First things first, did you give this person all of your private information pertaining to your university, course, and other related information? These were irrelevant to your paper in the first place so you should never have divulged that information. In fact, even in an academic outsourcing company, or with a legitimate freelance writer, these types of information will not be asked for nor required. If your answer is no, you did not provide the information to him before, then this is one of the many internet blackmail scams proliferating the web. Don't be afraid. It is an empty threat. There is nothing he can do to harm you. Now, if for some reason, you did disclose this information to the blackmailer, then you might have a problem. Be advised though, the university will not just take the word of a complete stranger, even if he does contact them with your documents, and strip you immediately of your degree. There is an investigative process involved before they can revoke your graduation certificate. If I were you, I would contact the university and inquire about these proceedings. More importantly, I would do my own investigating on the side in order to discover if the threat was followed through on. I really doubt that. This guy is trying to ruffle your feathers, hoping to scare you into paying him more money. Don't fall for it. There is a legal process in the academic world that is followed. You can't be stripped of your certificate in the blink of an eye. If he did do it, then go through the process and hope that you can defend yourself well enough to retain your diploma. That is, if the university even takes his information seriously.

It isn't easy to write a dissertation. It is even harder to find a dissertation adviser who can help you because you need to be tuned into each other's thoughts, needs, and objectives. I know, it sounds overly dramatic. Truth of the matter is, a dissertation adviser can easily be found online. Everyone here has advised you as to how you can find one. The real question is, do you know how to write a dissertation paper? If you do not have even the simplest idea as to how you can kickstart your research by choosing your topic, outlining your sources, collating the sources, etc., no amount of help or advice from a dissertation adviser can help you. In fact, if you are capable of creating your research outline in a manner than you can easily accomplish, you should have most of the hard parts of the research done. Sometimes, you can also learn by using the examples of others. If you are really pressed to find an adequate adviser, you can always refer to dissertation papers that others have done before you. By reading the research of others and learning from how they completed their own dissertations, you will at least, have a starting point for your own work. When you have that starting point set, you can go back to your current adviser. Maybe then you will both have something to work on that can set the stage for your own dissertation work.

When I consider that they only rely on Facebook and text messaging for their business, I tend to think that they have something to hide.

After looking over the FB page and seeking out reviews from other students, I was proven to be correct.

The service is horrible and should not be used by any decent student seeking academic help. The prices are far beyond the basic reach of students on an allowance or working part - time.

Since they charge per hour instead of per page, it stands to reason that any amount charged for the work will be overpriced. How exactly can the student keep track of the hours the writer used to write their work? There are too many gray areas in the services they offer. Nothing is clear when it comes to their actual services.

Just that they offer a wide range, nothing more. Customer service is limited to only text and Messenger services, which means if your phone is lost or out of juice, you are out of luck.

You can't reach them regarding your paper queries.

When you consider the poor quality of the paper that they provide, and the fact that they cut it so close to the deadline that revisions will create a problem in submission for the students, there is no way that this service can be considered anything more than a questionable company that cannot deliver on its lofty promises.

The toughest model project I had to write had to do creating a class plan for a special needs class. The student required me to complete a total of 3 different projects, all inter-related, in a matter of a week. To add to the difficulty of the assignment, I needed to complete the draft in 2 days because she had to use the lesson plan in class and then modify it as per the instructions of her professor. Since there were two other projects that needed to be completed after the revision was completed, I found myself pressed for time. The time almost ran short for us because after I modified the class plan, she had to go and get her professor to approve it yet again. That took a bit longer than expected because the client had to miss school for 2 days. Needless to say, I shied away from these types of work assignments from then on. It was hard enough to revise the project without the check and balance parameters set by the professor. I hated that even though the project was perfect and graded already, I still had to wait out the 2 week unlimited revision period just in case the professor wanted to use one of the 3 papers in a slightly different manner.

@gkaz80 I did work at AR for a long 7 years. During that time, I found that my salary increased with every promotion that I got. While the rates did tend to take a severe dip during the slow season, the company definitely came back with the promised rates, or more, during the hot season. Unfortunately, there were times when the rates would still be too low for a writer to feel like he was being compensated enough. With enough complaints about it coming in from all the writers, they eventually installed a system that allowed the writer to indicate his "bid" on a particular order. The writer would then wait to see if the project would be assigned to him. I can say that during the time that I worked with them (up to early this year), I never had a problem collecting my salary from them.

While the rates may seem unreasonable, and unfair penalties were tacked on as often as they could, I found that the salary was good enough because I took only simple orders that did not require too much research work (I got sick for a period of time due to the heavy research workload I previously had) which meant that the final work I did normally did not require any revisions or penalties to be attached. While the rates are laughable at times, if you are attached to more than one company, the decent earnings start to come from the volume of the work that you do for each company.

AR Encourages Fake Identities Among Their Writers

In relation to actually bidding for orders, the writers now have to fill out their Public Information with a nickname, skills listing, and a thumbnail picture. They require that the public nickname be an English one, which tells you something scammy is going on. I am not so worried about the About Me field because, as my friend who informed me about this pointed out, it's the writers choice to be honest when presenting information in that section. My major concern though, is that they ask for a thumbnail picture to go with the profile. While any picture can be used, I am sure that the 3rd rate ESL writers will use the most handsome or most beautiful free picture they can find to go with their profile. They seem to think that the students hire based on looks first. Writing talents second. They want to try to reel in the clients by presenting a fake impression of who the writer actually is. So eye candy photos are the order of the day for them. I don't really see why their support team needs to vet the information submitted. It isn't like their ill equipped or ill qualified writers will tell the truth in their About Me field.

@Uddipta I am not really convinced that you are a freelance writer and researcher. The reason you cannot convince me at this point is because you say that you want to "learn about the academic writing industry and its best practices". Being an experienced freelance researcher and writer, you should already have an idea of what these are and do not need to learn from us anymore. All you should be experiencing here is an expanded discussion of what you already know. That way you can participate and add to the knowledge of others. Maybe you just did not phrase your statement properly. It is easily seen through your written words that you are not an ENL but an ESL instead. I also can't understand what you mean by asking us to help you "take my passion forward." That is something that only you can do for yourself. By actively participating and gaining new knowledge, instead of just starting to learn (as implied by your statement) in this forum, you will already be taking your passion forward.

@TenaciousMe Since you are obviously an ESL person, you may find it difficult to get started in this business. Specially since your grasp of the English language maybe severely limited in terms of your sentence development and vocabulary. That is not to say though that you will not make it as a writer. If you can find a company that will hire you with your current English level of use and understanding, you can probably start writing for students who have the same level of English proficiency as you do. That way their papers will not be suspected of being written by someone else by the teacher.

Don't aim for the heavens at the start. Start slow and low. You can learn on the job. What you lack in English proficiency, you will gain over years are a writer. The basic requirement is that you understand English instructions. If you can understand basic instructions, then maybe you can start as a personal essay writer and move up from there as you increase your skills.

The problem though, is that even though you are a willing learner and passionate writer, these writing companies have screening procedures that you will need to pass before you can be accepted as an in-company writer. With the current level of English writing that I have seen here coming from you, I doubt you would pass that test and make it to the writers pool of better established academic companies. You may have to work for a few Kenyans and Ukrainians in the meantime. They will hire just about anybody off the street and give a starting academic writer a chance. They just need you as a seat filler anyway.

@FreelanceWriter , @ProfessorVerb , and anyone else who is enjoying the passionate discussion that was created,

While I am not at liberty to explain to you the professional circumstances that brought me to this forum, I can tell you this, you are mistaken in the belief that I am here to create a network or try to gain a share of your client base. Once again, you have proven that you both have a tendency to keep talking without doing proper research and investigation. Had you simply checked my writer profile, you would have seen that there is no information there that a student can use to contact me. There is no information about who I am, no writer history and profile, no email address, no website, no information at all that would have led you to believe I was here for any other reason than to help drum up publicity for this website. In fact, if you search the user database and active writer database, I don't even turn up. The system says I do not exist. The reason for that is simple, I wasn't brought in to get clients for myself. I am here for a different purpose than yours. One that you both do not have clearance to know about. What I will be telling you next is information that I can share with you in the hopes of clearing the cobwebs from your minds and setting you straight about why I am posting so actively here.

I was brought in with clear information as to why I am needed here, and how I should do things. I am not a regular participant at this forum in the same sense that the two of you are regular participants. If you want to know who I am and why I am here, you should contact the powers that be here at ES and ask them about me. They are the ones with the authority to inform you about who Smiley73 is and for what purpose that person is here. I will not usurp that authority from them.

I am not going to just leave because you two feel threatened over the non-issue of a new participant having high visibility on this forum. That high visibility is the purpose I was brought in. Haven't you noticed a rise in the number of users online at this forum since I got here? That is an indication to everyone who is in the know that my presence here is effective and actually working for the purpose it was created.

I am creating visibility for the students, the freelancers, and the direct interest of those two parties. I have no interest in your network or your client base. I am an experienced academic writer and all my claims about my experiences are true and factual. I do not care what your impressions about me are. I am above that because I am not trying to outshine anybody who is here looking for clients. Believe me when I say that I do not need nor want clients. You can have and keep them all to yourselves. I only engage in conversations, I am not here to pick fights or start fights. However, when I am engaged in written tussles, I shall not back off.

That is all I have to say about this matter. You will still see me doing what I was brought in to do. I take my mandate from the powers that be who collectively created this forum and only they have the authority to make me post less, or leave the boards permanently as you obviously desire. Then, you will realize that the active participants at this forum, in the form of a new client base for you two, will also disappear with me.

What kind of fools do you take us for here? You are old, and disabled, and you tried to help move a car? Who are you? Superman in his old age? Your tale doesn't make sense. Your story reeks of an imaginative narrative called a lie.

I believe in a conciliatory world when one can possibly exist. I am not asking you to be conciliatory with me if you do not wish to. We are neither friends nor enemies here. We just exist in the same forum. You seem to have a chip the size of Texas on your shoulder. That means you do not listen to valid arguments and you will never admit you are wrong. Rather than trying to beat you up in this thread and making you happy, I will just say this. My friends warned me that most people from the state that you claim to come from are not worth listening to nor talking to. I did not want to believe them until I met you here. By the way, don't call me son, I refuse to believe I could ever be fathered by someone like you.

Of what interest is it to you that I ask a lot of questions @ProfessorVerb ? Just as you people can claim to have met important people, but work in the dark world of academic outsourcing, I too can lay claim to being a published author, of which I am. I need not offer you people any proof of that just because you question my qualifications. I could question your qualifications no end as well. Is this the game you want to play? I can play this all century if you wish. Bring it on. I am game for it.

I ask questions because I want to get to know @Freelance Writer better. I had a rough start with everyone here when I first arrived and I am more than willing to make amends and build bridges, with anyone who is willing to do the same. I am participating at this forum not to make enemies, but to make friends and help grow the network of writers. I do not aim to pick fights with anyone here. However, if it is a fight or argument that you want @Professor Verb, then I will be happy to oblige you.

As a researcher of more than 20 years, yes, I have been writing that long, having started when I was 18 and in college (I had very lazy classmates) and I have been published for half of that as a romance novelist, my first job is to ask questions. Have you forgotten that? A researcher's best weapon is his ability to ask questions. That is how the written work comes about. If one does not ask questions or do research before writing, which it seems you do not do, then how do you expect to write accurate, informative, and notable papers? You should know this since you claim to be a far decades older freelance writer of an "advanced" age (who should be set out to pasture) , you should be familiar with the importance of asking questions in relation to research. Or did you not learn that through your political connections who could not seem to get you work in a more responsible arm of the government? Strange, since you have a knack for name dropping them in your other threads.

How I choose my username is none of your business. The reason I opt to go with the numerical addition is because I have a personal reason for wanting to use a particular name. While remembering it becomes a bit difficult because of the numbers, how I choose my username is my prerogative and I do not appreciate you inferring that I do not have any imagination when it comes to that. Do not speak about things that you are not familiar with. I do not attack you in that manner, but if you want me to, that can be arranged. Do not dare me. I never back down from a dare.

I will let you alone for now. Come after me again and I will continue to engage you in a heated discussion. Like i said, I have the time to waste, do you? I guess the freelancing business isn't at lucrative as you make it seem for yourself if you are not swarmed with clients and have nothing better to do than engage in petty arguments that you seem so desperate to start. In fact, I will appreciate it if you come after me, you don't know how much I will appreciate it. You will help me bring this forum to life. So thanks in advance. I look forward to engaging you in a discussion again. Bring it on!

@FreelanceWriter You are so lucky that your handle is always available at all the companies or forums that you joined. In my case, my handle is more often than not, taken by someone else and then I have to vary my username with a number series at the end. Which made it very inconvenient to remember. Later on, I discovered that the longer I make my username, the more likely it will be to be available for my use. Was that the main reason that you chose such a long pen name? At a certain point in my writing career, I just started using my email address as an alias because that seemed to always be available. Do you know where I can get a copy of "Shadow Scholar"? I would like to read the book. Do you think it is available online? Is the author personally known to you? I don't mean to pry but, I was just intrigued because you said you recognized that he wrote the book under his real name, the last name being his company ID. How did you figure it out? He must be a very confident person. Others mask their names when they work on actual publications. Mostly to protect their personal identities. I am also a published author but I use an alias which is really far from helping people to identify me as the writer even if they meet me in person.

Okay, we won't call the students cheaters since we do make our bread and butter from their lack of interest in academic writing. What would you prefer to be called? Lazy? Incompetent? Unteachable? Unwilling to learn? Procrastinators? Socially active academic learners? Let's see... there are still a number of choice descriptive words that could be applied to students that hire others to do their academic work for them. Whatever words are used to describe them, the bottom line is that the academic writing services that the students hire allows them to get around the system. They don't do the work and yet they get the grade for it. In fact, they can even demand the writing level and skill of the writer they want to hire in relation to the grade that they desire to receive. What does one call such a student? Wait a minute, you are right. We shouldn't call the students cheaters. We should call them by what they really are, our "employers". Thanks to students who don't have the time or simply don't want to do the work, we have found a line of income generation that allows us to call ourselves "employed".

@Melania_Urquhart I'm with @Major on this one. You should only use essay writing services if you have already developed a rudimentary skill in developing essays yourself. That is because these companies that you mentioned do not have native English speaking writers. As such, they would most likely mess up the essay that you will be paying them to write. If you ask for revisions, you will most likely miss your deadline. However, if you have basic essay writing skills, you should be able to adjust the papers that they will submit to you. This will allow you to use their work as a model which you can improve upon for your use or, you can revise what they wrote for you so that it will be better aligned with your essay needs.

Learn to research as @Major suggested and try to write the essays on your own at first. There are some free academic advising forums and websites on the internet where you can consult with regards to your paper. If, and only if you cannot properly develop the paper yourself should you seek the help of writing services. In which case, I would suggest hiring a freelancer instead of a company to write the paper for you.

@laissezpasser If you want to preserve your sanity and if you want to be treated fairly, you would not focus on trying to gain employment through an academic writing company. While there may be some "legitimate" companies that will treat you fairly, there are just too many of the Ukrainian, Indian, Pakistani, and other country companies that pretend to be from the US and UK. Those companies are the ones that you need to be careful about. Unfortunately, most new writers fall into their traps and they don't realize that even the writers are being scammed until it is too late. You will already have worked for nothing. It would be best for you to just self promote whenever possible and also, increase your visibility here at ES in order to make sure that the students looking for freelance writers will spot you and have a way of contacting you should they wish to hire your services. I speak from experience when I tell you that looking to join a writing company is not for the inexperienced newcomers to the industry. The treatment of the company based writers seems to be getting worse over time ( in some companies) and I would not want you to be traumatized by such an experience.

@pdelta911, It's funny that you actually have the names of writers that you worked with. Normally, the academic outsourcing company does not allow the writers to use their real names. Normally, aliases are not allowed either. Instead, the writers are given ID numbers that they have to use in communicating with the students. It is admirable that you want to reconnect with them. I guess you had a very good writing experience with them. I wish I could have kept in touch with the students that I have worked with over the decades. However, changing companies often and always being connected with a writing company prevented me from having a personal relationship with them. I wish I could have retained them as friends as working with them during the academic year often made us feel like friends already. I wasn't allowed to have an alias at the last company I worked for, just a writer number (again). It will be hard for you to trace these people because they only have made up first names, no last names, and their names change depending upon the client they are working it as well. They may not even be connected with the company anymore.

@ProfessorVerb The site reeks of scam artists. The testimonials were obviously fabricated by other writers. Their claims are so exaggerated that it should be obvious the learned user that they cannot deliver on their promises. It is so easy to catch these guys in the lies that they are telling that it bewilders me as to why they continue to masquerade the way that they do. I would probably have more respect for them if they would stop pretending to be what they are not and instead, just tell the truth about where their writers come from, where they are really located, and what kind of service they provide. Wait, if they did that, no sane student would hire their services. LOL! Bad for the companies, good for us freelance writers. The IP address for this company traces back to a public school in Scottsdale, AZ. Obviously a fake address since no school would house an academic outsourcing company in their midst. How these companies manage to buy these legal addresses is beyond me.

During my time as a writer at various writing companies, it was not uncommon for a student to approach me and ask him to take his test for him online.

The financial offer was always highly lucrative and I was more than once tempted to help the student out. I found that I always declined work orders like those because of my academic principles and guidelines. I always told the company, I draw the line somewhere when it comes to helping the students.

I will help them with their research, I will help them with their homework, I will help them with their exercises, I will NEVER help them cheat in their exams.

The exams were to be taken online so technically, I really could have pulled it off for them, but my sense of what is right always won over my desire to earn an income.

Yes, contrary to what other students might believe, academic writers have morals. We freelance with a purpose but we have some hard lines that a student must never try to cross. Not taking an exam for them is for their own good, whether they know it or not, admit it or not.

It's not only about morality though; today's technology can detect and record your device and the IP addresses associated with your location. If you allow someone from another country or even continent to log into your student account, the system will be alerted and your professor or advisor may be able to be notified of that.

@macnet1 the company only has a 2.8 rating on it. Word on the street is that the company has a money back policy, which is good considering the problems that users have had with their final product. The quality of writing from this company just isn't worth the money that you pay for it. You cannot get any sample work from their writers, which makes me believe that this is another scam company.

Aside from that, you cannot verify that their writers are truly from Australia. There is nothing about this company that makes me believe that it will offer you quality services.

While the company does have an Australian address, it traces back to a closed, warehouse type building. All telltale signs that the company is not even fly by night, it is non-existent. You are probably going to be dealing with a Kenyan or Ukrainian con artist if you sign up for their services. I would not recommend this company to any student who wishes to have a passing grade, at the very least, with their paper. Why don't you consider one of the freelance writers from ES instead? I am sure one of them can help you satisfy your paper needs.

They also lie about the "Free Features", for example they claim that:

- Limited Amendments are worth 31.49 (another lie is that they would actually provide "limited" amendments),

- Bibliography is worth $17.05,

- Outline is woth $6.55,

- Title Page is worth $6.55,

- Formatting is worth $10.49 (without it, they would send a paper in one line or paragraph?),

- Plagiarism Report is worth $20.99 (actually, a paper scanned by a plagiarism finding tool is worth nothing and a student who receives a paper + a "plagiarism report" should demand a refund because this paper is now stored on servers searchable by academic institutions or even by the public).

To sum up - this site is NOT based in Australia, it lies about their features, credentials, and "quality scores", and satisfied customers.

@ProfessorVerb Thank you for the words of encouragement. I consider myself lucky to have found this forum where, although we should consider each other competitors in this field, we have ended up becoming each other's support system instead. While I have yet to gain the trust of a client on my own, I am confident that I can learn from those who came before me in terms of how to win over clients and gain their trust so that begin to carve my niche in this industry. I know that working in this industry won't make me rich. However, I realize that it can help keep me comfortable by making sure that I can somehow pay for my bills. I know I want to do this job in the long term. The question that remains for me to answer is whether or not I will be granted the opportunity to build my client base via my participation at this forum. I can only hope that it happens for me, just as it happened for most of the freelance writers here.

I feel so sad for you. My mom and I had to send our mixed breed dog over the rainbow bridge just a week ago to this very day. It is really tough to say goodbye to our ever loyal companions. In my case, our family had this dog for 17 years. As she aged though, we found ourselves rescuing the most entertaining Golden Retriever (Read: He was thrust upon us by my cousin who just wanted to get rid of her dog's litter at any cost) that I have had the privilege of raising. His current companion is an almost 3 month Shi Tzu who thinks that she is a big dog. She literally acts like her big brother, somehow she thinks she is a Golden Retriever too. Between your wife and your dog, I am sure that you have the opportunity to have some down time with your true friends. You'll get no judgement from me. I treat my Golden Retriever, his name is Holt, as if he were human. I have conversations with him, even though I know he cannot talk to me. He has the most impressive eyes. I think that is how he communicates best with his "hoomans" as the crazy GR Retriever parents say it :-)

Don't get me wrong, I know that we are not forcing the students to work with us. They would all willingly do so if it meant that they would not have to face budget balancing problems at a certain point. If anything, the students are "being forced" to NOT use our services despite their actually wanting to. If there are enough clients out there who represent students who are willing to buy their way through college then we would all be too busy working with the students at this point in time. The cost analysis for the service doesn't come from our end in terms of discussion points. The cost analysis instead comes from the student's side. They are the ones with more financial considerations to prioritize. We just sit back and wait for them to contact us so we can begin working. Lucky is the freelance writer who comes across a student who says "Money is no object. Just get my paper done!" From the sounds of it, you are one of those lucky few @ProfessorVerb

I do not know the actual name for the test. It is however, a free online IP tracking service that uses Gmap locating services as part of the IP address trace. What basically happens is that you first have to search for the name of the company in Google and take note of the IP address. I get my IP information for academic outsourcing companies from cutestat.com. The program traces the company name, IP and location. It does a full WHOIS Lookup aside from a host of other tracing services that it posts on its site. I have come to rely on this service for web and physical address location tracing over the recent months. The reason that the program doesn't just do an estimated server location is because it actually tracks the physical address of the company. Using the latitude and longitude of the IP address in relation to a physical address means you get a precise location for the IP address provided.

@ProfessorVerb As a new freelancer, I would like to make sure that the clients who come my way will get the impression that I am of a reputable character. I know that PayPal, through their seller verification service can offer me that sort of image. Do you really think that I should not go with any other payment service out there aside from PayPal? I have heard about other services through my previous company which seem to be the standard collecting agency for them. Services like PayMaya and Skrill often get mentioned. Have you tried using those services? Can you offer me feedback on those? WU isn't really coming up as a payment method consideration these days, probably because of the difficulty in setting up the payments. Do you think that the clients will trust me if I have only PayPal as a payment method listed for my services? If I were to list at least 2 payment conduits, what would you recommend the second payment channel be? Should I accept direct bank deposits? I would really appreciate your advice regarding the subject if you can. Thanks.

I agree. However, during those times, I was not yet a freelancer and I truly had no idea that I could make a go of academic writing without being affiliated with an academic outsourcing company. I learned to do the job at the school of hard knocks (so to speak). Their way of doing business was the only way that I knew. It was the expected way of doing business with these students as far as I was concerned so I went with the flow and did my best to accommodate the client requirements. They definitely flooded my inbox most of the time so I would often pen messages that went like this: "If you want this paper on time you will shut up and let me work! Stop messaging me every 30 seconds! You will get the paper when you get the paper! You were the one who filed a late order so shut up and let me fix this problem for you!" That normally caught the attention of the student and they would email back one last time saying they would shut up and let me work. Hahaha !

Good for you @ProfessorVerb. Like I said previously, my academic outsourcing experience is mostly related to Ukraine based companies. These were all horrific times for me in line with the performance of my profession and I would only wish that sort of work experience on my worst enemies. I am actually learning a lot from @Major and I am applying what I have learned from him. It is always fun to carry on an extended, and enlightening conversation with him. He is a consummate professional who does not mind sharing his knowledge with others so they too can benefit from his wisdom.

There were a number of negative outcomes for some of the writing companies I worked for. Mass resignations being one of those results. Somehow, the companies refused to acknowledge that they were treating the writers negatively. So leaving was usually the only option we were left with. No use crying over spilled milk now. I am just glad that I have the "wisdom of the sages" to refer to now as I embark on a new journey in relation to my writing career. Thanks @Major and @ProfessorVerb for being generous with the experience lessons and insightful advice.

If your circle of friends are limited to only cyber / virtual friends that you make on Facebook, I can understand why you are skeptical about recommendations coming from so-called "friends". I would not trust the word or recommendation of anyone whom I have not met yet. As is often said, "I would only trust him as far as I can see my nose." You are right not to trust the word of the friends you make in the virtual world. However, taking the recommendation or word of a friend whom you know physically and have had a relationship over a number if years falls under a different qualification. As such, I still believe that you are mistaken in implying that all students don't recommend academic writers. Otherwise, we would all be out of jobs.

Students prefer freelance services because it is easier for them to communicate directly with the writer and they know that they will get their paper done right the first time. It is that personal relationship that sets our services apart from the academic outsourcing companies. Don't take the word of Google when it comes to recommending writing sites. Neither should you trust any spam message from FB or in your inbox. Bots can easily be spotted by those in the know and your email account should be able to block those sorts of things. Those are the worst kinds of recommendations one can receive.

Remember, help is given to those who ask. So if you trust your friends, your real life, flesh and blood friends, you can ask them for a writer recommendation and you can trust that referral for sure.

@ProfessorVerb I am not saying that our services have become too expensive. I guess I did not make myself clear enough in my statement. What I was trying to explain is that the cost of living and basic services have increased on a year to year basis while the income or allowances of the students have not increased. Therefore, their expenses have an increased value this year. The payments for those expenses have to come from somewhere. Hence students are forced to make spending adjustments where they did not previously have to.

Their priority will of course be making sure that they cover their living and school expenses, before they look into paying someone to help them with their assignments or research work. If their expenses don't line up in a certain manner, then they can't afford to hire the (extra) assistant as they normally would. I wasn't talking about their future earnings in this discussion. I was referring to their current financial situation. While hiring us would be good for their future, if it will cost them too much (due to inflation) for them to hire the extra hand then they will try to do the work themselves first in order to allot the allowance for academic writing to some other, more important expense that will affect their immediate life.

@ProfessorVerb I agree with your as well. It doesn't take much for the student to take the paper that we developed for them and use it for their own purposes. As freelancers, we don't ask them how they intend to use the paper anyway, all we ask is that they pay us for the work. So whether they use the actual paper as their own or they just use it as a model is moot and academic. In the case of academic writing companies though, they don't even pretend to have ethics and values when it comes to their work, which is something I, as a freelancer, pride myself in.

I believe that the academic companies encourage the students to cheat because they allow students to place orders for writers to take their exams for them. I have had a few offers to do that in the past and each time, I decline to do it because it is against my ethics and principles. Which is why I think that @Harvard Study has a mistaken notion regarding the way the freelancers and the academic writing companies function. An academic company will do anything to make money. A freelance writer considers his personal values regarding certain job requirements. Or at least, I consider those aspects after I have read the job requirements.

Our bottom line is always to see dollars and cents in our bank accounts once we complete an order. We don't ask questions about how the paper we developed is going to be used. We know the students will most likely submit our paper as their own while a professional will probably use it as model paper first, then use the content we developed second. Again, this is just how I see things and I am not implying that this is how the business works for everyone.

@quondamphone Getting the topic back on track, no, the colleges and universities do not allow the services that are being rendered by the essay companies. Do they know about the services? Yes, they do. Do they turn a blind eye to it? Yes they do. Why do they ignore it? It's better to have the student turn in a paper that he had help writing rather than flunking the student and seeing him again next semester. Is it cheating? That is a gray area. Freelance writers offer model academic papers. The students are not supposed to pass off that paper as their own. It is only a sample of the actual work that they can use as a reference guide in writing their own paper. If they turn it in as their own paper, that is a risk they decided to take.

The academic outsourcing companies though, those are the companies that actually cheat for the student. The cheat happens in the sense that they encourage students to hire their services so that their work can be completed for them. That is why they claim to offer 100 % original, plagiarism free papers. These companies encourage the students to use their services to cheat.

The freelance writers do not offer the same services. They assist in the modelling of the paper. That means the paper is either complete or almost complete and the student can make improvements upon the content in order to complete the creation of a new paper. It is a model, something the student can use to complete his required work. That is why freelance writers do not offer blanket revisions in the same manner that the academic outsourcing companies do. There is a big difference between the two and the services offered should never be confused.

Normally, discounts should not be given to the client upfront. It should not be something that you advertise immediately on the site because that is the ploy of academic writing companies. A freelance writer should instead, offer a discount to a client who has come forward with an inquiry regarding securing the writer's services. It should be something offered to the client at the end of the negotiation as a sign of good faith.

If the first working experience is beneficial on both ends, then a second discount can be offered upfront to the returning client. The increase in discounts should not be more than 10 percent at a time in my opinion. However, the increasing discount should depend upon the number of papers ordered. For example, 20% after ordering 10 papers or something similar. A student who successfully refers x number of clients to your service can get an increased discount at a faster rate. The rate of discount and method of providing the discount should really depend upon what the freelance writer would be comfortable offering. You can learn from the more experienced freelance writers here and their business practices. They are very sound and help them to retain their client base.

@Harvard Study Any writing company located in the Ukraine and Kenya are not only questionable, they are downright despicable. The way that they scam the students and mistreat their writers makes them some of the most evil people on the planet as far as I am concerned. I would not even bother to make differentiating comparisons between them. These companies belong in the same rotten basket, regardless of the country of origin. I would not even pretend to think that there might be one or two of them that are on the level.

As a person who has worked for writing companies from both countries, I have no kind words for these people and I agree with your sentiment regarding these companies. They should never be allowed to conduct any sort of business related to services. The problem is that they are allowed to purchase fake U.S. and U.K. addresses for their fly by night companies online and as such, these shady groups continue to deceive people who would not bother to check the validity of their so-called "company addresses" before engaging in business with them.

@Major These academic outsourcing companies claim that the "contracts" are on a per project basis and as such, do not constitute regular employment with them. They know every trick in the book when it comes to getting around recognizing a writer who has a long standing relationship with them in terms of a work relationship. My shortest working relationship with a writing company was 2 years. The longest, was 7 years. Each time, I would try to get an employee certification from them for reasons such as opening a bank account or something. Each time, I was refused and reminded that I am not an employee. I take clients directly upon their referral. That, in their opinion, did not make them my employer, even after I pointed out that they were the ones who signed my paycheck. They would then explain that they merely, "hold on" to my earnings in case there are problems. They offer an "assistance" service when it comes to salary collection. That did not, in their explanation, make them my employer. They were only payment conduits. I told them a conduit would not be charging penalties on the work of the writers. Hahahaha!

I will agree that Paypal seems to have reduced their seller protection coverage over the years. I am thinking that this was caused by the fly by night academic service companies that tended to have frequent fraudulent transactions, along with some fraudulent Ebay sellers. The Ukraine or Kenya based writing companies were probably one the major reasons though.

When I was working with these academic companies, I often received letters telling me to put the order on hold because of Paypal payment issues. I wonder if this was because of the client using a fraudulent Paypal account or because the company was flagged within the Paypal system so they could not get the payment to come through.

@Major is the Paypal situation different for the freelance writers? I've never had the opportunity to use Paypal for a direct work service charge yet so I am interested in learning the ropes. I hope that you will indulge my curiosity. What other payment methods would you suggest a freelancer try out?

@Harvard Study I mean no disrespect to your point of view but, you should not be making a blanket statement such as the one you made above. You cannot be 100 % sure of the actions that students take regarding advising their friends, whom they know require academic writing help. While I will agree that there are students who may use the service but not recommend it to other students because they are ashamed to admit they use the service, there are some students who will make recommendations if and only if, asked by friends.

To say that "students" don't recommend academic writers in a generalized manner is a statement without basis. The freelance writers here rely to a certain extent, on the word of mouth recommendations and promotions that they get from other students who they were able to successfully assist with their writing needs. Perhaps you do not make recommendations to your classmates and friends when it comes to academic writing needs. You should have said that "I don't recommend..." instead. Making a statement that represents the whole student body is a misrepresentation on your part. You don't know what the other students are actually doing in terms of helping their friends who need academic writing help and you should not pretend to know so.

Nice backgrounder on WU. I am not sure why it ended up in the payment thread though. While you did mention some figures in relation to payments, it wasn't, in any way, related to the original discussion. Now I am wondering how the mods decide where and why to move certain discussions. I would have sent this to the Off-Topic discussion instead, or given it its own thread. Oh well, I guess they know what they are doing ... I wonder if EW_writer ever got his WU payment. He did not come back with an update regarding his situation. I used WU before to receive payments when I was an active Ebay seller. I did not encounter his problem during that time. Maybe it was just a case of the wrong transaction at the wrong time. I hope he managed to resolve it somehow. I guess these problems with WU are part of the reasons why Paypal has become the most preferred payment system these days. It seems foolproof.

Believe it or not David, the one hour turnaround was even reasonable at times. Some clients would give a one hour turn around time and then, as soon as a writer is assigned, they would message me, or some other writer and ask, "Can you get this ready in 30 minutes? I made a mistake in listing the deadline." Now, rather than telling the student to go bugger off, I opt to do the sane thing each time, ask to have the order reassigned and make it clear that I won't howl if penalties are applied. Believe me, it took a lot for me not to howl every time. Did I tell you that the orders are paid 2 weeks later? Yup, the orders are paid late but if there are penalties, they apply it to the current pay schedule. Which means you get docked for "future" penalties in current time. I don't know why I stayed on this long as a freelance company based writer. I guess it was the fear holding me back.

I agree with you David. These days, even the students are already wise to the scam that the academic writing companies are writing. While they do have some fantastic writers, and let me toot my own horn here, I was one of them, it is the company that creates the unlawful and problematic situations. The writers just want to earn a living and the company leadership tends to get in the way of that due to their bottom line, they want to keep more of the profits for themselves.

Keep going down this path of freelancing. You can't go wrong. There are students who come by here looking for a writer that they feel comfortable working with. I don't doubt that you should come across a few clients as soon as the school year opens, who can become your regulars in the future. Just make sure to remain visible on this forum for as long as you can. The pieces of the puzzle, as they say, shall fall into place.

Exactly. These bogus writing companies are very much outside of the realm of legalities in most countries. They do not function in a manner that would have them answerable by law because their country is, quite possibly, constantly engaged in unlawful activities in the first place. In all honesty, it did not occur to me that they could have been the ones requesting for the numerous revisions at any given point in time. Now that you mention it, it is quite possible that most of the revisions that I was getting was coming from a masked QAD person. That will explain why all the revision requests have to pass through QAD and the same department is hands on during the revision process.

Normally, the company does not fire the writer though. They say that you can quit if you want to but they won't fire you because you don't have a formal, written, signed contract with the company. Therefore, they do not face any legal sanctions either with regards to they way they defraud their own writers. It's a technicality that they exploit to the hilt and it gives them to gumption to say hurtful things to the writers who only wish to get their fair salary for the work delivered. They always tell the complaining writers that freelancers are free to leave anytime, they will not be stopped since there is no binding document between the company and the writer.

@topnotch I would not risk using that service if I were you. There are too many red flags that declare it a scam site. The first warning sign is that, although they claim to be a U.S. based company, the company is masking their actual location. The IP addresses traces closest to Zelenka Park in Clifton, New Jersey, which is a vacant lot. I am thinking this site is either in the Ukraine, India, or somewhere where English is not the native language. The probability of getting an ESL writer working for you at this company is at 99.99% as far as I am concerned.

Next, their website is only 3 months old. It does not have any reputation to speak of yet in the community. Add that to that the fact that it does not have any search engine back links and there are just too many warning signs for me to safely recommend that you try their services. You may not have a good working experience with them. If I were the potential client, if I can't verify the location of the company, there is no way I can feel confident that my paper will be written by a native English speaker. Which means I will be risking numerous revisions and quite possibly, missing my deadline if I use their services. I would not be willing to risk my grades in that scenario.

Why don't you consider using one of the freelance writers here instead? I am more confident that they will be able to help you with whatever paperwork you need in the best manner possible.

One of the craziest penalties that was ever levied against me was having the QAD request that I revise a paper that I wrote 3 years ago for them! When I refused on the basis that it was too old and the client was most likely a graduate at that point, the department hit me with a fine, the full amount of the previous paper! Then reassigned the order for revision.

Another unbelievable penalty that I was hit with was after QAD supposedly, "checked" the paper for plagiarism using their private program. They claimed that the program detected 10 percent plagiarism in the paper so they fined me the amount of 10% in preparation for a client refund. Whaaat? When I asked for a copy of the plagiarism document, I could not believe my eyes. According to their software, even the words "I, the, is, are" were considered to be plagiarism! I asked them how I was supposed to write a paper without pronouns and connecting words. They simply said their program is infallible. I never did see the 10% they deducted.

Then, there was this instance when a short turn around time paper was assigned to me, without my requesting it. When I refused the order, guess what? Yup. another penalty because of "short term refusal" to do the work. Work I never asked for in the first place. I could go on, and on, and on, and on with more than 20 years of penalty experience, each penalty reason getting more creative than the previous one. I'll stop here before I give you enough material to start writing a book. Hahaha!