How to safeguard against deceptive writing services - common practices and faulty indicators

The con artists in this industry are working extremely hard to blur the line between them and the legitimate entities. They are greater in number (than the legit outfits) and some of them are awash with cash. They are constantly inventing new ways to pass themselves off as the real deal and cheat students. This is why efforts to uncover their practices must constantly be updated.

New students seeking essay writing services face the constant risk of being scammed, extorted, or disappointed by the experience. The good news is that many of these students are aware of the dangers they face, and attempt to safeguard against them. The bad news is that some of these safeguards are either outdated or based on wrong premises.

I will mention a few of these and briefly state why they are invalid:

1. Grammatically flawless web copy. This used to be a valid indicator until a decade ago when the cons found out students were getting harder to fool. Nowadays, for a few hundred dollars, they can invest in hiring competent ENL writers to come up with excellent web content.

2. Pricing. Gone are the days when you could tell the legitimacy of an essay company based on how much they charged per page. Nowadays even the shadiest sites match their prices with the most prominent companies. It is their hope that some clients still relying on this indicator might stumble upon them. I have covered this topic in greater detail in a different thread.

3. A Companies House registration number. This one is for those companies claiming to be based in the UK. It takes a few hours of filling forms and like $30 to get a UK registered company from almost anywhere in the world. There are agencies fiercely competing to get clients to register companies through them. Having a UK-registered company means nothing at all in this industry, except only that that individual/group has put in a little more effort than many of the other fraudsters who are too cheap or too stupid (often both) to do the same.

4. Fluent phone or chat representative/agent. It doesn't cost that much to hire one. It is not that agent who will work on a placed order.

5. SSL Cert. This might be hard to believe, but this is what some students look out for when determining whether a site is legitimate. Obviously, a site that hasn't gone through the trouble to secure all of its transactions through HTTPS connections could be riskier. But this is strictly a transaction safety/security issue, not a service delivery competence indicator. It has nothing to do with (or show about) the person taking the money or the one who will handle the order, if at all.

I'd add another important one to that list: Better Business Bureau (BBB) rating.

Generally, a low BBB rating provides good reason to stay clear, but a high rating doesn't necessarily mean very much at all. The BBB isn't any kind of government "watchdog" and each one (of over 100) operates totally independently. There have been companies that are outright scams with A+ ratings as detailed here: business.time.com/2013/03/19/why-the-better-business-bureau-should-give-itself-a-bad-grade/

None of that is intended to suggest that BBB "accreditation" means that any business isn't legit, just that a high BBB rating doesn't necessarily mean anything at all other than that a business has paid membership dues for that privilege. There have been plenty of instances where scam companies with numerous complaints that paid for accreditation received high ratings while totally legit companies with no complaints that did not pay dues received low ratings. The BBB business model is to provide BBB accreditation in return for paid dues and their customers are the companies paying those dues rather than the consumer, which is (obviously) a fundamental conflict of interest. Even the BBB itself specifically says that it is not any kind of "consumer watchdog," all of which is detailed here: money.cnn.com/2015/09/30/news/better-business-bureau/index.html

I would not be so worried about students being fooled by these con game companies. Their days are already numbered. It has been numbered ever since social media became a place for independent writers to create their niche in the business. Their existence has been limited by the existence of Essay Scam as the investigative arm of the business.

Also, students these days tend to rely on the vetted companies and writers who are recommended by the forum. So the commonly known faults such as problematic web copy representation, thick accents of client service assistants, and even the actual location of the company or writer tend to become problems of the past.

As the business continues to evolve, these companies will find that their old business model will no longer fly and that companies, in the future, will no longer be necessary for students who are on the lookout for the best writer for their job. The era of the pretend academic writing companies will be coming to an end soon.

It is important to note that the writing companies have become wise the the problems offered by their websites. That is why they have gone on to using blogs, vlogs, twitter, and other social media channels to help cover their tracks. They actually encourage their writers to use the provided social media profiles to help keep their con running on a more modern scale. The websites still exist and they still try to make it look glossy, but the war has moved from the sites to social media, where it is more difficult for the clients to ascertain the possibility that they are dealing with a scam company or writer. When dealing with these types on social media, gut feelings can help the student avoid making a mistake in choosing a writer or service. Somehow, the company or writer will slip up and give themselves away during the negotiation stage. If a client feels uncomfortable, then they should not deal with the company or writer.

I wouldn't necessarily count on the rip-off artists slipping up during the selling phase. Some of them are very practiced at impeccably-polite customer service. They have all the time in the world to devote to customer service, because they don't have to worry about actually writing the projects they sell. Quite often, it isn't until they already have your money that they drop that facade and change their tone entirely.

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