Freelance writer took my $ and disappeared - advice please?

I engaged a reputable freelance writer about 11 days ago to help me out with a paper. It's someone I've used before - I found them on both this site and essaychat.com and I vetted them prior to using them previously. It's someone that a lot of the freelance writers and students on all these sites seem to think highly of.

When I approached them for this job I had time up my sleeve. They had a few delays etc. but I was understanding because I trusted them and more importantly I valued their work. They're on the slightly more expensive side but I'm always happy to pay for quality work and I even paid 50% upfront. We worked out an outline, workshopped exactly what I required and I provided them with possible deadlines (as well as lots of material). I've been in touch with them almost every day for the last 11 days. The absolute latest drop-dead deadline I had was around 7.5 hours ago (Thursday evening) - I made this very clear to them when I engaged them.

We agreed that they would provide the paper on Wednesday evening, but they emailed me Wednesday afternoon and asked if it was okay to submit Thursday evening instead. I agreed (since that was my drop-dead hard deadline). & I have not heard back since!!! No paper by the deadline, no emails, no communication, nothing :(

I'm at a bit of a loss. I obviously still need my paper and have basically tried to deal with my rising levels of panic and anxiety over the last 8 or so hours :( I'm extremely disappointed that this person has done this to me (particularly given that I'm a repeat client). I'm also seriously confused as it does seem out of character. The main reason I went to the effort of setting this up with a freelancer is I thought they'd be more vested in meeting deadlines and guaranteeing repeat business.

I did pay via Paypal so I do have the option of seeking a refund that way - how long should I wait til I do that? I'm also interested from hearing from the freelance essay writers on this site - do you have any advice on what I should do? Have you ever done this to a client?

I do have the person's name from the Paypal transaction - any ideas on how I could hunt down a phone number for them from that info without lodging a Paypal dispute?

Based on the fact that you've used the person before, the most likely scenario is something totally beyond his or her control, like an Internet outage or some other kind of emergency. I know AOL seems to be down right now, which would explain things if the person uses AOL. I use AOL primarily but I also have another ISP and I've learned not to rely solely on my main email to store email addresses so that I can contact people and send files in the event that an AOL outage jeopardizes a deadline. Your writer may not have your email stored anywhere else. It's highly unlikely that any legitimate writer would just suddenly disappear with your money. None of that helps you meet your deadline, but if you made clear that last night was your absolute deadline, he or she will probably offer a fair refund as soon as you're back in touch.

I have been scammed before so I feel for this person but Freelancewriter states the obvious. Anyway Freelancewriter I tried to message you but being that I just joined there is no way to do so. If you capable could you send me a message or another way to contact you? Thanks

Feel free to drop by FW's home office.

I private-messaged the OP and it turns out that I know the writer involved. About a year or two ago, I gave her one or two very short test projects in case I ever needed someone trustworthy in an emergency situation. I believe the first one was fine but the deadline came and went for the second one and I received nothing from her and no response to my emails. Luckily, I left myself a safety cushion so I could write it myself if there was any kind of problem. A few days later, she emailed to apologize and explained that there was an emergency situation involving someone being arrested at an airport or something like that. She's legit in so far as being an honest service provider but I decided not to use her again after that experience. So, I assume she'll be in touch as soon as whatever's going on with her this time is resolved.

Hello. I signed up to EssayScam for the sole purpose of conversing with you but given that I am a new member have found myself unable to send out emails. I've been looking for someone to write up my research paper and you seem to be a legit and well-respected user. Please get back to me if you get the chance. Thanks in advance.

Edit: Not entirely sure how replies work but just to be clear this is directed at Freelance Writer.

Aaaaaah, how nice and completely unselfish of you. Don't worry about the forum's rules or anything . . . .

Never read them lol. Anyway, found his website so I'm good. :)

So, the OP forgot to get back to use with some information that can close the big questions hovering about this thread. Did the writer in question finally get back to the student? How was the issue resolved? Did the student need to file a dispute? What did Paypal say or do? Was there an amicable settlement? Did the OP eventually find the phone number of the writer? Or did FLW volunteer to act as a mediator? I really hate it when there is no clear resolution presented for the case. How else can students learn how to handle such situations if nobody completes the procedure discussion in a thread?

No, I didn't get involved any further after finding out who the writer was. There's really nothing to mediate if someone blows a final deadline that's been explicitly agreed to and then goes AWOL without even responding for days to the client's emergency emails about the blown deadline. I asked the client just in case it was someone I knew to be legit who is normally reliable, in which case, I'd have tried to find out what happened to that writer. The one time that I got more involved in something like this just happened to be in connection with a project that I'd already declined, precisely because it was just way too difficult (even) for me; and then the same client contacted me for help a few weeks later and sent me the useless gibberish that some very inexperienced writer provided. I contacted the writer and managed to convince him that he owed the client a substantial refund, because he should have known (as I did) that the project was much too difficult; and if it was too difficult for me, this particular writer had absolutely no business taking the client's money for it, with much less experience and expertise than I have. Based on the work that he provided, he should have known immediately that the project was way beyond his abilities and that he had no business taking it on. I could have done a much better job on it, but still thought that the chances of providing something (objectively) unsatisfactory was much too high for me to take it on in good conscience.

May I suggest that the next time any student comes across a writer who is suddenly or constantly changing deadlines on them, that they cancel the order instead? Request for an immediate refund since the writer will not be able to deliver as promised or agreed upn. It is important that a writer have integrity and always holds up his end of the agreement, specially when it comes to deadlines. A writer should always assume that the deadline is immovable and therefore, should be met at all costs. There is no excuse for a missed or changed deadline in an era when the Internet is practically accessible to everyone either in free or paid form.

Actually, when it comes to deadlines, I've learned that most non-rush deadlines typically include a substantial cushion on the client's end of things; in fact, sometimes, clients request deadlines that are a week -- and not uncommonly, several weeks -- earlier than their actual submission deadlines. Certainly, unless or until that's confirmed with the client, writers should always be prepared to treat every deadlines as a "hard" deadline rather than as a "soft" deadline. The reason that this sometimes comes up as an issue is that, fairly often, I receive urgent requests that I can only accommodate if another client can afford to give me a deadline extension on a pending project. When that happens, I simply let the client with the new urgent request know that I can only accept the project if someone else gives me a deadline extension that will allow me to fit it in my schedule.

Much more often than not, the response I get from clients with the pending deadline is along the lines of "Sure, how much extra time do you need?" or "I can give you 4 more days if that helps," etc. Obviously, all original deadlines are always treated as hard deadlines with priority over any new project request until the client responds to let me know that the pending deadline can be pushed back. In fact, sometimes, I've had no choice but to decline the urgent project to meet the pending deadline, only to find out, after the fact, that the first client actually had plenty of time to spare, after all, but just didn't see my request in time to respond that later delivery would have been fine, by which time I had no choice but to decline the new rush request to meet the first deadline. That's how responsible writers treat potentially conflicting deadlines.