Essay company threatening me if I get a refund PLEASE ADVISE

Hello. I am a PhD student working with a writing company . I paid for a 23,000 word lit review just about 6 months ago. They promised it in 20 days! Obviously I know a well written paper would not be completed in 20 days so I was very flexible when they consistently asked for extensions.

However, the writing was so bad from the start, they clearly did not use a native English speaking writer. For the last 5 months I worked with them and I set it up so they would send me work in sections (about 2000 at a time) where I edited and rewrote what they originally sent me. We only got up to 10,000 words.

It never reached PhD level well because my writing is not great (thus why I paid someone else). I continued editing the work, continually expressing dissatisfaction--but since I did not want ot deal with finding a new company I held out in hopes EVENTUALLY me and the writer would come up with an okay paper. (However, that I would later, need to try to bring up to PhD level).

I finally realised this month that I cannot move forward and write my Discussion section without parts of my lit review being done. So I finally rushed my writers. THey assured me once again, they could finish that section (about 8000 or so words) in 4 days. I said if they can't I need to know--as I need it done. THey assured. On the 6th day, (late again) they sent me a draft , but an OLD draft of a previous section. I have no idea what the writer was working on.

So FINALLY, I asked for a refund. I wrote a whole thing about how dissatisfied I was. They offered me 2 solutions.

1) i get a 40-50% refund. (Not okay since they didn't even finish half the paper and most of it was my writing)

2) I get a full refund but they publish it.
I would be okay with this IF I didn't do most of the work. I acknowledge the writers put the original paragraphs together, and did research. BUT I edited and reedited and proofread for months till it was okay.

**I am concerned because I wrote the structure and planned exactly what should be in each section--and if they publish it--then I wont be able to use that structure --even if words are somewhat changed --AND I can't even re-use my OWN words.

I countered with 2 offers 1) asking for 80% back, or 2) 95% back with the offer to publish work the sent in the beginning that never followed my structure.

I am not sure what to do. I need at least 80% back, or I wont be able to afford a new company --as i now am in a predicament where I dont have time to write it myself and will need to pay another company.

What can I do to allow me to use some of the paper written and use ALL of the format without it coming up as being plagiarized? Can I get ahead of them??

Any advice will be appreciated.

Ask for the full refund and just start over with a new writer. Chances are they'll sell the paper anyway and if you use it, your whole academic career will be at risk by their publishing it. My guess is that they're not really going to refund you a penny and they're just pretending to offer that option to delay your realization that you've already been totally ripped off. If and when you do start over with a new provider, always test them out first with a short Introduction section before you pay them for anything longer. Until you're confident that you've found a high-quality professional provider, continue to order only in small sections and make clear that they'll have to make each and every deadline for you to continue doing business with them. Your account of the situation doesn't indicate whether the sections you received were being paid for one at a time or if you paid for them all up front and were just receiving them one at a time. If you paid for them one at a time, you should have just bailed the first time you received sub-par work.

Frankly, your assumption about the quality of work that can be done (or that should be expected) on 23,000 words in 20 days is totally erroneous; it just depends on finding a good reliable writer. But you only get what you pay for (especially in this business); so if you're not willing to pay what good writers charge for high-quality work, don't be shocked when a provider who charges significantly less for the same project only produces drivel, making it much more expensive in the long run than just going with a high-quality provider in the first place and paying the fair market rate for high-quality work of this nature.

Once they have all your money up front, they have all the leverage, they don't have much of an incentive to pressure the writer to complete it on time, and you're pretty much at their mercy when things go wrong. Try to understand that your money (and the time you spent on the project on your end) is probably already lost and that your choice now is to make smarter decisions going forward. In all likelihood, no matter what you do, you're unlikely to be getting any money back or to be able to use your own work on the project safely. Learn from the lesson and just try to make better decisions going forward to get your dissertation completed.

Thank you for your feedback. I realise now how stupid I was for paying everything upfront. We shall see how the company wants to proceed. Do you think it would be a good idea to put it online before(if) they do?

BUT since it is not finished work--I would hate for my real name to be attached to it. But that seems to be the only way I can think of being able to use it even a bit again.

It's not to your advantage to publish it "preemptively." If their position is that they own the work because they refunded you, it will just give them an excuse to publicize your name in connection with the transaction instead of publishing it just to make it worthless to you, which will pop up anytime a prospective employer Googles you. They have no interest in publishing it except to make it worthless to you, so you can't really beat them that way even if you do manage to publish it first.

You're not really accepting what I've suggested: namely, that the work is already worthless to you and that you should just start the project over instead of letting it become a bigger problem for you than the wasted time and money. Accept that the money and time are both already gone and don't compound your loss by turning some lost money and time into lost money and time plus long-term damage to your reputation. Take them up on their 100% refund offer and start over as outlined in my prior post.

It's always nice to hear a freelance writer suggests a customer to ask for a full refund when ordering from a competitor (hint - perhaps you may order something from him and then ask for a refund and do a chargeback; he may be okay with that and may even complement your thoughtfulness ;).

Anyway, regarding your post. 23K words in 20 days is indeed a lot for a PhD-level paper. Your mistake was to continue working with them when you noticed a problem, but since you chose to do so, now blaming them for your bad decision is not a perfect option. I'd personally take 40% refund and forget about it / find someone else. Otherwise, you'd keep stressing it and wondering if they published it or not.

You're still way too defensive about any criticism of any essay company. You seem to have missed the part, entirely, about the (un-named) company in question specifically giving him the option of a full refund. FYI, my advice to him would have been identical in the exact same situation involving any un-named freelancer, just as it has been many times in the past when customers have complained about non-delivery of projects or about delivery of work whose poor quality justified a complaint against freelancers. I've also suggested that they identify the freelancer who ripped them off. That's what this whole forum is supposed to be about.


Unlike whatever essay company was involved here, I don't take payment for 20-day delivery and then fail to deliver for 5 months, or ever provide anything written in ESL English, and I don't try to resend any old work for new deadlines. If I ever found myself unable to make a deadline, I'd offer the client a refund without even having to be asked and as soon as I came to that realization instead of making continual excuses and dragging the client through a 5-month-long ordeal so that I could try to keep his money.

I don't know whether your obvious hostility toward me here over this is because it was your company involved, but if it was, your annoyance really should be with your writer who missed all his deadlines and then resent the customer old versions of the project, and not with me for suggesting which of two specific offered options to choose. If it wasn't your company, let me suggest again, as I have many times previously to all of the undisclosed essay-company reps, employees, and owners here, that legit essay companies and legit freelance writers should all consider themselves united on the same side against all of the illegitimate scam companies and scam writers rather than blindly choosing tribal allegiance to (all) other companies or (all) other freelancers. If the OP's complaint is truthful, nobody should be defending what the company involved apparently did in this customer's situation or getting angry at the suggestion that the customer take the company up on its offer of a full refund just because that suggestion happens to come from a freelance writer.

I don't know (we don't know) what company the OP means, it could be legitimate or not. But my point was that it could be you who would have to eat the losses if you worked for that company as a freelance writer. Imagine a customer telling the company your writing level was not quite PhD and requests a refund. Would you be happy to oblige after having spent 3 weeks on working on the project? In general, would you refund 100% of the order amount after having written 80 pages JUST BECAUSE your customer claimed your writing level was not up to his or her standards?

Maybe that's why you have started working for yourself (it was probably a smart decision) instead of having to deal with such situations.

As I mentioned, a graduate student should know after reviewing the first few pages if the writing level was what he expected; otherwise, I say it's not 100% service or freelance writer's fault.

My response wasn't based at all on the OP's subjective characterization about the writing not being up to the PhD level; and if that had been his only complaint, I wouldn't have just taken his word for it. My response was based on the admission by the company that a refund was duefor the ridiculous delays and for the attempt by the writer to pawn off older versions of previously-delivered work to pretend to satisfy a new deadline. If those are regular practices at that company, it's a scam company; and if they aren't and it's just the fault of one bad writer at a legit company, I'd expect the company to refund the customer and fire the writer without paying him anything for a 20-day-deadline project not completed in 5 months while giving a customer the runaround. The company wasn't identified, so I'm not taking anybody's side and, obviously, my response was predicated on the assumption that the objective parts of the complaint pertaining to the deadline and the redelivery of old content were true.

My decision to work for myself had nothing to do with any such problems at the essay company; it was strictly because I can earn approximately twice as much from the same amount of writing without any essay company taking its cut from work obtained through them. There's nothing wrong with that because they have all of the overhead and they get the clients, but once I built up a large enough clientele to go solo, that made much more economic sense for me. In my experience, the company for which I wrote the most was very fair about rewrite requests and always rejected them if they weren't justified requests, which was almost always the case. If I was at fault, the company didn't have to get involved beyond transmitting the customer's request to me, because I didn't refuse to fix the project. (The vast majority of the time, rewrite requests were based on after-the-fact demands that were never mentioned in the original order and the company always explained to the customer why any newly-added specs had to be paid for.)

To answer your question directly: Yes. If I still hadn't delivered a "20-day-deadline" project after 5 months, I'd fully expect the company to withhold 100% of my fee, because, among other things, I'd be exposing the company to very bad publicity and I'd have cost them a customer. I take full responsibility for my mistakes. Whether it's a company project or freelance work, if I accidentally write about the wrong topic, answer all 4 questions in 10 pages instead of picking 1 question for the whole 10 pages as required by the original specs, use the wrong textbook for the project, or screw up any project in any other way through my own fault, I'd fully expect either to earn nothing for the project or to provide a complete rewrite if I expected to get paid. Even the best writers occasionally make honest mistakes. When we do, we have to take responsibility for them whether we work for ourselves or write for an essay company with vicarious responsibility for the mistakes of its writers.

The deadline was not the issue:

"I was very flexible when they consistently asked for extensions."
"For the last 5 months I worked with them."
"So I finally rushed my writers."

It seems the OP has signaled from the very beginning his/her real deadline was months away.


I understand multiple writers worked on the order, so any new writer has probably tried to work with whatever old/previous version he/she was sent.

That's not what the OP said. Do you have some knowledge of this situation beyond what's been presented here by the OP?
According to my read, the original agreement between the customer and the company was as described right here:


According to my read, the customer paid for a 20-day deadline and only indicated any deadline flexibility after the company asked for multiple extensions:


According to my read, the customer eventually ran out of patience with the continuous delays and only after the company repeatedly failed to meet even its own newly-promised deadlines, and after the customer finally made clear that no further delays would be tolerated. Even with all that, they missed the deadline and sent back an old draft instead of the new section that was promised. Five months later, the customer has still received less than half of the literature review that was paid for with delivery promised in 20 days:


If this happens to have been your company involved, why don't you give us your full account of the situation with whatever details have been left out? If this wasn't your company, why are you apparently trying so hard to defend this kind of service? Again, rest assured that if this were a freelance writer involved rather than an essay company, my response and advice would be identical; would yours?

Your response about the deadline (considering my quoted parts that the 20 day deadline was likely not really such a big issue) may suggest you have never worked on a complex, long-term project (from a customer service/ support point of view). I have no idea what the project or company was, but I know what it takes to work on such a big PhD-level order and know what being flexible means. There are customers who select a 20-day-due date but later suggest that it's okay to deliver it later as long as the quality is assured (it was apparently not the case here but that's quite a common scenario). If the REAL deadline was 20 days, do you think the OP would continue working with them "for the last 5 months" (or vice-versa)? Working on something that is past due and cannot be submitted anyway?

What triggered my response was attacking a company (when someone attacks a freelance writer you try to defend them no matter what).

FYI, I have provided dozens of PhD dissertations, most of which started out with a short topic proposal and eventually involved extensive complex responses to the demands of reviewers (sometimes as many as 5 or 6 different sets of comments from as many different reviewers whose instructions often contradicted one another's demands outright). These types of projects typically involve 100+ pages and take the better part of a full year with all of the periodic reviews from tutors and advisors. Currently, I'm working on 3 different projects of this nature and as a solo practitioner, I obviously handle all of my own customer service. I have also provided complete projects of the length at issue here (23,000 words) in significantly less time than the 20 days involved in this particular case.


This could not be farther from the truth. Since the day I signed up here almost a decade ago, I have always responded the same way to seemingly-legit complaints about essay companies and freelance writers, including regularly encouraging clients of writers who ripped them off to identify those writers here publicly for the benefit of other. Here's just one example in this thread right here:

https://essayscam.org/forum/gt/research-writer-threatening-4611/


Here's another in this thread: https://essayscam.org/forum/gt/disappointed-ripped-off-member-2404/
My first response (#4) was:


My post (#25) in this thread: https://essayscam.org/forum/wc/academic-writer-done-3855/#msg61617 is too long to quote, but I interceded on behalf of a client who never even use my services, by contacting the writer who botched his project and was refusing to provide any refund. Long story short was that it was a project that I declined, precisely because I wasn't confident enough that I'd be able to do it well. The client found another writer who was far less qualified and who should never have even considered such a difficult project. I contacted that writer and strongly suggested that he issue a refund because he had absolutely no business taking on that project and because I was going to recommend to the client that he identify the writer here publicly if he didn't.

I have also defended essay companies with which I had no familiarity whatsoever against complaints that were obviously unreasonable, such as demands to provide rewrites because the customer changed his mind about the topic after the fact and demands to be allowed to just cancel an order for a full refund only days before the due date but many weeks after ordering the project.

As between the two of us, I have always admitted to being a freelance writer (as well as which essay companies I have written for) and I have never started any threads designed to subtly disparage all essay companies to steer prospective customers away from companies and toward freelancers. You choose not to identify yourself as an employee of an essay company and you have started quite a few threads that are very thinly-veiled attempts to do exactly that: steer all prospective customers toward companies and away from all freelance writers, such as this one here: https://essayscam.org/forum/wc/terms-service-ordering-professional-freelance-4608/

I have suggested many times and I continue to suggest that legit essay companies and legit freelance writers should never attack one another or support other companies or writers blindly, because the real enemies of all legit essay providers and all innocent customers are the rip-off artists, irrespective of whether they rip customers off posing as legit companies or as legit freelancers. I stand by that suggestion and I believe that if you review the threads linked above, you should apologize for suggesting that I defend all freelancers "no matter what."

Let me clarify--- the 20 days Im pretty sure was the longest option available-as I know I was looking for the cheapest option (unless I misread the website and there was a much longer option) but I think that was it as I did do research on this company. It cost me more than 2000 dollars.(paid upfront) (due to a bad exchange rate--but still would have cost over 1500 USD if paid in USD.

As per my time line---It was for my Literature Review and therefore I did not really need it ASAP, as the lit review should be an ongoing piece of work. So, although, yes it would have been nice to get it in 20 days I was more realistic when it was not delivered on time. I certainly did not push hard as anytime that would happen, the writing was worse than normal OR they would repeat paragraphs etc...(it was a mess).

I was more interested in receiving a finished piece at an acceptable level --then it be completed so fast. But I didn't quite say that to the writers--I stilll said I would like it done ASAP, but with fine quality. I continued to work with the writer (s) to do this, and eventually accepted my position as the writer's editor and did what I had to do to make the writer's writing acceptable.

But I honestly can say the writing was sometimes not at a high school level. ( I also made my expectations very clear to writers and support staff through specific requests on their writing and provided documents explaining the type of writing I was looking for--with examples of acceptable level writing and unacceptable). This was not followed, yet I continued-- which is obviously why I became a pushover and my work was not prioritized in any way- even after requesting it to be made a priority. I recieved countless emails apologizing for things not being done to how I wanted--or for writers being changed-- always askign for me to continue service with them and will guarantee I will be satisfied.

I went through all this because I did not want to take more time to find another company. I held out hope it would work out. (which i now know was stupid and probably lazy on my end) .

But to be clear-- I was not asking for a refund because the paper was not delivered in 20 days. I asked for a refund because more than 5 months later--and I think 4-5 writers later- I still did not get close to what I wanted delivered---and the writer just seemed to stop working at the end.

The last 1000-1500 words sent to me took them 2 months and about 8--maybe 9 tries. I just got so busy (knowing id have to edit it myself) so I let the lack of work sent to me slide for a bit. Although always sending emails to the company asking for an updated version. (i wasn't that slack) Also, take in mind I only asked for 1500 words or so to be sent to me at a time, thus I thought making it easier for the writer ---and me so I could edit it in a timely fashion).

They seemed to give up and it was proven when I asked for a part to be done, (so i can move on with another section) and was informed it could be done (was being worked on) and was done. (days later than I asked). And yet an old version was sent. I felt like they were just mocking me!!

in my opinion, the writers and company I worked with were more than unprofessional. And I let them be. But I dont think that should mean the company does not take responsibility for their inability to provide a paper to their client--who paid in full. (thus granting a mutually agreed upon amt for a refund)--or full as was suggested in this forum.

If I even posted say 1000 words of anything that was sent from them--- (based on me paying for a PhD level paper)-- they would likely go out of business. The work was laughable yet at times would want to make me cry. But again, IM the idiot here for allowing it to happen.

If a company or freelancer can defend this activity--Id love to hear it as Im still waiting to know if I will receive ANY refund--let alone a full refund.

From that 4611 thread: "I was given a quote of 560 and agreed to it because I had asked the person to write a couple of pages beforehand and was confident with her style. since then, the person has consistently missed deadlines, given me substandard work and not follow any of the requirements" (but you still continue giving this deficient 'advice' to first try a writer by giving him a 2-page project .. ).

Anyway, it's understandable that you treat anyone who posts here as a competitor so when some other freelance writer or writing service fails you respond to advertise your qualities. You go into the next gear especially when you think I have personally something to do with the failed service (but you will always defend another company you have worked with knowing the persons involved would not play nice games with you if you tried to bad-mouth them or their writers). Nevertheless, you're right that it's pointless fighting when the real fraudsters are on the loose ;)

Regarding the topic.. now I see (from the date selection), the OP must have used an Ukrainian writing service (thinking / hoping they are legitimate US or UK-based company).

@FreelanceWriter
I know I was not full accepting what you suggested. My issue here is that it will be very difficult for me to write this chapter from scratch and not have it seem plagerized-- because I want to re-use the format I gave the writer to follow. It was very specific, a lot of thought went into it and made sense to my topic. Without that formatting-- I think the paper will not flow at all. Many parts were done chronologically.

So Im not looking to reuse the words but instead re- use the structure and use similar subheadings. Also-since much of the paper written was on the history of the topic and because the most prominent researchers-theorists were included. I will need to use many of the same sources. And since I basically wrote the paper--I may find it hard to stay clear of what I wrote the first time around--even if just editing another company's version of the paper. As I assume syntax and sentence structuring will inevitably be very similar to what I wrote in first paper--and for some of the more well known parts of the paper-- there is only so many ways to say the sky is blue. Plus I cant change my writing style.

So i guess my question to you is--- would having a paper that followed the same structure as another found online (or about half of it--as other half was not written) and having very similar ideas included and information included in these paragraphs be plagerism. Would plagerism checks pick up on formatting?

I could probably get around the syntax issue if I dont do it myself--get someone else to do it--and rarely include my own writing style to the new paper.

Thank you so much for your honest advice.

@doh_j
Unfortunately, you probably can't use any of it. Even if you rewrote all the content from scratch, a scan would still show all of the same literature, and as you say, the order of argument is critical, so you can't really change that, either. Under the circumstances, I might ask them for a 50% refund and an agreement to go your separate ways peacefully by allowing you exclusive use of the content. Tell them that you just want an amicable solution but if your project comes up on any scan or is published by them in any way or offered for sale, you'll have no choice but to identify the company here and post an excerpt showing just how bad it really is.


Totally incorrect. I believe you're erroneously attributing a post (#9) from someone else (a company rep named "Kevinson") to me. For the record, I have always suggested that new clients of freelance writers and of essay companies alike always try out any new provider with a short project of a few pages before trusting them with a longer project; and I have never suggested that anybody give any provider a second chance after blowing a first project.


Absolutely incorrect. A perfect example would be this thread attacking my primary competitor for clients at the time. I could have chimed in to attack him or simply stayed quiet to let him absorb as much damage as possible while hoping to benefit from that by picking off whatever prospective clients he lost as a result of the thread. Instead, I was the first one to respond to that thread to defend him based on what I knew of him and his work at the time. I wouldn't even revive that old thread now just to refute your argument if I didn't know that he moved on from this business years ago and now works a traditional fulltime job as the director of a corporate writing department.

https://essayscam.org/forum/es/pheelyks-versus-freelance-writer-comparative-analysis-3051/


I admit to getting annoyed anytime anyone who works for any essay company doesn't admit that and tries to steer business away from freelance writers and toward essay companies while pretending to be an objective observer without any personal interest in any essay company. I haven't said a word to defend or otherwise comment about the essay company to which you're referring since I agreed never to discuss that company by name in 2010 as a condition of maintaining my membership here.


I agree, and if it were up to me, we'd both live up to that suggestion. In my opinion, if reps of legit companies and legit freelance writers all refrained from attacking one another and presented a united front against the scammers of both varieties, we'd all benefit from that while also helping customers get the most from this forum. As long as essay-company reps disparage all freelancers, especially without acknowledging that they know that some of us are totally legit and safe (because we've also written thousands of projects for some of your own essay companies), the constant bickering only benefits the scammers. Legit essay companies and freelancers should maintain a united front against the scammers for our mutual benefit as well as for the benefit of all prospective clients trying to use this forum as it is intended.

Read the first #1 post in the thread from the student: essayscam.org/forum/gt/research-writer-threatening-4611/. He claims he was scammed despite following your general suggestion about ordering a couple test pages to try a writer / service out. You continue giving this advice but scammers have figured it out years ago; they have one good writer (sometimes they just order the trial pages from a legitimate company) and once the trial pages are completed a student incorrectly assumes the rest would be of the same quality. But the rest is written by uneducated / foreign contractors (or just copy-pasted), so the whole trial process is usually a waste of time and money. It makes no sense trying out an essay company because they have many writers and could assign the rest of the project to someone else (unless you specifically request that you want to continue with the 'tried' writer).

Intelligent persons here (like WB or others) have pointed out that the 'Absolutely incorrect' was in fact correct, so it is correct.

Obviously, that suggestion isn't meant as a stand-alone guarantee; and the context of my suggestion is in comparison to the alternative of just forking over full payment to a total stranger (or strange company) for a huge project in advance. Just about every time I've ever suggested it was in response to someone's story about having been ripped off on a large project by a writer (or company) that he's never used before.

Ideally, one would want to build up trust by trying out any new provider with a few shorter projects before taking the plunge with an entire major pre-paid project. The fact of the matter is that, more often than not, customers don't leave themselves enough time to do that; so the next best thing is to order a few pages before ordering an entire project. Finally, even if it's not foolproof against the hardcore scammers, it's still helpful to test the quality of work from essay providers who aren't hardcore scammers, simply because the talents and abilities of even legit (or legitimately-intentioned) writers still range from those who aren't that good or that experienced to those who are extremely good and highly experienced.

Going back to the original discussion, since the rights to the paper belong to the client once it has been submitted, he has the right to use parts or all of the paper as he deems fit. However, in cases where blackmail is involved, then it would be better to ignore the threat, then either hire a new writer to write a new paper or, simply paraphrase the paper on your own. Majority of the work has been done, the information contained in the paper that was submitted is usable to a certain extent, so go ahead and sharpen your writing skills. Don't use parts of the essay but use the verified information presented for the creation of your new paper. It beats starting from scratch and will help you, or the writer you hire next, to develop your paper sooner. Researching materials takes a long time and by having the material prepared, the writer should find it easier to complete the task.

The blackmail aspect is the go-to response of the criminal academic writing companies because they never planned on submitting a proper paper to you in the first place. Now, provided you did not give out any personal or identifiable information in your essay, you can bet that the threat will not lead anywhere.

This is important to keep note of for everyone. Ensure that when you're using these essay help sites, you're still consistently keeping track of your safety. Read the guidelines and terms of services and/or use of the companies prior to agreeing to work with them.

What I don't understand is why the student would send the corrected files to the client. I mean, the best option there would have been to send the reading materials to the writer instead of the edited version of the paper. The client could have very well accepted the terms of a refund with publication if he had not send them his version of the work. I mean, c'mon, the whole idea of hiring them was to make sure that you have the information required to complete the PhD paper. It was never meant to be used in the final copy. That is always where the students make a mistake. Never assume that you will hire a writer who will be able to give you a completely usable paper. In order to truly avoid plagiarism and blackmail concerns, always rewrite the paper you receive and never, never, send it back to the company. You are asking for trouble when you do that. Not to mention the company sees you as a gullible, perfect victim for their scams. Had the client revised paper been kept instead of sent to the company, the client could very well have maintained his innocence and claim that he wrote an original paper, without any research assistance.