There are also situations where clients request a draft because they're supposed to submit one for their first deadline and then submit a final version for a later deadline. In those situations, I give clients the option to pay for an essay of however many pages the draft is supposed to be and I purposely introduce some disorganization and some mistakes typically associated with drafts so that I can correct them for the final version. Then, I charge them a fair price to go back to it to resolve those issues and incorporate whatever other requests their professors demand in their remarks on the draft. The cost depends substantially on how much revision the professors demand and how much extra work is involved, but it's the more expensive option.

The other approach is for me to simply write the final version for the draft deadline and just let the clients mess them up a bit and/or leave some parts out and substitute some bullet points indicating that certain sections have yet to be fully developed in the final version. They change my essay as much as they want to create an imperfect "draft" for the draft deadline. Then, they just use my original essay for the final submission and if the professor makes any additional demands, I just incorporate whatever they ask for and charge what's fair for that extra work. It almost always reflects arbitrary and subjective preferences of the professor and as often as not, those suggestions don't really improve the essay; they just reflect the professors' need to criticize something and provide "instruction" to feel like they're doing their jobs. Plenty of times, their suggestions actually make the final essay worse instead of better, but I'll do whatever it takes to satisfy them. That option usually costs less in total because it involves less extra work than developing a true draft first and then resolving the deliberate disorganization, incompleteness, and imperfections necessary to make it a convincing "draft."

Once clients know they can trust a writer, it's obviously no longer an issue, but all you have to do is search the term "blackmail" on this forum to understand why it can be risky for students to divulge that kind of information to someone they don't already know they can trust. Here's what your search will generate, and that's just threads with "blackmail" in the titles of threads, not in posts. (If you change the search from its default "titles" to "messages," you'll get a much longer list.)

essayscam.org/forum/index.php?phrase=blackmail&action=search&searchGo=1

1. Oct 30, 2018 => Oct 30, 2018 - Essay Services / Being blackmail by essay Scam site IWORKBOXX [12]

2. May 23, 2018 => Nov 16, 2018 - General Talk / Extortion-blackmail email from a writer? [9]

3. May 22, 2018 => Aug 17, 2018 - Essay Services / Possible blackmail (paid for a coding assignment)! Advice needed! [12] 📎

4. Jan 24, 2018 => Aug 17, 2018 - General Talk / I was blackmailed by a freelance writer found via social media [9]

5. Oct 24, 2016 => Feb 17, 2017 - Essay Services / Help! myassignmenthelp.com.DND is trying to blackmail me! [9]

6. Apr 27, 2015 => Nov 22, 2018 - Essay Services / Scammed and blackmailed by a Kenyan writer @ etc. [16]

7. Jul 04, 2014 => Aug 19, 2014 - Essay Services / Scammed and Blackmailed by a writer from Africa [8]

8. Mar 10, 2014 => Aug 13, 2018 - General Talk / Blackmailed by writer [16]

True, but only if their business model is to earn money from providing exactly what they advertise to a growing list of satisfied customers. For every operation with that business model in this industry, there may be 10 (or 100) whose business model is to invest in heavily-advertising a flashy-looking website designed to scam and cheat an endless supply of first-time/last-time customers and then just change the name of the enterprise and website. Some of them (including a few that have been documented on this forum as total scams, complete with lengthy "chat" logs) don't even bother changing names and just advertise so heavily that they can absorb any damage from bad reviews because so many new clients don't do their basic due diligence in researching those sites before getting sucked in by their websites and fake "testimonials."

About once a month or once every other month, someone contacts me for a project and declines to order it because of the price...only to contact me again a few weeks later with "URGENT PLEASE HELP ME" or something like that in the subject field of a new email after the cheaper provider they paid provided something that was all plagiarized or totally unusable for other reasons. They end up paying me more than my original quote because of the rush in addition to having wasted 50-75% of what I charge for the unusable essay they got elsewhere.

Clients do sometimes go out of their way to tell me that they intend to use the essay as a guide to help them write their own essays. It always seems like a transparent attempt to protect themselves or just to maintain a façade because they're embarrassed to admit (even to me, a total stranger) that they intend to use the work the way we all know they're really going to use it. Other times, they take a different approach by telling me, in great detail, about being very good students who always do their own work, but that they're dealing with major life challenges, such as diseases or tragedies in their families. I usually respond that they don't have to justify anything to me and that I'm grateful for their patronage and that I need them as much as they need me because this is how I earn a living.

The other reason that I don't think many of them use the product to help them develop as writers is that I'm often astonished at how much they're willing to pay for the simplest of rush projects, such as responses to forum posts of their classmates or basic essays for Composition I courses, such as whether they think an online education is as good as a traditional college experience, or what their most pleasant experience was. Sometimes, they even order projects consisting of writing a business letter or an email. It does happen that clients order projects to learn how to write, but incredibly rarely. One of my favorite current clients actually orders essays that aren't even assigned because he's really trying to learn how to write; and I can tell that this is true by the nature of those projects and because he also orders many projects that are assigned without any embarrassment. He's even ordered 2,000-word essays asking me to write about how I researched and wrote his previous project, just to help him understand. Another runs two businesses and really knows his stuff, but can't afford to stay up all night writing these things instead of getting some sleep. I've also had a Harvard-trained practicing surgeon who was going to law school and (understandably) didn't have the time to write his law school projects. (This was also the first time I realized that law schools now assign much more writing than they used to: when I was in law school, the only writing I did besides one exam at the end of every course were a few projects in two Legal Writing courses and one major thesis on a topic of my choice.) However, these types of clients represent (literally) less than 1% of my clientele over the last 10 years.

I think you mean it's a gamble, not a bargain. What's your native language, just out of curiosity?

In this country, a company must provide a 1099 to every independent contractor who earns $600 or more that year and a corresponding 1096 to the IRS, both by January 31st.

OK, I think those are pretty comprehensive, direct, and good-faith answers to all of your questions. My turn: You've mentioned writing for essay companies many times on this forum, most recently here: https://essayscam.org/forum/wc/writer-best-options-client-5164/#msg81752

What essay companies do you work for?

I'm more than happy to answer direct questions from anybody who's willing to do the same when I ask direct questions.


Obviously, the vast majority of our clients don't use the product to help them "write their own projects" and every writer and essay company knows this without any doubt, regardless of all the language to the contrary on their websites and in their "TOS." I don't have an ethical problem with it because it's not like we're taking medical or pilot licensing exams for anybody. There's no justification for the emphasis on written assignments in higher education in the first place, especially in courses for non-majors. Nurses and engineers don't become worse nurses or engineers because they outsourced their college History or Philosophy papers. The entire decision to pursue education beyond high school is optional; so, IMO, it's none of the schools' business what courses or skills students choose to work on outside of their degree programs (especially). This is obviously only a small part of a much longer and more complex conversation; but those are some of the broadest strokes.


As explained in greater detail in my Review thread, I empathize with them, precisely, because I remember how stressful and how much of a burden it was for me in college to have a 10 or 15-page term paper hanging over my head all semester, even for someone who was always a naturally-good writer. Ironically, considering how I ended up earning a living, that was the specific reason I chose law school instead of pursuing a higher degree in Psychology, despite the fact that I never had any interest in practicing law but would have made a fantastic psychologist. If I'd have known how good I was going to become at writing post-grad Psychology projects, I'd have pursued that career track and it's probably the main thing I'd change if I could live my life over again.

If the request is reasonable, (such as an honest mistake leaving out some requirement for the project), I'll allow it as long as I haven't already devoted any time writing about or researching anything that's no longer usable for the project because of the late change. Same goes for late notes from the professor about the requirements or major changes. If accommodating those requests doesn't change anything for the writer or cost him extra time. However, if I've already started working on anything that now needs changing because of the new instructions, there's a cost for my wasted time. And a writer reserves the right to reject annoying unnecessary late changes, especially those that just reflect the client's arbitrary whims, (such as "Hey, you know what? I saw Moby Dick yesterday and I've decided to do the paper about 19th Century Whaling instead of Teenage Texting Habits." (Because I didn't quote a project that requires analyzing 19th-Century Literature ; I quoted a project much more topical and simple to research and write.) Client's wouldn't want to receive an email from a writer a week after confirming the project saying "Hey, you know what? This one's going to be $150 and not $100." Right? Well, that how writers feel when we get certain types of late change requests.

The problem is that many customers procrastinate so long before ordering long projects that they don't leave themselves enough time to order them in multiple sections. They often contact us only two or three days before their due date. If they've already used the writer before, the only consequences of procrastination are a higher price than they'd have had to pay for a longer deadline and (if it's the height of our busy seasons) our possibly not being able to squeeze it in by their deadline. If they've never used the particular writer or company before, they're putting themselves in the position of having no choice but to trust that the writer or company is legitimate and capable of providing the work quality they need. That's never the fault of the writer and it's simply not appropriate to expect us to take any risk of not being fully paid because someone we don't know waited too long to test us out before ordering a large prepaid project. The operative phrase is "your procrastination is not my emergency."

True, but mainly because potential employers over-value degrees. I've certainly benefited from their inferences about my degrees, but I've known plenty of people with identical (or very similar) educational backgrounds who can barely compose an articulate and error-free email, let alone write a thesis or dissertation, even without the time pressure associated with those projects by the time degree candidates typically decide to order them from me.

Exactly. However, it actually takes me longer to write something worse than my natural level, which always makes it a little annoying when new clients ask how much of a price reduction they can get if they "only want a C" paper. I don't charge them more for it, but I'm certainly not going to give them a lower price for something that takes me longer to do than just writing it as well as I possibly can.

In my experience writing for essay companies, nobody at the company reviews (much less edits or corrects) projects before clients receive them. Writers simply upload them directly to the system and the client receives whatever file is uploaded nearly instantaneously. The only projects that get reviewed by anybody at the company are those for which the customer requests a revision that the writer declines. Even revised projects don't ordinarily get reviewed as long as the writers complete the revisions and upload them to the system.

It's really just an excuse to charge gullible clients more for the exact same project they'd receive regardless of which standard they select. Grading is too subjective to be able to guarantee a specific mark and chances are the same companies that provide the (illusory) option to select a 2:1 or a 2:2 also have fine print in their TOS saying that their product isn't intended to be submitted for academic credit at all.

I'd be very surprised if any students (especially in the UK) took up this offer, even with the promise of anonymity.

Assuming this is what you meant to suggest, I know of no legitimate writer with extensive experience and a well-established reputation and real reviews who accepts payment for anything after delivery or who agrees to anything less than payment in full at the time you order a project. Most of us don't require you to pay for a long project in advance if you only want to order one section at a time, but whatever section(s) you order must always be paid in advance in full.

I've always been very open about exactly what I do for a living anytime someone asks. If someone wants to discuss the ethical issues it might raise, I'm more than happy to have that discussion as well.

Generally, the appropriateness of unpaid revision requests relates much more to the specs than to the timing of the request. If the original specs weren't fully met, time really isn't the issue; and if the original specs were fully met, no unpaid revision request is ever appropriate, regardless of how quickly it's requested.

It might be a common request, but it's still risky for students.

For anybody who has already stumbled across this forum, all you have to do is check to see how long any particular writer has been here without any complaints. You can also use the search function here to review any writer's history; but remember to change the default "Titles" to "Messages" so your results aren't limited just to the titles of threads.

As I've explained before, even at legit companies, projects can languish on their assignment boards beyond their due dates, still untaken by any writer. Legit companies eventually just refund those orders. That's obviously not going to help those clients meet their deadlines, but it's a flaw attributable to the automated ordering systems used by most high-volume essay companies. Before I was prohibited from doing it, I used to check the company boards for forum members here who wanted to know whether their company orders had been taken by a writer, because the only confirmation they received was that their orders had been accepted by the companies, without any subsequent notification to let them know whether or not any writer had actually taken their projects off the assignment board.

Don't you think that being able to interact with people and communicate effectively in person is an essential skill that they'll need in the workplace environment?

I could imagine that bidding on projects might be a way for new writers to get their feet wet with some business, but not experienced writers whose work is at the high end of the quality range for this type of work.

Some clients are just a pleasure to work with from their initial inquiry onward; others have no common sense and continually make things more difficult than necessary by failing to follow the simplest instructions over and over again. If they don't get the hang of it after a few reminders, I stop mentioning it and just charge them more for wasting my time unnecessarily.

I don't know anything about them, but in my opinion, I'd suggest caution anytime any essay company's website says anything about assigning or "appointing" a writer with the perfect background and skills for your project, because that's just not how things really work at essay companies. Projects aren't "assigned" to writers; they're taken by whichever writer chooses to take whatever orders are posted on the assignment board. Nor is there any mechanism that requires writers to have any particular degree or "background" to take any order posted on the assignment board. Even totally legit companies just rely on their writers to know what projects they're capable of doing and even the best writers would be incapable of doing this for a living if we could only take projects in those subject-matter areas in which we actually hold formal degrees. For example, I've never taken a single Nursing or Business Management, or Marketing course, let alone holding a degree in any of those fields; but I've probably written close to 1,000 projects in each one of them, with hundreds of requests from those clients for subsequent projects. The same is probably true of my most-qualified competitors.

A. It's hardly poetry. You're just extremely predictable and right on time: "aucrtciastam..." is just an abbreviation for "aforementioned undisclosed company rep to chime in any second to ask me..." I'll omit the last part, since you didn't ask me exactly what I figured you would.

B. Actually, my company account is still active. As of this minute, there are exactly 2 orders posted: one is an Education project ordered on May 7th and due on May 9th and the other is a database project ordered on May 15th and due on May 23rd. The fact that there's a project posted with a due date of May 9th (now that I've checked because of your response to me) perfectly illustrates my earlier point about company projects sometimes lingering on their assignment boards long after their due dates have come and gone. It also illustrates another point I've made earlier about what often happens when customers request a specific writer: namely, that the requested writer obviously didn't want the project and it's apparently been sitting there available to any of hundreds of other writers ever since it went public.

C. Obviously, it's untrue that anybody didn't want me as part of any team. I just haven't taken any company orders in a very long time, entirely by my choice. This, also, is something you already know, despite your baseless suggestion to the contrary just about anytime I say anything that you perceive as negative about essay companies, for obvious reasons (see A above).

D. We're on good enough terms (see C. above) that I still refer projects to them occasionally.

I haven't really encountered much of an "off season" since roughly 2010. People go to school all year nowadays, especially online. That's obviously a good thing, but it also means that with the exception of a two or three-week stretch a few times a year, we can be very busy with work all year long. I've only taken three real vacations since 2007 and I ended up writing some projects every time, whether to avoid leaving a regular customer in the lurch or to avoid (possibly) losing all the future business of a new customer. Probably my favorite thing to do with any down-time I do have is simply nothing.

Every company writer I've ever known has also tried to generate as much direct work as possible. That can be much easier said that done, so most of us relied heavily on company work even while trying to build our own brands.

I'm an advertiser here, but to my knowledge, the site doesn't actually do anything to vet their advertisers. That means the length of time that writers have been active here (especially, without any complaints about them ever having ripped anybody off) is probably the most reliable indicator that someone is a legit service provider and not some scam.

The main thing that most essay companies don't want students to know is that all of their orders usually just get posted on a single bulletin-board-type of screen and that all of their writers have the same access to every project on a first-come/first-served basis and outside of any control exercised by the company. Some of the (undisclosed) reps from essay companies who post here have previously said that some companies do restrict what orders can be viewed by some writers, but I've never encountered this, personally. (One of them also once suggested that I wouldn't know this because I might not have been one of their highest-paid writers, which I believe even that person knows, full well, isn't the case at all.) The only companies for which I've ever written exercised no control other than by: (1) setting a higher payout per page for those of us who were their best and most-experienced writers, (2) limiting how many projects new writers could take per day, and (3) contacting some of us directly to ask us to take specific (unlisted) projects for their friends and family members or to offer us un-publicized bonuses to take certain projects that were already languishing on the assignment board with their deadlines getting closer and closer.

Another thing essay companies would prefer customers not to know is that their orders might sit on the assignment board for quite a long time before a writer takes them and that, sometimes, they stay on the assignment board untaken by any writer until their deadlines pass and that those orders just get refunded if nobody ever takes them. Possibly the most important thing that essay companies don't want customers to know is that there is a very high turnover rate among their writers, largely because the companies themselves really have no way of knowing how good or bad their new writers really are until they start getting requests for them or complaints about them, and that some of them get fired for incompetence shortly after submitting horrible (or plagiarized) work on their first few projects. For every writer who ends up doing this successfully on a fulltime basis, there are probably 5 or 10 (or more) who only do this very irregularly and/or realize very quickly that they lack the ability to do this job well at all.

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A lot of customers don't even notice all of the obvious mistakes in web copy that professional writers notice, including (especially) the typical signs of ESL writing, which tend to be somewhat subtle, although quite consistent and reliable as indicators go. I'd disagree that the bad web copy isn't also an indication that you'll probably receive equally-bad writing (or much worse), because essay companies tend to use their best writers to write their web copy, as I've done for at least one essay company for which I used to write.

The OP framed the question as though the only option is for customers to take a big risk by providing companies about which they know nothing with details about where they go to school. Legitimate providers in this industry don't require that information and there are quite a few precautions that customers can take to substantially reduce the various risks associated with their first experiences using an essay provider, even for the first time.

On what basis would you suggest that "almost all academic writers are professionals"? I'd suggest that the exact opposite is true, which is precisely why first-time customers in this industry get ripped off (or badly disappointed) so frequently and why a forum such as this one is necessary. In my experience, the vast majority of those who represent themselves as professional academic writers are totally unqualified rank amateurs who are, at best, merely hoping to begin doing this for a living. For every one of us who actually does this fulltime for a living, there are probably somewhere between 10 and 100 who are nowhere even remotely close to being able to represent themselves honestly and accurately as "professional writers" of any kind, whatsoever.

That's an easy enough thing to say, but the fact of the matter is that many college students are motivated to succeed (and/or to select specific majors) substantially to satisfy their parents' expectations of them.

Legitimate companies also typically issue monthly payments, and usually on the 1st of every month.

I haven't really noticed a correspondence between clients' local time zone and when their requests come in. Sometimes, I get inquiries at 4:00 AM from clients who are in my (EST/NYC) TZ; other times, I get inquiries at 10:00 PM my time from clients whose local time is 3:00 or 4:00 AM. The volume of inquiries varies quite predictably with the calendar month, but as far as times of day that they come in, it's always been fairly random, at least in my experience.

PhD candidates are often allowed to use editors for their dissertations. That's the only exception of which I'm aware to the general proposition that all professors in all programs in all academic institutions of higher learning expect all students to do 100% of their own writing 100% of the time.

Online education is just part of a much larger general trend toward doing business online. Within the next decade or two (if not sooner), most traditional white-collar jobs that don't actually require hands-on work or face-to-face client interaction will probably be performed remotely rather than in office buildings, and for most of the same reasons listed above in connection with online education.

Generally, customers have no idea that the essay companies from which they order their projects use ESL writers until they get their essays and they're written in barely-comprehensible "English." Essay companies that use ESL writers typically don't disclose that; in fact, they usually do everything possible to conceal that fact, including claiming, very specifically, that all of their writers are ENL holders of advanced post-graduate degrees..