghostwriters and have purchased a few articles to find a good quality company. i would like to make a few points because i have noticed a few things that could save some people on this forum a headache.

firstly, make sure you purchase a cheap sample of your ghostwriter or copywriter's work. if you are looking for a few 1000 words, please don't purchase this length straight away because you will loose your money if youn don't like it. purchase a short article based on the same subject for a fraction of the cost.

this will show you the quality of work they are willing to put in.

secondly, ask the site owner if they have professional writers or if they send your copy requests to freelance copywriters, i dont doubt that there are some fantastic freelance writers out there, but my experiece has been more positive with companies that have their own professional writers.

so just remember to order the cheapest copy from a company to test their writing ability.

goodluck.

NB stephen B:
Freelance writers are professional writers. And more often than not, talented inexpensive text and article writers sit with no assignments while "professional" writers work in cubicles, in groups baking up text that is cooked up on software and reads dull. Then, the webmaster complains to the freelancers they didn't use about how much it cost them. And if you think you are going to get the same quality of writing on a 500 word assignment on a 1,000 word assignment, the error of your thinking is right there. If i am balancing four jobs, the one with the three hundred thousand words get done first. And best.

My post was to complain about the many scam ads now where people are duped into visiting sites that have no earnings value so the webmaster can get the clicks. I believe that is dishonest. This is employment spam.

Also, i have burned by so many people who play games with payment the writer is always sticking their neck out.

[PKar]

Hi All,
I read through the posts and I agree that in most cases it's the writer trying to make some quick bucks by giving the site owner an eyewash with either copied content or stolen content.

However has anyone really given a thought to why such things happen? I personally feel this has a lot to do with the service buyers themselves looking for cheap work through freelance sites. The worth of a writer is grossly insulted when people ask for $1-$2 service. They want full rights, no plagiarism and what not!!

I guess the service buyers should understand that they get what they pay for and should be prepared to cough up no les than $25-$30 for quality work.

[copywriter]

Welcome Pkar!

It depends on a lot of factors. We work in a global marketplace. $1 - $2 in some countries equals $100 - $200 here. However, having someone whose native language is one other than English write articles for you in English is a risky business.

Geography. The economy. Ethics. They all play a role. Some writers are filling a need for massive amounts of content regardless of the cost to others (meaning, they are willing to steal others' work and pass it off as their own). Still others are just ignorant and don't understand that what they are doing is illegal and unethical. They believe the half-truths that "fair use" allows them to duplicate someone else's work for commercial use without giving credit to the original author. (NOT true, by the way.)

Who buys these low-quality, ethically questionable articles? From my experience, it's people who are trying to make it on the 'Net and don't have a lot of money to spend. They think they've found a good thing when, in fact, it could get them into serious legal trouble. It's getting MUCH easier to file DMCA complaints these days and to have pages or an entire site removed from the web, along with having pages or sites banned from Google and other engines for violations of copyright.

[Gerry White]

I should mention that I work for a company that provides such articles, and also has a couple of its own reasonably high profile own news sites, - I work in the SEO department, as we think it is important that the service delivers - obviously I am not going to mention the company name but thought I would say a couple of things.

Many of our clients are very happy with our work, but as you say we suddenly find that literally all their own work can be ripped off and as such our client suddenly finds that our articles aren't driving any traffic, DMCA and other protection still doesn't really help and many of the companies who rip off our work do so with little traceability (i.e. the domain is registered in either a fictious address or in China / other untouchable area), we have even had cases where the entire site is ripped off completely, and they are scraping it on the fly (request something from our site, and it will scrape it from the other site). I scanned the server and found no less than about 20 other domains being scraped in the same way (including ones owned by Microsoft). I can't comment further on this, as it is in the hands of legal (and I haven't heard any more since).

I am not a DRM advocate (far from it), but there seems little protection from your content being ripped off except a slow bulldozer of the DMCA... and to be fair, most people who have stolen content from our clients are usually very apoligetic when they are caught!

[copywriter]

Yes, Gerry... I agree that there are legit companies that provide article-writing services. That's not the norm, however.

I did find a cool service the other day that wouldn't keep people from scraping sites, but would force a link back to you as the original content provider. You can check it out on my blog. I have not used this (as I just found out about it), but it looks pretty good.

I won't stop your copy from being stolen, but it is supposed to automatically report to you who is stealing your stuff and also automatically insert a link back to you as the author. Might be worth a glance.

It is a problem. That's for sure. Here's a thought. If this software is able to report back to the site owner who is stealing their copy, why couldn't someone invent software that would automatically ping the captured IP, get the host info and automatically report the thieves to their hosts who would take them offline? Might not stop them completely, but it certainly would slow them down and irritate the fool out of them!