I'm never dishonest with customers or prospective customers. Before being derailed, the topic of this ancient, long-dead thread was dishonesty in specific relation to the language of origin of writers. Sometimes, I notice solicitations posted by (or receive inquiries from) UK students who make explicitly clear that they will only consider UK-educated writers for their projects. About half of my clients are UK-based, so (obviously) I know UK English sufficiently well to respond to them and misrepresent myself as having been educated in the UK and I have no doubt, whatsoever, about being able to handle their projects as well as any UK writer they might find. However, I'd never do that; instead, I explain how much experience I have with UK projects and that, unlike most American writers -- even otherwise good ones -- I'm a grammarian. Usually, those students who only want a UK writer do not hire me, even after my explanation about why they shouldn't have any less confidence in me than in a UK writer, which is fine; I'm not looking to secure their business under false pretenses. That's all that anybody expects of ESL writers: they should make their case about why they believe customers should overlook their being ESL instead of ENL and simply let the customer decide based on the truth. Much more often, what ESL writers do, instead, is try to pretend that they're American or British. I have no quarrel with any ESL writer who doesn't misrepresent the truth.

Good experienced writers don't typically "negotiate" prices at all. Writers who "negotiate" prices tend to be: (1) new writers who are really desperate for work, (2) some of the same terrible writers at bad essay companies that customers hope to avoid by looking for a freelance writer in the first place, and (3) scam artists who don't mind "negotiating" at all, since they don't have to worry about actually producing the work for which they take payment, making it worthwhile for them to take three-quarters or half (or even less) of their quoted price.

You're responding with a direct question to a poster who posted on this forum once 14 years ago as though he/she posted yesterday.

What company are you associated with?

Nobody ever suggested otherwise. The point was simply that we're not allowed to advertise our own websites "at this forum" in the way that the OP quite obviously tried to do. Incidentally, Christina eventually figured out how to contact me and exercised her "freedom of choice" to become a client of mine for 5+ years. Since she made her email public and since it's still here, I'd humbly invite anybody to contact her directly to ask her about her experiences using me and about the quality of my work.

I would totally disagree with this, as would the student who left feedback on my profile about TWO different dissertations that I wrote for her simultaneously in 2018 (Review ID # 839787241). The vast majority of PhD candidates have never written a single dissertation, either; meanwhile, a qualified experienced writer might have already written a dozen of them, or more. As I've explained before, that doesn't mean I have the same substantive knowledge about the field as the degree candidate; but writing a dissertation is much more about writing and researching skills than substantive knowledge. Typically, PhD candidates also provide all or most of the resources necessary for the project, precisely because it's only the actual writing of the dissertation that presents a problem for them, not their familiarity with the subject matter and access to the relevant scholarly material.


Obviously, very few writers can produce good dissertations; and (even more) obviously, it would be completely ridiculous to trust an "unknown writer from a first contact writing company" with a project of that size, complexity, and importance. However, all that really means is that it's that much more important to make sure you're dealing with an experienced legitimate writer before you trust someone with that kind of project.

Your best bet is to just find yourself a legitimate trustworthy writer first, so you don't have to worry so much about divulging your identity. If someone really wants to identify you, it's almost impossible to maintain your anonymity, even if you're using a generic email account. I know almost all of my clients' identities and many of them have offered me their institutional log-in info for me to access files for their projects, which I usually decline to use (for various reasons), unless it's really necessary.

It's always great to read posts about what it takes to be a writer written in absolutely atrocious English.

Well, 10 years and 7 months later and still no sign of that "keg gut," but maybe in another 10 years. This is how I spent most of the 2020 lockdown in NYC: I'm a little rusty after not having skated on wheels in 20+ years and everything is very different on concrete, but with all the ice rinks shut down, it was better than not being able to skate at all and I appreciated having this deck behind my building: dropbox.com/home/Rollerblading%208-11-2020?preview=video-2020-08-11-17-43-30.mp4

Those are 35 pool noodles tied together by a rope going through them to keep the pucks from sliding off the deck and onto cars in our parking lot, and that's a golf driving net instead of a hockey net, for the same reason.

Thank you.

When students pay for an original essay, they should always be entitled to own the product. The TOS of most commerial essay companies typically prohibit their customers from doing anything besides "reading," "studying," and "citing" the work as a source; and those companies expressly retain copyright ownership (just check their TOS). I'm not clear what makes them think this is fair. After all, the actual creator of the work is the writer who provided it to the essay company, and the company contracts with writers always require writers to transfer their copyright to the company. If writers have to transfer their copyrights to essay companies, those companies should, in turn, transfer copyrights to their customers who commissioned and paid for the work in the first place.

Thank you. In the 10 years since this thread was last active, I've become a lot more comfortable with UK law. Back then, I was being very careful before committing to those projects.

Their main page should provide more than enough clues about how good their writers' English is. These gems are all in the very first paragraph on the website:

1. "Can you imagine how much energy and forces have to be given away to accomplish this task and to write a worthy dissertation or thesis."

2. "If you want to write a successful dissertation or thesis but you are not confident in your forces..."

3. "We can assist in dissertation or thesis writing at any time, in any deadlines."

4. "...only the best quality work will be offered to your consideration."

Keep in mind that essay companies typically use their very best writers to provide their own website copy. Just imagine what quality of a PhD "dissertation or thesis" this writer might produce, let alone their worse writers.

There are many ways to plagiarize without literally copying the exact words from a source. I've seen plenty of plagiarized work where students (and people who call themselves "writers") simply plagiarize all of the ideas from a source but rewrite them in their own words, or in sufficiently-different words to pass an automated scan without getting flagged for similarity. Plagiarism scanners only recognize combinations of words, not ideas. I've seen essays in which the student (or whoever wrote it) paraphrased all of the ideas from a single source (and in the exact same order in which those ideas appeared in that source). Usually, they "cite" those points randomly from whatever sources they list in their Bibliography and they purposely don't list the one source from which they really lifted all of their material. As often as not, they make it really easy to catch this, because the source that generates all of their falsely-cited material is one of the very first sources that pops right up when you do the simplest Google search for the project or assignment key words. Because they usually don't even bother to lift material from more than one source and because they usually regurgitate point after point in the exact order that those points appear in that source, they can't really deny it any more than they can deny literally copying from sources word for word when they're caught doing that.

Is it unethical? Obviously. Does that mean that clients (or writers) "deserve to be scammed"? Obviously not. Nobody is sitting for anybody else's medical or engineering or pilot's licensing exams; so nobody's ever going to be harmed in the future because college students decided to have some of their essays ghostwritten for them, much less "killed" (as suggested by the OP). The vast majority of what college students learn in school comes from their absorbing lectures and studying for their exams. Very little is learned from having to write assigned essays that most students regard as nothing more than annoying chores and fulfill them by doing little more than paraphrasing enough material from whatever random related sources they can find until they've satisfied the assigned word count. Chances are my clients actually learn more about the topic of their essays from just reading what I provide than they would from cobbling together material from their own attempts at research.

Once they graduate, most students will never again have to use any of the formal research or writing skills that these projects are intended to teach; and, generally, most college graduates won't ever be writing anything much longer than an email or short synopsis of issues in their future jobs. Those students who are comfortable with and/or enthusiastic about research and writing don't typically outsource their writing assignments; and those who aren't comfortable with and/or enthusiastic about writing don't typically take jobs that emphasize writing, let alone in any capacity that could ever get anybody "killed."

Actually, if you read the TOS of just about any commercial essay company, you'll see that they are extremely clear about the fact that the company explicitly retains all copyrights and absolutely prohibits customers from claiming ownership of the work in any way, shape, or form. In fact, I've never seen any company TOS that transfer copyrights to customers. Definitely read them before deciding to do business with any company if copyright ownership matters to you. Many of them limit the rights of customers to doing nothing but reading and "studying" them, and (my favorite), using them as properly-cited references in the client's own writing (as though a student would ever "cite" ABC Academic Essay Company as a "reference" within an academic paper. Everything in the contractual clauses pertaining to copyright in those TOS details the rights of the companies to take action against their customers for violating theircopyrights, including, in many cases, reserving their right to contact their clients' schools to protect their copyrights. Just read them for yourself.

[P.S. My PM privileges were reinstated around the same year that this thread was last active and they have never been restricted since.]

Usually, I have no way of knowing whether my clients actually submit my work as their own, because they don't tell me and I don't ask. It's none of business, anyway, because they own anything that they pay me to write. Sometimes, they do let me know, either in an email thanking me or whenever they order their subsequent projects; and a few have even mentioned the grades that they received for my work in various threads right on this forum. Assuming that a client does choose to submit work from a writer for a grade, the writer is still always in the exact same position as every other student in that class, except with the added disadvantage of not having actually been in the course. For ordinary undergraduate courses, that hardly matters; but sometimes, professors specifically want to see their lecture points regurgitated in essays and/or on exams, which makes it much harder for someone outside the course to satisfy those professors. Usually, if professors grade papers objectively and fairly along a bell curve, just about anything I write will fall into the 80th or 90th percentile, at least, even in difficult courses. On the other hand, if the grader tears apart the work of his students, either because he perceives that as being his "role" or just because he's a miserable person who takes pleasure in it, he can also find some excuses to rip apart my work, as well.

This is nonsense, mainly because it lumps all "independent writers" at [sic: on this forum, not "at"] this forum together. I've been here since October of 2008 without a single complaint about the quality of my work or about my honesty or reliability, and with nothing but extremely positive reviews about my work in numerous regular threads, in my Review thread, and on my profile page.

What about the possibility that a totally legitimate writer will charge a very high price for producing a difficult project on very short notice and then actually provide exactly what was promised?


Some of my best and most loyal clients first used me when they had to scramble to find a writer at the very last minute (for whatever reason) and they understood why I charged them a premium to drop what I was doing to accommodate their emergencies on extremely short notice. Some of them have even left reviews of my services on this forum, both in regular threads and on my profile page.

How many pages were they supposed to provide for £375?

Just curious why you, apparently, didn't do any kind search for reviews about them before placing an order. The very first result that popped up when I Googled the company + "review" told me everything I'd have needed to know, particularly under "Factor 3: Level of Quality."

This user's experience also illustrates my point (in other threads) that "guarantees" and "policies" published on company websites are meaningless without some objective evidence elsewhere (like here) that they actually abide by those guarantees and policies. Their FAQs have a section called "Placing an Order and Payment" with a question about how to cancel orders: it says that they'll issue a full refund "straight away" as long as it hasn't yet been assigned to a writer. Essay companies can post any customer-friendly "guarantees" and "policies" they want to, and they may all sound great...until you try to hold them to those terms.

I don't know why they would keep contacting you unless, maybe, it's to try to intimidate you into not publicizing your experience with them, exactly the way you're doing here, because they already have your money and I don't think that kind of payment can be reversed (especially, if you're the one who executed it). Unfortunately, I don't believe there's any way to recover funds wired by the actual owner of a bank account; but, admittedly, I'm not an expert in US banking law, much less in UK banking law. In general, I don't think legitimate wire transfers from a bank account can be reversed unless the bank did something wrong (such as giving someone unauthorized access to your account or failing to authenticate the person executing the transaction). Just out of curiosity, how much money is at issue?

The good news is that there's nothing for them to "report." Ignore them.

The bad news is that there's probably nothing you can do to recover a payment by bank wire.

When I was (mainly) an essay company writer, I specialized in rush orders, simply because they paid the most. During the busy season, I would frequently write as many as 3 or 4 or 5 small rush projects in a single night, while I was already working all night on a much larger project with a longer deadline. Typically, I'd be working on one screen with a second screen open to the company assignment board so that I could monitor newly-posted projects and grab them the instant that they showed up. I'd switch gears, write the new project, submit it to the system, and then get back to my larger project.


This is only the case with inexperienced writers, irrespective of whether they're independent or company writers. By the time you've written (literally) thousands of academic essays, you no longer have to write "drafts" and then develop them into "proof read"[sic] copy (ironically, because proofread is one word, not two). Inexperienced writers need to write multiple "drafts" and there's a substantial difference between their first drafts and their final copy. Conversely, experienced writers don't need anybody else to provide "QAD" inspection. When we write anything shorter than roughly 10 pages, we just write the project, maybe let it sit for an hour, and then go over it just to catch any minor mistakes. The difference between our first "drafts" and our final copy is very minor, and it's not because we don't proof them well; it's because our first "drafts" come out >90% as polished as our final copy and without requiring more than very minor changes and/or corrections.This is equally true whether a specific writer is a freelancer or a company writer. The main reason that dealing with an independent writer is safer in that regard is simply that you always know who your writer is, because when you order through a company, your project could get grabbed by any one of hundreds of writers. OTOH, I'd agree that we do tend to be more careful with projects for our direct clients than with company projects, precisely because it's our personal reputation on the line.

I can't speak for any other independent writers, but my website discloses that I live in NYC and my clients can verify that I live in Manhattan very easily, because they have my landline phone # and my full name.

This is complete nonsense. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Anybody with a legal background in either US or UK law is fully capable of researching the law of the other country. I've written at least 100 UK law projects and dozens of Australian law projects with very good results. Depending on the particular subject matter, I might sometimes ask foreign clients to provide some of the case law to which they have access; but that's about the only difficulty I've encountered. In fact, I have two UK law projects pending on my calendar right now. The last UK law project I provided was a 5,000-wd project on UK insurance law, delivered to the client on March 27th. The moderators of this forum can easily verify that project inquiry by simply checking my inbox for the message that I received exactly one month ago to the day. The verbatim text of that messsage was "Hi. Can u please help me in writing my coursework assignmet? Its about uk insurance law. I have list of 10 questions and my coursebook which u have to refer" and the moderators here have access to that message as well as to the email address of the person who sent it.

There are two fraudulent solicitations currently posted right on the other board run by this forum offering to pay $100 per phone interview for ENL's willing to do fraudulent phone interviews (the 4th most recent post, dated Jan 28th) and $500 per newly-opened fraudulent writing account by ENL writers for the benefit of ESL middlemen (the 2nd most recent post, dated March 12th) intended to deceive legitimate essay companies into hiring new ESL "writers" who can barely speak English by impersonating ENL writers during the hiring process at essay companies that obviously don't want to hire ESL writers. Unsuspecting legitimate writing companies advertising that they only hire ENL writers sometimes end up hiring these ESL frauds and adding those writers to their rosters. Customers then place orders at those companies based on the representations that those companies only use ENL writers, only to receive useless ESL gibberish that's much worse than those clients could have written themselves without wasting their hard-earned money on garbage.

No legitimate writer will ever agree to write 100% of any project for only 50% paid at the time the order is placed. If the client fails to pay the remaining 50%, the writer has already wasted (50% of) his time writing the whole project, irrespective of whether or not he submits the project to the client.


The only payment scheme to which a legitimate writer will agree is to produce and deliver __% of a project after receiving (the same) __% of the payment at the time the order is placed. Then, if the client is happy with the first __% of the project, he pays for the next __% of the project and (only then) the writer produces and delivers that next __% of the project. How much of the project is paid for and (only then) written and delivered at a time depends on whatever % of the project the client and writer agree to pay for and deliver at a time, respectively.

Typically, clients using a writer for the first time might want to pay for just a small section, first; and then, after satisfactory delivery of that section, the client pays for the rest of the project, because delivery of that section is enough for the client to know that the writer is legit. For huge projects of 50+ or 100+ pages, clients might pay for one or two sections at a time, provided that there's sufficient time to do that and still make the deadline for the completed project. However, what often happens is that by the time clients first find and reach out to a good legitimate writer, the deadline is too short to allow for sectional payment and delivery. In those situations, about the best that clients can do is research the writer on the forum and by Googling the writer and/or the writer's website and email(s) before paying for the whole project in advance. Legitimate writers don't mind sectional payment/delivery; but if clients first contact us shortly before their deadlines, there may be no other option besides trusting us with full payment in advance.

I'm sorry, but the suggestion that the length of a project is what determines whether or not sources (not "the sources") are required is ridiculous and not at all what Phyleeks was saying. I've written (literally) thousands of 4-pg and 5-pg (and even shorter) projects and almost all of them required some sources; but the fact that certain types of projects may not need any outside sources is a totally different issue from the length of a project (and from whether clients make mistakes in the ordering process). Obviously, personal opinion projects don't usually require sources; but sometimes either their specs still require sourcing or clients simply ask for them. That's a decision for clients to make. What Pheelyks was saying is simply that the number of sources specified for projects can't be totally inappropriate in relation to the length of the project. His point was that thirty sources is a ridiculous number of sources to demand for 5 pages of writing; but 4 or 5 sources might be perfectly appropriate for a project of that length (and for even shorter projects) .

Typically, the way students manage to get themselves in trouble really has nothing to do with their schools going out of their way to identify ghostwritten essays. What happens is simply that students submit essays that are so much better than all of their other essays that a professor who is already familiar with their writing abilities and style immediately recognizes the difference between their ghostwritten essays and the previous essays written by those students.

Everything I write is completely original and my clients own anything that they pay me to write for them and it's none of my business what they choose to do with the product once they own it. However, the vast majority of essay companies absolutely do not transfer copyright to customers (even for "original papers") and they expressly prohibit them from doing anything with the product other than reading it and citing it as a reference within the essays that their clients write for themselves. Just read the TOS of any essay company whose services you might be considering if you want to know what their policies are about copyright ownership and how they allow customers to use their product.

The strange part of it is that all of my current nurses live in NYC and worked straight through the worst months of the pandemic. At least two of them actually work in ERs.

My Nnursing clients have always been my most regular and long-term clients and I think all of them have continued with their schooling throughout this pandemic, even during those first few terrible months in NYC.

Aside from a substantial dip in orders during the first three months of the pandemic, I've noticed no real difference.

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read on this forum, for at least two very specific reasons:

1. The transaction is governed by the policies and/or TOS published on the provider's website. Legitimate essay companies and writers with websites specify that mistakes are handled as free revisions and that those revisions will be delivered promptly; some of them also specify a time period. In fact, I defy you to show us any legitimate essay company that promises a full "refund" if one of their essays needs a revision. A legitimate and experienced essay provider makes mistakes only very rarely; but it does happen sometimes. Legitimate providers always respond immediately to notice of a mistake and turn around an appropriate revision ASAP.

2. Even without any specific revision policy outlined in the TOS and/or elsewhere on a website, it is a standard principle of all contracts for services that the seller or vendor has a right to cure a mistake, irrespective of the industry. That means if you pay someone to paint your house and he forgets to do one room or closet, you're not entitled to dispute the payment, cancel your check, or sue him for a "refund" on the entire job. The same is true if you take your car to a mechanic and he doesn't quite fix the problem (or every problem that you listed) on the first try. In every case, the seller or service provider is obligated to cure the mistake in timely fashion on notice of the problem. The same is true for essay providers.

There are two major exceptions:

1. If there's a specific agreement between the parties that the project must be completed without any mistakes by a specific date certain and that "time is of the essence," then, that would be a specific agreement notwithstanding the general policies posted in the TOS and/or on the website. However, it would be up to the essay company or writer to accept that project under those terms, and most already-busy writers just won't do it. Yes, academic projects all have deadlines on the client's end; but that doesn't mean that a client who procrastinates so long that the due date for the writer is also the client's actual due date gets to make that the writer's problem. Clients should always add some time in between the writer's deadline and the client's actual deadline, precisely in case there's some unavoidable delay or mistake. If clients wait until the day before a project is due to place the order and the essay company makes a mistake that justifies a free revision, that's the client's fault for waiting too long to order the essay and the client's problem, not the writer's.

2. If the essay company violates its own guarantees and warranties, the client doesn't have to allow a cure. One example would be where the company website guarantees original writing without plagiarism; because the client could rightfully pursue a full refund for any project containing plagiarized content. Be advised that in my experience writing for essay companies, that doesn't mean companies will necessarily honor that, because they typically handle those kinds of complaints as ordinary "revisions" and they don't offer refunds in those situations, either. Another example would be where the company guarantees that all of their writers are NES and that it doesn't use any ESL writers; but the essay provided displays obvious clues of ESL writing. The client may choose to take a free revision, but would be within his rights to demand a refund, iinstead.

Incorrect.

The only thing the client would have had to do was Google the titles of those articles. Whether or not the publications in which they appeared are "online" publications and/or whether or not the writer provided their actual URLs, it's still very easy to identify those articles online and to determine their true dates of publication. If the project instructions specified that only sources with more recent publication dates could be used and the writer just changed the dates so that he could use older articles instead of finding more ecent ones, the client obviously has a valid complaint.

For projects that are heavy on stats, I always let my clients know that I just pay someone who is a stats expert for that rather than struggling through it myself, and probably doing it much less well. Conversely, I wouldn't trust that someone who specializes in stats is, necessarily, a good enough writer for anybody to trust him on writing up the text of the analysis; but maintaining a relationship with one or two reliable stats experts has proven invaluable to me.

Correct.


Incorrect. While there certainly are some companies that do this as a mechanism for perpetrating fraud, there are also totally legitimate companies that do this for non-fraudulent reasons, such as in connection with their strategies for marketing to different kinds of clients and/or for promoting different types of services and different corresponding prices. For example, they might use one company name with the word "law" in it and another with the word "medical" simply because they think that customers searching for essays in those particular specialties are more likely to find them that way and/or might be more likely to use a company whose name includes one or the other specific area of apparent specialization than a company with a more general name that merely lists both Law and Medicine among its subject areas. I know nothing about the companies at issue in this thread; but, in principle, there's nothing necessarily fraudulent -- much less "definitely" fraudulent -- about every company that uses more than one company name.

There are no such things as "modern" vs. "traditional" concepts of plagiarism. The concept of academic plagiarism hasn't changed at all; the only thing that has changed is that modern software sometimes incorrectly flags original content as apparent "plagiarism" because some combinations of 4 or 5 words happen to be (randomly, coincidentally, and totally innocently) identical to combinations of words published elsewhere, more often than not, in totally unrelated topics. There's no point to running a preliminary scan, because if the content flagged in a Nursing project is based on apparent or totally coincidental similarity to a series of words in a project about the history of war (for example), there's nothing to "address" even if you see that it's been flagged. Professors also understand this completely. The same is true of factual or historical information that is practically impossible to express in any combination of words that hasn't already been written every possible way countless times (such as when certain historical events occurred and what countries were involved in wars). Writers who aren't simply paraphrasing everything from sources shouldn't need to scan anything they write, because they should already know with certainty that everything they're writing that isn't cited comes directly and originally and exclusively from their own minds. That concept hasn't changed since the invention of ink.

Agreed.

As I've explained many times over the years, writers who write for essay companies are all freelancers; in fact, many essay companies even state, quite specifically, right in their TOS and in their disclaimers, that they're not responsible for any harm or damages arising from plagiarism in the work that they provide, precisely because it's produced by "freelancers." Our contracts usually refer to us as "freelancers" and/or "subcontractors." Sometimes essay companies become "affiliates" of other (usually larger) essay companies; but that term isn't used for individual writers.

I've also explained many times that anytime you're talking about experienced writers, almost all company writers also do as much freelance work as they possibly can, and that almost all freelancers who eventually manage to become entirely independent start out writing mostly for essay companies until they can build up their own clientele. Furthermore, essay companies typically hire their writers on the basis of a resume and a writing sample; but they can't really ever know how good or bad a new writer really is until that writer starts actually submitting work. The main takeaway for prospective clients is that, much more often than not, you're dealing with the same (wider) pool of writers whether you use an essay company writer or a freelance writer. That doesn't mean it's smart to use any freelance writer who contacts you randomly or advertises on social media; but it's not any safer to use a company with no real record or verifiable reviews. At least customers who read this forum can check on the history of companies and of writers, some of whom have been posting here and advertising here for more than a decade.