I think if you cancel your debit card your bank will still have to honor the payment and take the money out of your account as you agreed to the transaction. It might still be worth cancelling your card though as at least then the fraudsters won't have your new account details.

You have little chance of stopping the money being taken from your account - the only hope is that your bank will be sympathetic to your situation and reverse the transaction. I'm not sure your position is as strong with a debit card compared with a credit card but it is worth talking to your bank.

You can try complaining to your card company - and say that what you bought was not fit for the purpose for which it was bought. They may say it is a subjective judgment whether the answers are rubbish or not.

It's so much easier to get your money back if the company doesn't provide anything at all, or if the essay can be easily proved to be plagiarised.

I've done a chargeback on a credit card in relation to an essay I purchased - it was straightforward and I had no negative consequences from doing this.

I contacted my credit card company and told them what the issue was - in my case that I was sold something as a piece of original research that turned out to be plagiarised. I sent my credit card company a copy of the essay with the sections highlighted that had been plagiarised and I also enclosed copies of the relevant webpages.

Consumer law is much stronger in the UK than the USA, and the laws which govern debt collection also offer protection to the consumer from breaches in privacy (i.e the creditor or debt collector telling neighbors / employers etc that you owe money). If a debt collector called your employer in the UK and told your employer that you owed them money then you could take legal action against the creditor / debt collection agency under the Protection from Harrassment Act 1997. You would also be able to report the debt collector to the Office of Fair Trading.

They're fraudsters based in Pakistan - contact your credit card company and get your money back.

The person listed on the website lawllb.com as the company chairman is listed with Whois as the site registrant which is a reasonably good start! He gives an address in Birmingham, UK and a hotmail e-mail address in his domain registration.

I've not heard of this company - which is not too much of a surprise as I'm not a law student. You might want to ask them some questions about their writers and quality standards etc before you part with your money.

The site says they've been going since 2003 but there are large gaps in the site with many pages 'under reconstruction' - such as individual's details (the About Me tabs on the About Us page don't work), essay links UK is under reconstruction, essay links USA is under reconstruction, ask the expert is under reconstruction, and the FAQ section is missing etc. The last website update is shown as December 2006.

It does look like you have to pay when you order and then they refund if they can't do the essay which is the way quite a few companies seem to operate. You have to order by sending them an email though and I couldn't see any details on their website about what methods of payment they accept. Just as a general point, my opinion is that credit card payment is the only way to go as then you have some form of redress - never pay by check / cheque, debit card, or direct payment into someone's bank account.

Lots of threads get closed when they just turn into an argument between two people - letting them run and run puts other people off posting.

I don't know anything about the site admins but it is their site so I guess they can allow or disallow whatever they want. If you don't like the way they admin their site, then set up your own site or a blog or whatever :)

I don't imagine he'll turn up much on the UK side.

McLaren Knight / lawessaysamerica is not registered with Companies House in the UK. Companies House holds an electronic register of all registered businesses in the UK past (i.e. dissolved, struck off and failed businesses) and present. I couldn't find any company credit score listed for "McLaren Knight" or "lawessaysamerica" in the UK.

In spite of claiming to be incorporated in the State of Delaware, I couldn't find "McLaren Knight Academic Inc." listed with the Department of State: Division of Corporations either.

Weird ...

They appear to be primarily aimed at the US market ("the USA's only specialist law essays service") and they have a US toll free number, list their prices to students in USD and also their payments to writers in USD. They also have a page on their website dedicated to comparing themselves to their US competition.

So why has an American company based in Delaware, and not registered as a company in the UK, registered a UK domain with a .co.uk address? They mention the @lawessaysamerica.com address on their website for e-mail contact but this domain is available and hasn't been registered yet (which is perhaps why Elvis' e-mail failed!). It would be funny if a competitor or someone "concerned" about this company registered this domain ;-)

They say that Lawessaysamerica is the trading name of "McLaren Knight Academic Inc." based at 1201 North King Street, Wilmington, Delaware,

but the registrant of the .co.uk website is an individual based at:

Castle Square (no person's name / company name / building number given)
Melbourne
Derbyshire
DE73 8DY
United Kingdom

Without a building number it is hard to check where exactly on Castle Square this company or person operates and the Royal Mail's reverse post (zip) code lookup gives four pages of results for this post code (ranging from flats/apartments, offices, shops, a pub etc) but no listing for McLaren Knight, lawessaysamerica, or the registrant's agent.

Ho hum ... I think I would be more likely to order an essay from Elvis than this shower!

So, fraudfighter /s_smith, ranked by who, when exactly, and on what basis?

The Russell group of universities are generally accepted as the top ranking in the UK for most subjects, being the UK equivalent of the US Ivy League.

The University of Lincoln has only been classed as a university since 1992, having been created from the former Humberside Polytechnic. The University of Lincoln's own website does not even make the claim that they are in the top 20 universities for academic standards or research (they do claim to be ranked number 2 in the country for affordability).

In the Times newspaper's 2007 'Good University' ranking, Lincoln came 104th out of 109 universities and colleges.

If you'd made the claim that you graduated from a well-respected university you might have got away with your comment. But top ranking? Na, not for its academic standards anyway.

I don't know anything at all about essayagency. Is this another one of your Academic Answers / TheFuturefor.com chums' ventures??

Hrm ... well, top ranking British universities don't offer HNDs and have never done so; that is the domain of the former polytechnics (the US equivalent of which are Associates degrees from community colleges).

Amy: I look forward to reading your research.

I don't know for sure that they do - but they operate from the same address.

I was looking at the scanmyessay.com website again and noticed that there is no company registration number (which UK company law requires to be published on the website if the company is a registered business) and there is no physical address. The only contact point is an email address.

So, in the absence of info on their website, I did a whois on them. The registrant of the scanmyessay.com website is:

Registrant:

TheFutureFor.com Ltd TheFutureFor.com Ltd (enquiries@thefuturefor.com)

38B Church Drive
Ravenshead
Nottingham,
NG15 9FF
UK
Tel: 0845 4 65 01 65

Coincidently, Academic Answers Limited (who own Degree Essays UK / UKessays.com / ukessays.co.uk / oxbridgegraduates.com) also operate from 38B Church Drive, Ravenshead, Nottingham. Indeed, Academic Answers used this address as their official business address in a complaint they made to the Nominet UK Dispute Resolution Service.

I'm intrigued that scanymyessay.com say their software is "funded privately" so they have no reason to charge people for using their service. I find it hard to believe that a company would pay to fund the development and distribution of a free service to detect plagiarised essays without getting any economic benefit from doing this.

Did anyone else notice that at around the same time as scanmyessay.com has appeared, UKEssays.com launched an essay bank where you can buy stored essays?

I'm sure that this is a total coincidence and that there is no connection between these two events.

As someone who holds both US and UK passports, and has lived and attended schools in both the US and UK, I can see the upsides and downsides of both countries.

My personal opinion is that education and healthcare are better in the UK, in terms of quality and affordability, and that the tax and business climate are more favourable towards entrepreneurship in the US. I am sure lots of people would disagree with me on those points but that's my opinion based on personal experience.

The comment that "America is not that great" was stupid - if the writer wanted to make a valid point he should have included some detail to support his opinion. From his other posts, I think he is a ukessays representative who posts on this forum to support the interests of this company... in which case, it is easy to see why he wants to disparage America and, by association, American essay companies.

The Essayfraud site is a great starting point to identify the scammers - but don't read too much into a company being 'verified'.

Being verified just means that a company operates from where it says it does (i.e. isn't claiming to be US / UK based when it really operates from Parkistan) and doesn't use ESL writers.

If you search individual companies on here you will find that some UK 'verified' companies operate in ways that can hardly be considered 'legitimate'.

Good luck :D

Interesting. I didn't know that.

I had a look on the website and couldn't see whether they say they do or don't retain essays. If they are a free service and don't retain essays in their database then I don't see what the commercial benefit to the organization is in hosting the site.

I wouldn't upload an essay here or anywhere else. You never really know what the site users are doing with the information uploaded. Imagine writing an original paper and submitting it to your uni, only to find out that turnitin.com or similar identified it as plagiarised because one of these paper scan sites had stored and then re-used the paper.

Maybe scammyessay would be a more apt name ;-)

What do you mean by legit?

Being verified by Essayfraud doesn't make an essay company legit as far as I can tell. All it says it that they don't use ESL writers and are honest about where they operate from.

UKessays.com are Essayfraud verified yet they allow people with no background in a subject to take on work in that subject area. They also own Oxbridgegraduates.com and, according to one of their own writers who posted on here, allow writers who are not Oxbridge educated OR graduates to take on orders made through that website.

My opinion is avoid all those on Essayfraud's Fraud list and to treat the verified companies with caution. There doesn't seem to be any guarantee of quality or transparency of business practices in the essay business. From experience of other students, there are very few trustworthy research services. You can try CustomPapers without a risk.

I don't know about highly qualified. Many essay companies use undergrad students as writers so, for example, your Masters level essay may well be written by a first year undergraduate student.

One of my friends writes for ukessays - it is interesting to see how they do business:

When you first place your order, your 'brief' is sent out to people who say they are qualified to write essays in that area. If if no-one bids for the work in a day or so the 'brief' is then sent out to all writers with a note saying that the first writer to respond will be accepted to undertake the work regardless of previous experience. So, using my previous analogy, your Masters level essay in philosophy may be written by a first year undergraduate with no background / qualifications in philosophy.

UKessays.com also own oxbridgegraduates.com - if you look back on previous posts on here one writer for ukessays says that the writers are the same for both businesses. So I guess your Masters level essay bought on oxbridgegraduates.com may be written by a first year student at the University of Luton who writes for ukessays.com.

I'm not sure what to make of the fact that ukessays.com is verified by essayfraud. Maybe it only means that it does actually operate from the location that it declares on its website.

I guess the only way to be sure that you get an essay that meets your own standards is to write it yourself. Lazy tossers like myself have to use trial and error to try and figure out which of the essay companies are the least dodgy!

Perhaps the Pakistan government is raking in lots of tax from this very profitable business and that's why they don't step in and do anything about them. I don't suppose they care too much that people outside of Pakistan are getting scammed.

I don't advertise for them, and I do alert students to potential problems of using sites like these which is that anybody can sign up and claim to be an 'expert' (which is why checking out the writers ratings is so important).

Given all the problems that students have with rogue essay companies, I am happy to let students know that there are widely available alternatives to using essay companies. Writers too!

If the site moderator is in any way unhappy with any of my posts then s/he can edit or remove them. In the meantime, with all due respect, I will keep posting my opinions.

I use kasamba.com - don't post on kasamba's public boards but contact writers directly after searching your subject area - just be sure to check the writer's ratings (the ones I use have at least a few hundred five star ratings) and you should also email / chat with the writer to discuss your project to make sure that they understand what you want from them. There are a few weirdos / muppets on there (low ratings and weird profiles) - be sure to avoid those! As a safety mechanism, any payment you make is held in escrow until you have received and accepted the work.

There's also elance.com which I think someone else on here mentioned.

By the way, you can contact members on here through the private messenging facility. I'm pretty open on the forum about who I've used and my opinions but others may prefer to say what they want to say privately. Don't accept any one person's opinion as gospel though (including mine!) - there are a lot of people who post online who claim to be students who I think really are stooges for essay companies and are really either promoting their own business or knocking someone elses.

Both ukessays.com and oxbridgeessays.com are registered as companies with Companies House in the UK - so they are operating legally. Whether you'll get an essay from either that meets your expectations in terms of price and quality is totally subjective.

Amy, I wasn't talking about bogus ESL sites. I was talking about UK based essay companies that are registered as legitimate businesses with Companies House. I've no idea how much bogus ESL sites pay writers, or if they pay writers at all (from some posts on here it would seem that some don't pay them anything!).

I know US companies charge a lot less than UK companies so even though the writer may get a better split I doubt that their actual pay is much better.

I've started to favour websites where I can do business directly with writers and avoid essay companies completely - this way I get to talk to the writer directly before paying and make sure that they understand my topic. Even with the 'legitimate' US and UK essay companies it is still a lottery as to whether your assigned writer understands your topic and can write to a good standard.

Needless to say, writers and customers should avoid ESL sites and those sites that misrepresent their true location.

I'm not sure you'd need to charge a higher price to pay writers well - just cream off less for yourself! From what I've read, and from friends who work as writers, most essay companies only pay writers a third of what they rake in from customers.

Standard turnaround times for UK essay companies seem to be 5 or 6 days with a premium payable for work needed faster.

I think most of the quality issues arise because many companies use undergraduate students rather than graduates to write the essays. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. If you pay for a Master's level essay at first class standard and someone who is a first year undergraduate writes the essay then the chances are you will be disappointed with the product.

I don't know of any company that guarantees that the writer will actually have appropriate qualifications to write essays of a particular standard. For example, a guarantee that if you want a first class paper on economics that your writer will have graduated with a first class economics degree etc. Given that most UK companies charge double rate if you want a first class paper, it is annoying to find out that many companies give the work to people who are not graduates and who may not have even studied that particular subject.

Good luck with your business - I hope you manage to attract some good writers.

Do you mean "Academic Answers Limited" group? That comprises ukessays.com, oxbridgegraduates.com and law-essays.com

I've never heard of the "academic awards ltd group".

If anything you order isn't up to scratch it's up to you to contact the essay company and request amendments / dispute the charge with your credit card company. I would have done that with mine but I'm so dim with statistics that I didn't notice there was a problem ... until I saw the grade of 44%!

I've used them a few times and only had one problem - it was a psychology paper with lots of statistics in it and unfortunately the writer screwed up the stats and the paper was awarded 44%, I think, which obviously wasn't the 2:1 I paid for.

The problem with getting your money back now is that you accepted the paper without requesting amendments; this means that it is very unlikely that you'd get a chargeback on your credit card. You could always try talking to the company but they may argue that (a) the paper was sold as a model and you shouldn't hand it in as your own work anyway, and (b) that grading is largely subjective, and (c) it was up to you to check the work met the standard required and if it didn't to request an amendment in the 7 day amendment period.

I think you'll have to chalk this one up to experience.

Just out of interest, what subject area was it? I'm finding it hard to get good psychology papers from essay companies and now mostly use writers from kasamba for statistics work (cheaper and better quality!).

Have you looked at registering as a writer on kasamba.com ? I have used a couple of writers on there who have high user ratings and have been satisfied with their work. As well as some good writers, they have plenty of muppets on there too though so students need to chat with the writer before placing an order to get some reassurance that they can do the work. As a safety mechanism, payment is held in escrow until the client agrees that they are happy with the work. I've not tried Elance or Helium but I may take a look.

I'm not sure how wise it is to post your email address on any forum - I think you'll get inundated with spam. This site has the facility to private message other forum members which is useful.

I think you can still ask your credit card company for a chargeback but you will have to explain why what you received from the company was unacceptable and why it does not meet the standard you were led to expect.

You could try complaining to trading standards and say that what they say in their FAQs is contradicted in their terms and conditions which you think is misleading and confusing for the customer. The fact that they say "we will discount you 20%" rather than "we may at our discretion discount you 20%" gives you a good case.

You might want to print off the relevant bits of their website to support your case as some companies will change their wording from time to time.

If you go to consumercomplaints.org.uk you will get directed to the appropriate website where you can make your complaint online should you choose to pursue the matter with trading standards.

That does sound like pretty crappy service. The expert being given short notice is irrelevant if you paid extra for a 48 hour turnaround.

If you think you are due a £324 refund why are you thinking of accepting £150?

If you paid by credit card you could talk to your credit card company about getting a chargeback. Alternatively, you could pursue a claim through the small claims court.

Very interesting post!

OMG!

I have used them too! I've sent you a personal message; hopefully you'll be able to pick that up.

I haven't used Oxbridge Graduates (oxbridgegraduates.com) but they are part of the same company as Degree Essays UK who I have used and who are a legitimate company so I would expect them to be okay. Whether what you get from them is worth whatever they are charging is anyone's guess!

If you are unsure about quality then maybe try them, or any other company, out with a small piece of work and then if they meet your standards order the rest and request the same writer. I'd be wary about placing a large (or high value) order with any company I hadn't used before as even legitimate companies may not offer the quality you are seeking.

Hope this helps and good luck :)

I think your comment is unfair.

I've seen a few posts here and elsewhere where writers have posted the essay that a student has failed to pay for. Seems reasonable to me and devalues the essay that the student has fraudulently obtained for free; it also means that turnitin would be likely to highlight the essay as plagiarized if the student tried to hand it in as their own work.

That's really good news - I'm glad it has worked out for you :)

I don't write for either company (though have used both as a client) but I do have a very good friend who sometimes writes for UKessays.com and he sent me this from their 'legally binding undertaking' that all their contracted writers have to agree to:

"By submitting this work I understand that if I am found to be in breach of this undertaking as a whole that I will not only forfeit my fee for that work but I will also be liable to repay not less than 50% of all fees paid to me by your organisation, and may also be subject to legal proceedings in order to recover damages for the loss of profit and damage to the business reputation of your organisation".

The wording is quite similar isn't it? (as well as being similarly onerous!)

Have you thought about setting yourself up as an expert on kasamba.com? Sounds a lot less hassle to me than working through an essay company and you get to choose what you want to charge for your work.

PS If you do set yourself up on kasamba and you can write good quality philosophy essays then let me know - I'm looking for a writer at the moment!

I've used custompapers.com before for essays and had no problems - I've never needed PhD level work though but as you can select the work level when you order I don't think this would be a problem.

Another way of getting a writer is to use an intermediary like kasamba.com and browse the writer / company profiles. You can view feedback from previous clients and talk to any of the writers via live chat online or via email before deciding who (if any) to select to do your work. Also, when you place your order, your payment is held in escrow and is only released to the writer when you accept that you are happy with the work received.

I use a couple of kasamba experts to do statistical work (spss and minitab) for me as I don't find that essay companies handle this work very well. So far I've been very impressed on quality and price.

I agree with Amy - read through the threads on this site and you will soon find some good companies mentioned.

Sorry you had a bad experience but there are good companies out there (among the multitude of scammers).

I think affordableresearchpapers is out of service now.

Is manuscriptservices.com owned by the same people as manuscriptservices.co.uk?

I hope you get your paper Essayman but as you paid with a credit card you should be covered anyway.

Good luck :)

Why do you need another one if the one you already use is really good?

I'm interested to hear how this turns out. I just looked at the website of ukessay.co.uk (another company I've never used) and they say if you are outside the UK to use custom essay who claim to be based in Toronto; customessay.com do get a mention on essayfraud which you might want to take a look at:

essayfraud/forum/index.php?showtopic=254

I've seen their website but have not actually used them - don't know anyone who has but on the upside I haven't seen anything online that is bad about them either!

If you go ahead with them then post what you think - I'd be interested to hear some feedback.