As someone who'd probably be considered a "senior member" here, I'd suggest that "seniority" here really doesn't mean all that much. In fact, some of the members you should trust the least have been posting here as long as I have (or longer). I'd suggest that your independent determination of the arguments made by other members that you read is more important than how long anybody has been posting here, and that the way that posters express themselves in English is a pretty good indication of how well they can write in general. You might also want to use the search function and go through posting histories of any forum writers you're considering and consider whether they contribute productively to topics of conversations and maintain professional relationships with other writers or never contribute productively to any topic and do absolutely nothing but viciously attack other writers, and in very broken "English" that is barely understandable as English. You should know that everybody posting here is either a customer or a writer or an essay company rep and you might also want to consider that some of us choose to disclose very clearly what we are while others choose not to disclose exactly what they are or why they're here in the first place. Finally, check the banner ads too, because I doubt the forum administrators would accept advertisements from anybody who's ever been accused of ripping anybody off here.

I believe he was being sarcastic. My understanding is that Google recently substantially changed their policies and protocols in ways that you (as an IT expert) would understand much better than I do. Briefly, they implemented a program called Penguin-II that now penalizes some of the very practices upon which many essay companies used to rely very heavily to boost their rankings by having numerous different sites that all linked back and forth to one another in various ways.

To answer your question about something I know much more: You cannot really know what kind of quality (or originality) you'll get from any new writer or company until you try them out with a small order to limit your potential losses and then check the work for both quality and plagiarism.

I know NSTB as a very appreciative client (who liked my work but not my prices) and Meo as a legitimate writer (whose work I don't believe I've ever seen firsthand). In my opinion, there are enough real dirtbags who post here that you two shouldn't fight one another.

It's just very impractical for a writer to do the work before payment for the same reasons that the vast majority of most types of consumer transactions and services conducted online are always paid up front. A writer doesn't actually have any practical resource to recover unpaid bills because: (1) Many times, clients prefer not to even disclose their identities; (2) Most of our clients live way too far away (including overseas) to pursue a $100 or $500 or $1,000 claim by travelling to that jurisdiction to go to court over it; and (3) Even if they're local, we'd still lose much more money in time and expenses pursuing it than just letting it go.

It's also easier for a client to guard against getting ripped off than it is for a writer. A client can (and always should) test any new writer with a very short paper before trusting the writer with a major pre-paid project. Once you get a good piece of work, you can be fairly certain that you're dealing with a legitimate writer who actually does this for a living and isn't in the business of ripping anybody off. It's extremely unlikely that a writer is going to provide good work on a short project just to bait you into prepaying for a much longer project with the intention of scamming you on it. Writers also have a reputation to protect and a strong incentive to satisfy their clients; conversely, clients typically don't have a reputation to protect or any vested interest in maintaining the same online identity for many years.

The reverse is much more of a risk. Specifically, the only two times I was ever stiffed by a client was by someone for whom I'd written several dozen projects (maybe more) over several years. Once in a while, the person would ask to pay after delivery and I didn't have a problem with it, reasoning (precisely) that it was a long-term client who'd always paid me up front and who also paid up the few times I'd previously accepted payment after delivery. The person actually asked to pay for the last two projects afterwards. It turned out that they were the very last two projects of her degree and instead of paying up on the date promised, she apologized for the delay and promised payment "next week." After next week came and went, she wrote me a long email apologizing again, profusely, and explaining how tight her family was financially and that she'd "try" to make good on the debt as soon as possible. No payment ever came. About a year or so later, the same person had the nerve to email asking for a job application letter (about integrity for a law-enforcement-related job, no less), promising to pay up front for it but without any acknowledgment of the unpaid debt. That type of thing happened to me another time with a different client for whom I'd also provided many projects for several years.

You also have to keep in mind that some clients who are totally new to this whole process don't understand (until it's explained when the issue first comes up) that requests for some types changes after an essay has already been furnished are totally unreasonable, such as where the client tells you only after the fact to focus on some specific area or element that was never part of the original order specs at all. When that happens on a pre-paid project, we just explain politely that rewrites for our mistakes or omissions are always free, but that changes and edits the client only thinks of after the work provided perfectly meets the original specs always have to be paid as additional work. Human nature being what it is, some clients would unfairly demand the additional work and refuse to pay for the project until the additional work they have no right to demand fairly is provided.

Some writers who really need the work more than very established writers may still knowingly choose to take the risk of not getting paid once in a while in their effort to compete for business, and that's their choice. But those of us who have been doing this for many years just don't need to take that kind of risk. I no longer even allow established clients to pay after the fact, because of the specific type of experience that I detailed above. That doesn't mean a client is "wrong" or nonsensical to prefer paying after delivery; but you have to understand why that's a condition that really narrows down your pool of potential writers and that you're excluding many of the best and most experienced writers who are in the greatest demand because they're good at what they do and that you're increasing your chances of getting a writer who is much less experienced and in less demand than those of us who don't need the work badly enough to take any risk of not getting paid.

None of the above is intended as an insult to or criticism of any legitimate writer who chooses to take that risk, and there may very well be a less-competitive niche to fill by offering delivery before payment; but that niche has a lot less competition from experienced writers for some very good reasons.

Just want to make sure that this isn't confused as having anything to do with me.

I usually ask them when they'd "prefer" delivery and when they "must" have it; because (sometimes) that allows me to give them two different prices (or even a price range) for the project that corresponds to their possible delivery range. Otherwise, the first date they mention may make it more inconvenient than necessary for me and more expensive than necessary for them.

Actually, to illustrate exactly what I was just saying, most of the time that clients want to talk by phone, it's only to make absolutely sure that the spoken English of the American writer they just hired doesn't sound anything like this:

I suppose I should be flattered by your continual obsession with me, even in threads where I'm not mentioned, but you've never seen anything that I've ever written about anything besides my forum posts. People (apparently) choose to pay much more for my work than for yours substantially because the work they get from me sounds like it was written by someone who posts in English on this forum, whereas whatever they receive from you obviously sounds like it was written by someone who posts in whatever that language is in all of your posts on this forum.

Actually, the only "rights" customers have (besides to general good faith and honesty in your representation of intentions, skills, ability, and experience) are those to which you mutually agree. If you represent to clients that you will provide a direct phone # and phone support, then they have a right to expect exactly what you promised them; but if you don't make that representation, then there is no automatic "right" to anything never discussed or agreed to initially.

In my experience, the main reason clients want to call me is just to verify that I'm really located exactly where I say I'm located, and that I don't have a foreign accent. There are very few projects that actually require phone conversations, although some new clients don't necessarily understand that at first, simply because this whole process is a new experience for them and/or because they don't realize that some of the assignments that are so challenging for them are routine for us and no different from most of the other dozen or more projects we handle every week.

Ideally, once you find a writer you trust, the entire process for a new assignment should require nothing more than the exchange of 2 to 4 emails: (1) Client to Writer w/new topic, specs & due date; (2) Writer to Client w/price quote; (3) Client to Writer w/notice of payment or rejection of the offer; and (4) Writer to Client w/confirmation of payment & scheduling. When people use you repeatedly for very similar projects, they often just send a single email to provide the specs/due date with payment issued virtually simultaneously, and all I have to do is say "thank you...confirmed for 1/6/14" or whatever. In other cases, they send the info first, wait for the price, and then just issue payment and I confirm.

It can be a longer process if you also negotiate price if they reject your quote, but that's one reason I don't. If they send a "counteroffer," I just respond with a last email along the lines of: "I'm sorry but I don't negotiate price...no pressure to use me...feel free to try me some other time on a short paper if you're not happy with work you find cheaper for this one...good luck with it."

At most, there's still one last exchange where they ask for a "referral" and I have to explain that I only provide referrals for work that I can't do or don't want, and not to help people compete against my prices for work that I'm happy to do for whatever price I already quoted. Even most of the prospective clients who ask that in the first place understand it immediately once I explain the difference; and those who don't and who respond argumentatively or sarcastically would probably have been way too annoying to do long-term business with anyway.

Only anybody clever enough to decipher that coded secret message in a clickable link at the top of every page that reads "ADVERTISE HERE."

It wasn't a commercial. In retrospect, it was just a prospective client just trying to figure out whether I'm legit in an unusual way. Originally, I suspected it was a set up and you're thelastperson here who should have trouble understanding what I thought was going on, or who might have been responsible. I responded to protect myself in the exact same way the legitimate essay companies with which you're very well acquainted responded when they thought someone was falsely attacking their reputation online: I asked a few customers of mine to post their totally honest reviews; just like those essay companies asked a few writers (including me) to post our honest reviews about them. The two differences are that in that case, they asked writers, not customers; and in that case, they actually asked us toregister accounts on the forum where they asked us to respond.

I (still) don't even know which of my clients HW is and I haven't asked anybody to leave any kind of review of me anywhere since that first day. It's not my fault that all of the genuine comments from my clients and from several other legitimate writers who know me all said something supportive. I already said several times that if it had been up to me I'd have deleted the thread, but that isn't exactly up to me. I'd also like to have back the part of my life that I've had to waste responding to it.


Actually, I've paid for a banner ad on this forum previously and intend to again, just not right before most potential clients are leaving for their vacations.


Thank you, again. You don't have to spend your time getting involved in this, but I appreciate it. If you get a chance, email me to let me know who you are if you want to.

I don't know who the person is and I didn't ask anybody to leave a review anywhere. Someone said something nice; I just said "thank you" and corrected something that happens to contradict what I've said previously here (and on my website) about not usually providing any updates on pending work. I don't want anybody getting the wrong idea and then complaining that I don't give "updates" other than reassuring clients that their projects are (still) scheduled on my calendar for delivery on the date originally promised.

Thank you. I don't know who you are but I suspect probably the two Employment Law projects that I just did earlier today.

Actually, I don't really provide updates on most projects; I just deliver them on the date promised. In your case (if you're the person I have in mind), you originally asked for delivery on the "15th or 16th" and since you were a first-time client, I just didn't want you to start getting nervous last night or this morning, so I emailed yesterday to let you know that both of your essays would be ready this afternoon. You just happen to be a very easy and patient client, which I definitely appreciate; but don't give people the wrong idea, because I wouldn't want any less easy or patient clients to start expecting periodic updates on all their pending projects. Few things more annoying than emails asking "how's my essay coming along?" when it's a short paper that's still several days (and maybe a dozen or more other projects) in my future and it's just a name and topic in a little box on a date on my calendar. (On the other hand, a quick email just to make sure I have you scheduled for delivery on the date when you're expecting your essay is perfectly fine.) But thank you, again.

Just in the outside chance anybody reading doesn't immediately recognize this fool for what he is, I've used (only) this exact same S/N on every essay-writing-related forum and as my ID at every essay company and as my only essay-writing-related email since 2000. I recently added only one other email to my website, so that I know who found me where. Both of my emails are always listed together on any public forum where they're allowed to be posted. Anybody who reaches me at the 2nd email is always told to switch to my main email in my first response. Furthermore, anybody who's ever read anything I've posted on the topic of payment knows that I don't even schedule work, much less write and provide it, until it's pre-paid in full.

Well, it's obviously going to be up to people reading them to decide for themselves whether they sound credible or altered. Just copy/paste the body of the text without the headers or contact information. There's no way for you to prove they're unaltered, but it's better than asking for our opinion just based on your narrative synopsis of what you say the conversation was.

Without disclosing anybody's identity or emails (yours or hers), why don't you just post the substance of your email to her informing her of the problem with the work and also post her response so that people reading this can form an opinion of who might be the cause of the apparent communication breakdown. I don't even schedule anything until it's paid in full, so it sounds a little weird to me that a writer who actually writes before payment would suddenly adopt such an unreasonable position if she really made all the mistakes you've described. Sometimes I make mistakes and if they're brought to my attention, I always want to fix them ASAP, even though I've already been paid, just to keep clients happy and keep their future business. If I did the work first, I couldn't imagine refusing to fix my mistakes with the client witholding my payment for it. Let us see the conversation if you want our opinion of who's right and who's wrong.

Major, I'm not looking to argue with you either; but as long as we're clearing up misconceptions and inaccuracies:

I believe the contract I signed says termination without notice for cause or on 2 weeks notice without cause; and whether I'm an employee or an at-will independent contractor, I can never be terminated if it's because the company owner doesn't like my religious beliefs or for publicly expressing why I reject any other specific religious beliefs.

I respectfully disagree. Those of us who have simply chosen to use that feature have much less reason to argue with anybody about anything, not more. In my opinion, once the forum mods make that decision, it's just not appropriate for anybody who doesn't like that decision to be angry at anybody who just chooses to do what the forum mods have decided to allow. So far, I believe (without a single exception) every combative comment about that has come from members who have not chosen to exercise that option and not from members who have.

The text you quoted was an entirely accurate synopsis of Major's thesis about essay companies and the purpose of their TOS. He characterized students who submit model academic papers for credit as "dishonest customers" that legit essay companies have no interest in doing business with. That's exactly what he said. Since you've said many times yourself that legit essay companies would never knowingly furnish essays to be submitted for academic credit, I don't know why you'd have a problem with what I said, either.

I'd strongly prefer if neither any essay-company reps nor any freelance writers tried to steer customers away from one another in rhetorically-titled threads obviously designed to do exactly that, but that's not up to me. I'd never start that kind of thread as a way of competing against essay companies but if they choose to "compete" that way, we freelance writers should be able to respond without fear of reprisals or any other kinds of threats from anybody.

To Major & WB:

In my opinion, it just does not make sense for reps or owners of legitimate essays companies who post here and legitimate freelance writers who post here to be fighting one another or using any (arguably) underhanded strategies against one another in the threads they initiate. All of us legitimate essay providers should be able to coexist here symbiotically without conflict the same way the legitimate writers who know one another all seem to get along and the way the legitimate essay-company reps all seem to get along with one another here as well. If there is a conflict here, it should be between us and all of the illegitimate scum who rip off customers and who ruin this business for all customers and all legitimate essay providers. You should not consider good freelance writers your "enemies" just because we're also competitors for some of the same business, especially when some of the companies being represented here actually employ some of us freelance writers who post here. Obviously, I have no control of what any of you choose to do, but that would be my most sincere suggestion and I'd be more comfortable interacting that way than arguing with you while the real scum watch this and probably benefit from it. Thank you.

To answer your question politely: I've been writing for the same essay companies for 10 years and you and I both know that they have considered me to be one of their very best writers (of hundreds) all of that time. So if I were to suddenly get fired because you didn't like my posts on a forum that is not connected to those essay companies in any way, I would obviously know that you're really the owner of those essay companies after all your public denials about that here for years.

After 10 years of writing for them, getting fired so soon after you made very clear in the Obama Healthcare thread how much you detest me for being an atheist, I'd probably also conclude that there was some religious discrimination involved in your decision to instruct your employees to fire me a few weeks later without cause and for no other conceivable reason, even as an at-will-employed independent contractor.

I'm not looking to fight with you or with any essay companies. I don't ever start threads here like:
"Can customers do anything to avoid having their orders taken by the worst writer at an essay company?" or
"Do essay companies really know anything about the qualifications and credentials of the writers they hire?"

But lately, there seems to be a deliberate strategy of essay company owners, reps, or "affiliates" here of creating exactly those types of rhetorical threads whose obvious purpose is to convince prospective customers to avoid all freelance writers and to use essay companies instead. If a freelance writer dared to start threads like that here to do the exact same thing in reverse, all of the essay company owners and reps (especially those who are pretending to be objective "observers") would go absolutely nuts.

I haven't "backstabbed" anybody...and as far as that forged email that someone forwarded to you last year claiming I was "stealing customers" from the essay company you say you don't own and planning to "take it down" and also asking about your "spouse" or where you live, I emailed you and the essay company offering to meet them or you or your investigators anywhere in Northern NJ or Manhattan, and even told you you're welcome to come to my home so that you could watch me log into AOL to find the emails on my account from the same date and time of day as that forged email you received. I told you that the person who forged it probably didn't bother to change the time stamp on the header of the innocuous real email that I probably sent that person and I suggested that would prove to anybody concerned that the email you believe I wrote was forged by someone we both know had a vendetta against me. Neither you nor the essay company ever responded except to tell me that they wanted to just put it behind us and get back to making money together. Since that was more than a year ago, none of that could possibly have anything to do with why I'd get fired now. And my offer to meet any of you to conduct that test is still open.

Finally, as far as getting banned from this forum goes, I haven't broken any rules in a very long time. I didn't start the thread asking for reviews about me and even Major now seems to believe me that all I did was ask some of my clients to check the thread and post an honest response to it. I had no idea that any of them weren't already registered here and if they emailed back to tell me that, I told them to disregard my earlier email, not to hurry up and register here to help me defend against what I genuinely thought was a set-up by some of the very same people you consider complete scum. And before you suggest that what I did was somehow "wrong" anyway, ask yourself how that was any different from that time a couple of years ago when the reps at the essay company you say you don't own emailed me asking me to register over at Rip-offReports.com to post my honest response to the complaint of some other writer who posted complaints there about supposedly getting ripped off by that company?

Got it. So if students plan on doing anything like actually submitting the essays they buy for academic credit, the one thing they shouldn't do is buy them from any essay companies, at least not from any legitimate ones; and of course, all the illegitimate companies are just going to rip them off or furnish garbage anyway; so they shouldn't use them either. Thanks for clearing all that up and for taking the time to start these kinds of threads; I'm sure many readers trying to better understand how this industry works find them very helpful.

Understood. If essay companies' TOS expressly prohibit customers from submitting any of their work for academic credit, what do they do if they find out that a customer violated those TOS? Do they report them to their schools or something? Sue them for damages?

Thank you. If I understand your argument correctly, what you're saying is that any customers who buy essays intending to turn them in for academic credit are "dishonest buyers" and that no legitimate essay company wants the business from those types of customers. Is that what you're saying? (Again, not commenting either way; just trying to understand.)

Do you think it's important at all (or "relevant") for people reading this to understand that, in many cases, the freelance writers you characterize as "not professionals" are actually the very same writers whose work the essay companies sell to their clients after taking out a middle-man's cut?

Admittedly, I can only speak for myself and for the other 3 highly experienced American writers whose work I know, but all 4 of us work simultaneously for some of the same essay companies while also maintaining our freelance client bases. While we all put in a very conscientious effort into any work we do for essay companies, I know from talking to all 3 of them and from my own experience, that, if anything, we all put in even more of a conscientious effort into our freelance work and frequently, we go more out of our way for our freelance clients, such as by providing more pages than were actually ordered or (sometimes) by squeezing in last-minute requests for the same price as their other orders, than we do for company orders.

Are you suggesting that the actual writing we provide is more "professional" when the essay companies sell our work to their customers after taking a cut of the payment than it is when we sell it directly to our freelance clients? Because, at least in our cases, we're the same writers of the work regardless of who sells it to the customers. In my view, either we're professional writers in both cases or the essays companies are selling work done by amateurs. Take your pick, but I don't think you can simultaneously characterize it both ways just to convince customers that they should all be ordering only from essay companies and not from freelance writers.

So your company expressly prohibits customers from submitting the essays you provide them for academic credit. That's certainly one sure sign of a totally legitimate essay company and it's something to be proud of. Which essay company is it that you work for?

Do you also specify that your company retains all copyrights including the right to resell the work later, like most essay companies?

What are the TOS used by your essay company?

By formal agreement, do you mean the way most essay-company TOS expressly prohibit their customers from submitting any of the essays they purchase for academic credit and specifically require them to cite anything they use from their work like this (XYZ Essay Corp., 2013), in any projects their customers submit for grades if they use any of the material their customers purchase from them? Those kinds of TOS? Or do you mean the way most essay-company TOS expressly retain copyright to all work provided and reserve the right to resell it? (Not commenting either way; just asking what you mean.)

What are the TOS used by your company?

I didn't want this publicity at all. My only "intention" was to protect myself pre-emptively against what I thought could be a very nasty, totally dishonest attempt by one of my illegitimate competitors here to set me up and then ruin my reputation with lies by proxy shills. If I'd have know that the thread was started by a real potential client in the first place, I'd have simply posted a short response encouraging my clients to respond truthfully instead of emailing them to do the same. Even though all the clients who responded (and several of my legitimate freelance competitors) supported me, I'd prefer that the entire thread disappeared, but we both know that's not up to me. I'm not "complaining" about that; just saying that if I thought all of this was as helpful to me as you seem concerned that it might be, I'd prefer that it stayed up because of the responses from my clients and honest competitors.

As I've said, I didn't create this thread and would have had no objection if the mods had simply deleted it entirely or if they chose to delete it now. When I saw it, I was concerned that one of my cut-throat competitors here had created it and was just setting me up for phony negative propaganda by proxy in the same way that you're now accusing me of having used it for positive propaganda. I merely asked my last dozen or so clients to check the thread and issue an honest response; if any of them had been dissatisfied with my services, he or she could have trashed me in response instead of supporting me. I wasn't looking for this kind of attention here and would prefer if the thread had never been created in the first place. Nobody knows what other writers would have done because nobody ever created a thread asking for "reviews" about them. Trust me, I'd much rather not be interrupting my work at this time of year by having to respond to all this nonsense.

I didn't invite any "positive recommendations"; I simply asked my clients (all of whom I figured were already registered here, too) to chime in with their honest and genuine impressions about using me. I didn't even consider which clients or which projects and simply sent the same email to my last dozen or so clients. If any of them hadn't had a "positive" experience, they'd have chimed in with a negative comment; but that's not what happened.


My response to Major:
No, by "legit" clients, all I meant was that they were all real clients of mine and not shills that were not actually clients of mine. As I said in the other thread in my response to you, I didn't even check which clients or projects were involved; I just emailed my last dozen or so clients (including some first-time clients) to "chime in" with their "genuine and honest impression" about using me as a writer and many of them did, including some who apparently registered here for that purpose. Until they did, I had no idea they weren't all already members here.

As to the comments of the OP:
I encourage anybody interested to use the search function and take a look at the threads he's talking about. NONE of those negative comments was posted by a client: they were all posted by one essay company owner with whom I had a very public falling out (who also tried to get me fired from other companies) and the other was by someone who is, in my opinion, undoubtedly the owner of other essay companies who thought that my just mentioning what essay companies I write for on this forum constitutes "stealing customers" from those companies. Again, I encourage anybody curious about any of this to check those threads and form your own opinion of the arguments on both sides.


Response to Major:
Just for the record, as of today, there's absolutely no mention anywhere in the TOS about this and neither the term "invite" nor "testimonial" appears in them anywhere. As I've said several times, I didn't start that thread asking for reviews about me; I wasn't looking for that kind of attention; and all I did was contact my last dozen or so clients asking them to check out that thread and then do exactly what that thread requested: to leave an honest response about their experiences using me as a writer. I didn't "screen out" any unhappy clients and I didn't prompt anybody to say something positive about me. If it's appropriate for someone to start that thread in the first place, it's appropriate to ask people to just read it and respond to it. The mods could have just deleted it if they didn't want a thread up that was asking for reviews, but since they left it up, I figured I should contact some of my clients and just let them know that someone had asked for reviews about me here.

I'd post all the TOS here, but you'd probably say that was a "violation" for "copying" or "altering" them.

Both of you should know that this has become an incredibly cut-throat business, with qualified, hard-working, totally legitimate writers having to fend off continual attacks from the same rip-off artists that you have to worry about, and even from legitimate essay-company reps and owners and "affiliates" (some openly disclosed and some pretending to be objective "observers") trying to convince all potential customers to use only essay companies instead of some of the very same freelance writers whose work they would prefer to sell you after taking their middle-man's cut first.

This website has a very good search function where you can go back to 2006 to check out the entire posting history of any member and where you can also find previous comments about any writer or essay company you might be considering.

That said, you should know that it's always a risk the first time you use any writer or any company and that all you can reasonably do is mitigate that risk by starting off with a small order of a few pages first, and leaving yourself a cushion on your deadline, just in case.

Since this forum does not allow positive recommendations, you will have to figure it out for yourself; but if you ever do get ripped off, this is the place to help put any scam artists out of business by just letting as many people as possible know exactly who ripped you off.

Good luck in your search.

I didn't "show up" here with any cohorts and I had no role in starting this thread. If it were up to me it could all be deleted even though it's full of 100% genuine positive reviews from my actual clients. I sensed that I was being set up by a fraudulent attack strategy inviting phony criticisms and emailed so legit clients to do exactly what this thread invited: to give honest responses to using me as a writer. I contacted some of my real clients and asked if they'd mind just chiming in with their truthful opinions. If some of them were previous lurkers who decided to register I didn't even know that until after they had. If they mentioned not being registered, I told them not to bother. It's not any more of a TOS violation than if I'd simply posted and asked all of my former and present clients reading the thread to chime in. The fact that I emailed them because I don't even know most of my customers by their forum S/N doesn't change anything in relation to TOS. There are also plenty of members with much longer memberships here (both clients, prospective clients whose work I honestly declined, and prospective clients I went way out of my way for unselfishly)... not to mention all the other established forum writers vouching for my legitimacy and ability.

There is absolutely nothing "dubious" about my asking a happy client who found me lurking here to come back here to post a totally true review in a thread started by someone else asking for reviews about me. And all of those reviews are totally consistent with that more established customers (and other legit writers) say about my work, and even with the reviews of the quality of my "always excellent" work according to one website owner that she posted repeatedly even after our very public falling out. That person made it very obvious that she hates me and that it "galls" her to admit how good my writing is. The upshot is, I didn't solicit and fake customers to post about me, I didn't ask anybody to register here, and didn't start this thread. Real clients who found me here originally choose to share their opinions of my work here after I alerted them to this thread because I believed it was going to an underhanded attempted set-up by competitors to start posting false negative reviews by proxy.

The OP eventually contacted me and after I told him how much unnecessary trouble he caused me here today and how much time he'd wasted of mine on this nonsense, needless to see we're not going to be doing any business. There's a very good search function that you can use to check out the reputation of anybody established here. Meanwhile, I believe it possible for anybody (including the mods) to use the message function and determine that all those testimonials are 100% genuine satisfied clients who originally found me here and then commented about me here in a thread asking for that.

[Excuse any Ambien-induced errors]

First, thank you all.

To the Mods: all the posters above, without a single exception, are genuine clients of mine who I simply emailed this morning as soon as I saw this thread and asked that they post atrue account of their experiences with me. When I emailed them, I had no idea how many were already registered here and how many just found me here without ever registering. I know them only by their emails; I did not ask any of them to register here, and I violated no TOS at all. Do whatever check you do to confirm that I have no other connection to any of these posters whatsoever. The fact that some of them actually took the time to register here to post their genuine accounts of their experiences as my customers only confirms that they must all be very happy with the work they received from me. Several wrote me back saying they weren't registered and I responded to them that they should just forget my request.


Actually, please don't expect this because it was an unusual situation involving a military family and some other issues that made me want to go out of my way for this person. Normally, I only refer work to other writers (or companies) if I can't do it, never because someone doesn't accept my price quote. I don't give referrals to help people find a better price on work that I'm happy to do. In this particular case, I went out of my way to help someone.

I've also mentioned previously that I once sent an essay company customer a laptop that I ordered for her on ebay after she told me why she was ordering a paper instead of writing it herself in the first place: her house had burned down and she'd lost all her pets in the fire, along with her computer. I made about $50 on that paper and paid about $150 to have the same used IBM laptop that I use shipped directly to her from E-bay. Please do not contact me expecting me to help find you a cheaper writer based on this customer's experience with me...and also don't expect a free laptop from me either; these were both very unique situations that I chose to respond to in atypical ways.

From two more clients and long-term forum members:

essayscam.org/forum/gt/foreign-companies-start-win-fight-domestic-canada-3493/#msg57386

From another writer who's a long-term member of this forum and another honest, above-board, direct competitor of mine with no reason to lie on my behalf:

Thank you. Kelvin is one of the other most-often-requested and most experienced writers against whom I have competed for years, both on the essay-company boards and for freelance clients. Unlike some people here, we compete against one another honestly and fairly and without having to lie about one another.

I don't necessarily believe that the person who started this thread isn't a competitor who might be embarrassed from one of our recent public arguments here just trying to set me up with a bunch of phony negative reviews. Usually, people contact me first and don't start threads like this.


Nonsense. As soon as I saw this thread, I just contacted about a dozen of my most recent clients and asked them to please just do exactly what this thread request: to chime in on the "essayscam forum" with their honest reviews of their recent experiences with me. I wasn't looking for this attention; I didn't start this thread; and I didn't ask anybody to do anything but check out this thread on this forum and respond to it genuinely and honestly. If anything happens to my account because of this, it will just prove to everybody that you're one of the mods here and that you're desperate enough to go through these kinds of shenanigans because you can't compete honestly, even against a freelance writer working solo. The TOS of this website do not prohibit anything that I've done. Every post is legitimately from a real client of mine who chose to come here and respond truthfully to this thread.

I don't keep track of whether people find me here or on essaychat and in most cases, I would have no way of knowing, since they usually just go through email and don't use any derivation of their forum IDs, although there are more than a few previous positive reviews (and no negative ones) about my work posted in older threads. Frankly, I don't recognize their S/Ns from here either, but if the clients I asked to chime in here actually took the trouble to sign up just to do that, I'd suggest that's a pretty positive thing too.


If you're being honest, even you would admit that you know without a doubt how good my work is because of your very intimate knowledge of how productive a writer I've been (and how often requested) at some of the very essay companies about which you know more than anybody here, including me. Even the other website owner here who had a very public fight with me admitted (repeatedly) that I'm "an excellent writer" and that my work "was excellent" and anybody can use the search function for those specific phrases in previous messages.

Here's one already posted on another thread:
https://essayscam.org/forum/es/essayservices-dissertation-help-needed-4434/#msg66179


Here's another, from the same student who ended up using me again even after saying I was too expensive and not particularly friendly in emails:


And:
https://essayscam.org/forum/es/legitimate-writing-services-2832/#msg67259


From someone whose work I declined (because scammers never decline anything):
essayscam/forum/ot/biggest-scam-essayscam-is-writers-posting-as-students-requesting-3973/#msg63309

Welcome. One of the rules of this place is that specific recommendations in the nature of what you're asking for aren't allowed. On the other hand, there's a lot of information you can use to help figure out which companies and which writers seem legitimate and trustworthy and which companies and writers might not be. Ultimately, you have to figure it out for yourself though. The search function also works pretty well, but it defaults on "topic titles" instead of "messages" so you have to watch that to make the most of it. Good luck in your search.

I no longer discuss any companies that I write for here by name. As long as they pay me for my work, whatever else any of them does or doesn't disclose to me is none of my concern. However, if you're trying to suggest that some of them haven't considered me one of their best writers for the last decade, then it's you who doesn't know what you're talking about. Not only have they contacted me privately to offer me a premium price to write very difficult short-notice papers for their own friends, family, or associates, but I also happen to know from other writers hired more recently that they specifically cited me as an example of how well a good writer can do for himself working for them in response to questions about earning potential. Of course, it's possible they were referring to a different law school graduate living in NYC who signed on with them in 2003 and who was one of their top earners, but I'm pretty sure they were describing me to that other writer.


The only thing that would "change" my belief that you're purposely refusing to say whether or not you are currently employed by any essay company would be for you to simply provide a straightforward "yes"-or-"no" answer without any semantics or games. By "essay company" I mean whatever you have meant every time you typed out the word essay company in all of these discussions in which you argue that freelance writers shouldn't (or couldn't) charge as much for their work on a freelance basis as essay companies charge and that essay companies are a safer bet for customers than freelance writers.

In 5+ years on this forum, I have never once suggested that I knew any specific company to be illegitimate; in fact, I've repeatedly said that I don't know anything about any company for which I haven't actually worked, except maybe for what I've read on this forum. When I refer to "legitimate" and "illegitimate" companies, all I mean is that everybody knows there are many illegitimate companies out there that either take customers' money and never provide anything in return or that return complete garbage copied and pasted from online sources or recycled papers as "original" content.

My personal belief is that this forum was established by one or more legitimate essay companies as a way of exposing their illegitimate competitors and that's why they also tolerate both disclosed and undisclosed representatives of other legitimate essay companies here. I'm not looking to argue with you or even to continue this particular conversation, but I don't think it's fair for someone who is an essay company rep (even from a legitimate company) to pretend that isn't the case while he purposely authors post after post clearly intended to steer all customers away from (even legitimate) freelance writers and toward (even legitimate) essay companies. All of us have self-interests for posting here and I don't think it's fair for you to continually insinuate that's the case with me (or others) while continually denying that's equally true of your reasons for posting here.

As always, I've responded very directly to your questions. I'd like to ask that you do the same and tell us what designation you'd like to be able to select since you've said that you chose not to select one because the range of "Writer," "Student," and "Essay Company Rep" is too narrow for you. What designation would you prefer?

You're twisting my words: I never indicated that I knew how thoroughly essay companies screen their writers. All I know is that they asked me for my resume and a writing sample; but I have no idea what efforts they made to verify my info, and (obviously) there was no way for them to be sure that I actually wrote my writing sample. There are good writers and bad writers at every company...as well as writers who've been doing this for a full-time living for a decade or more and those who are just experimenting with a new way to try to earn some money on a part-time basis in between jobs in a bad economy who just signed up yesterday and who may have never written anything besides maybe a dozen of their own academic projects as students.


First, there's no need to wonder about me: between the two of us, I'm the one who openly admits to being a freelance writer whereas you are (obviously, in my opinion) an essay company rep who absolutely refuses to acknowledge that or even to say outright that you aren't, all while repeatedly intimating that my opinions shouldn't be trusted because they're potentially biased. All of your opinions here are no less self-serving than mine are, but at least I'm honest about being a writer.

The last time you side-stepped the question of why you chose not to designate yourself as a "Writer," "Student," or "Company Rep," you said there were too few options available and that it was not "required" to select a designation. Nobody's suggesting that it's "required," but since you brought up the limited number of options available, what designation would you select if it were available? If you won't even answer that question (or if you just say "Other"), then I'd suggest that your opinions are more questionable for potential bias than mine. You seem to be working very hard to steer all potential customers away from freelance writers and toward essay companies and I believe the reason is quite obvious.

Second, and directly to your point, I don't "assume" that novice/poor-quality company writers necessarily take most company orders. I've simply said that when you place an order with an essay company, the order just goes up onto a virtual bulletin board and that any writer (of hundreds) can grab it on a first-come/first-served basis. I know of no essay company that plays an active role in matching up projects with specific writers, much less with writers whose training and credentials match them, and notwithstanding that many companies imply (or actually say) that they do on their websites. I've worked for one company that restricted some orders to those of us writers it designated at its highest level, but every other company I know just throws every order up onto the same board where it can be grabbed by one of its best and most experienced writers or by one of its worst and least experienced writers who might get fired tomorrow for submitting inferior or even plagiarized content to the company. That's why, in my opinion, many customers prefer to use freelance writers because they always know exactly who's writing their papers.

Right. I never considered myself to be in any kind of direct conflict with any legitimate companies and I used to go out of my way here to respond (truthfully) to allegations against legit companies I knew about even though it would have been more in my interest to just keep my mouth shut and hope that prospective customers gave up on all the companies altogether and started looking for freelance writers. I've also maintained an amicable relationship with all of the other legitimate writers here even though we are in direct competition. Obviously, my opinion might be biased because I'm a freelance writer, but at least I openly admit my possible bias instead of trying to pretend I'm weighing in with a strictly "objective" view on this industry while trying very hard to steer all customers one way or the other.


To me, it sounds like you're looking at this exclusively from the perspective of an essay-company rep who's annoyed that we have the nerve to charge the same as large companies without all the same overhead costs. From the customers' perspective, once they get a good essay from a freelance writer, they couldn't care less whether they pay that same $30 or $40/pg to a company that keeps about half the money or directly to the person who actually writes their papers. In my opinion, once customers know that a freelance writer is legit (and does good work), they tend to appreciate the direct relationship and the consistency of having the same writer do every project instead of the luck of the draw in terms of which (of hundreds) of company writers grabs a project off the company boards.

I don't offer the services of accounting or web designing, so those skills are irrelevant to my essay-writing prices. As for sales and customer service skills, I've actually explained to some nervous prospective customers that they should be reassured by the fact that I can be somewhat short fielding overly demanding requests for assurances before they trust me with their first order, precisely because the one area in which most of the scam companies excel is their "customer service" departments, mainly because, unlike legitimate writers who actually have to write all the projects we book, the job of the scam companies ends as soon as they have their hands on the money.

When prospective customers try to make me jump through too many hoops, I just tell them very frankly that I don't have the time to court them any further; that there's always a risk the first time they order a project from any writer or company; and that they might want to just try me some other time with a shorter project and/or after they try out someone else first to see what they actually get for half my price. That's something none of the scam company (and few legit company) customer service reps would ever say to a potential customer. Likewise, I don't negotiate price either, the way some scammers (companies and writers) do, because they don't have to worry about actually writing the papers; I do.