I've had rewrite requests from company customers who said my language was too advanced for them. That's not a valid reason for a rewrite. On the other hand, when they specify in advance that they want me to use simple language because they're ESL, I do my best to write short sentences and use the simplest vocabulary possibe, which actually takes a lot longer than just writing in my own voice.

Should ESL writers be "allowed" to write in English? of course. Is it OK for them to purposely not disclose they're ESLs because American customers prefer non-ESL writers? No.


Yes, but subject-matter proficiency is a constant and nobody critical of ESL writers is suggesting that any native English speaker is necessarily qualified to write specific subect matter just by virtue of language proficiency. My only problem is with ESL writers who purposely avoid disclosing that they're ESL, because if customers don't want an ESL writer (which is their prerogative), the writer doesn't have any right to misrepresent the situation. Very few ESL writers sound like native English speakers and that's why American customers prefer American writers. If ESLs disclose that they're ESLs, I have no problem with them.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with the other 30+ classes in 3 years of a law school program that involve zero "legal research" or with the writing that I mentioned doing that started this conversation in the first place.

You seem to have forgotten that you "meant nothing insulting" in any of your comments after I told you they were insulting and offensive. Make up your mind. It was clear to me from the start that this was your belief and your implication all along. In any case, all of my clients already know my name and can just call 212-431-2100 and ask for the alumni affairs office to confirm my degree if this nonsense has raised any concern about that.

Listen. This:


is also meaningless gibberish. I'm sorry, but nobody who attended law school speaks like that. A law school exam question usually presents a set of facts called a fact pattern and it asks for an analysis of that hypothetical case based on the applicable law and case law and a predicted case outcome based on that analysis. That's not the same thing as this either:


and, frankly, I don't believe that anybody who typed either of those descriptions of law school exams ever attended a day of law school, unless you're ESL and studied law in some other country. You're starting to remind me of a guy I once met at my (then) girlfriend's college: He found out I played hockey and he said that he did also. Then he began talking about how he'd played in high school and started demonstrating his "hockey stops" to me in his socks and I realized immediately that he probably couldn't even skate, much less play hockey.

It's not that I'm "offended" personally by your questions; I'm just saying it's pretty obvious that your intention is to insult me or challenge my academic background while pretending that you're just "asking innocent questions" as part a conversation. Exhibit A:


In my law school, as in most U.S. law schools in every state, we got fact patterns on exams that required us to apply the relevant legal principles and, ideally, also draw comparisons or contrasts between those fact patterns and some of the cases from the course. Anybody who ever actually did that would be able to describe it a little more accurately than you did (in two tries). And conversations can be genuine or obnoxiously patronizing and intentionally insulting while simultaneously trying to pretend otherwise "on the Internet" the exact same way as that happens in person. You've already proven that.

I have no idea how you draw the ridiculous conclusion that I "wouldn't be able to complete an article asking for a case analysis" from my saying that I don't work with law journal-style referencing systems and I don't appreciate it, because it's intentionally insulting. But I'm really not interested in the argument you're apparently trying to start with me. Obviously, I can analyze cases. Also, as a graduate of NYLS (or of any other law school, for that matter), I know that there's no such thing as "an article asking for a case analysis and your findings of specific facts based on those cases" because a case analysis doesn't involve "findings of specific facts" in any way, shape, or form. Only judges and juries "find facts" and one very important clue in that regard that you seem to have missed would be that they're both sometimes referred to as "fact finders."

I will be the first to admit that I don't do formal legal research on any topic of the type required for law journal submissions and I would immediately decline any project that required it and have done so dozens of times for law review articles, although I don't mind editing them for the quality of writing. This dissertation was for a religious studies program and in a standard referencing style used in that program. I used a wide variety of sources for it, most of which were provided by the client.

I do not "specialize" in law, much less in any specific area of law and most people here understand that the entire premise of your argument, or of your rhetorical question, is patently ridiculous. As a professional freelance writer, I routinely handle hundreds of sub-topics in dozens of academic areas, and well enough to be acknowledged as one of the top writers by every company that has ever used my work; and well enough that 90+ percent of my freelance clients end up using me many times after they use me just once.

This just isn't a viable profession for anybody who can only write in one or two areas of "specialization." Before undertaking that constitutional law dissertation, I was not an "authority" on religious freedom, although I'd suggest that anybody with a law degree is capable of doing enough reading on the topic to write about it intelligently. By your ridiculous implication, only Alan Dershowitz could have written that piece. As I said before, anybody interested can find numerous posts from students on this forum who have previously confirmed that I don't take any projects outside of the many areas that I can write about well enough to earn repeat business from almost everybody for whom I ever write one paper.


To be perfectly honest, I received the same email from this site's admin that (I believe) they did informing me that my account was going to be terminated and, in my case, they said the reason was that I seemed to be here just to defend a few particular companies. I responded to that email politely asking for reconsideration and explaining that I really have no need to defend any company but that my previous comments were nothing more than my honest reaction to the lies that people like you continually spew out because it's the only way you can hope to compete against any of the industry leaders. I promised the admin of this forum that if they allowed me to remain active, they'd never again read any post from me defending or even discussing any specifc essay company.

That also means that I have no reason to argue with you about anything here, although you don't leave me much of a choice when you respond to every single post of mine on any topic with your continual attacks and baseless lies about me. In fact, if it continues, it's more likely that you will be the one banned for ruining this forum with unprovoked personal attacks on and libel of a fellow forum member who is attempting to do nothing here except contribute positively to forum discussions.

Actually, there have been numerous members of this forum who have previously confirmed that I turned down their assignment proposals because they were outside my areas or too complex for my abilities in those areas. Like everything else you say about me here, you have absolutely no evidence of it but simply spew out your hatred in your broken, infantile-abbrevation-laden nonsense.

I wasn't bragging; just suggesting that I might be qualified to explain that the issue of being an "independent contractor" is totally irrelevant to the issue of whether or not (and why) essay companies have a right to consider it stealing when one of their "independent contractors" decides to do private work for an existing company client. "Major" suggested that some companies have no problem allowing their writers to contact customers after completing a company paper because their writers are "independent contractors."

Actually, I do handle many areas of (US) law and very recently completed a 300-page dissertation on religious freedom and the inherent conflict between the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

You (have previously admitted that you have never seen anything I've ever written beyond my forum posts and) know absolutely nothing about my expertise or how good my writing is or isn't and I'm perfectly comfortable letting readers of this forum continue to judge for themselves which one of us is probably a qualified, successful, and totally legitimate professional freelance writer and which one of us is just an obnoxious and resentful idiot.

I would agree 100%. The only thing worse than being a totally legitimate professional writer who has to try to distinguish himself from the rip-off artists and the company reps pretending to be "objective observers" of the industry here is being a student just looking for an honest writer who will provide good work and who will never take money for an assignment he can't complete properly.

You're still missing the point that it doesn't matter because the person who actually does the writing is almost certain to be a freelance writer, regardless of who owns or started the company he's writing it for. Nobody here's even discussing any "continuing obligation" to any writing project, so I don't know why you'd throw that in to muddy the waters. In any case, neither a freelancer working on his own nor any company has any continued obligation to any project or to any customer after a project is complete unless there's some specific agreement to the contrary.

I have no desire to have a prolonged argument with you about this, but you've made it extremely clear that you don't even understand when (or why) the status of "independent contractor" is (and isn't) relevant to the discussion because, I'm sorry, but you said something that was really very stupid: that companies don't care if their writers steal their customers because writers are "independent contractors." With the benefit of more than a decade of doing this for a living (quite successfuly) and a law degree, I've tried to explain politely why independent contractor status has absolutely nothing to do with company's attitudes about their writers stealing company customers. Instead of considering the response and maybe learning from it, you're clearly just looking to argue (or to "win" an argument) more than you're interested in discussing the topic.


Read the article you linked more carefully before telling me what it does and doesn't say: it absolutely states "a company has a good chance of matching a writer to your requirements." No company I know "matches" writers to projects; they post all their projects on a board and writers take them on a first-come/first-served basis. I don't know (or care) who wrote the article, but any article saying that companies "match" writers to projects suggests, strictly in my opinion, either that it was written by a company that wants customers to believe that or by someone who doesn't know what he's talking about. (And if it only "meant" to say that companies have more writers available of whom some might be experts in a field, that's not what it actually says and even that "advantage" would be balanced out by the fact that customers are still trusting a group of hundreds of freelance writers with access to a company board not to take projects they're not really qualified to write about or good "matches" for those projects.)


Give me a break. I know for a fact that the main company I write for considers me one of its top 3 or 4 writers (out of hundreds) because they've said so and because they sometimes offer the other 2 or 3 and me bonuses to consider especially difficult assignments and because they've asked me to write a few papers for family members of the owners. They don't have some secret system that hides orders from some writers without even letting them know they have such a system. In fact, they have a pay scale that pays the top writers more than other writers. The only company I ever wrote for that does maintain different classifications for writers gave me the highest possible status and even after I made it very public (here) that the owner of that company stiffed me on a substantial debt, she referred to my work as "always excellent." That company lets all its writers know what their status is with the company by referring to them as "silver" or "gold" or "platinum" writers. To suggest that the companies that use me would secretly maintain a hierarchy and hide that from their writers is as silly as your other comments.

You misunderstood my point. Regardless of how (or who) starts an essay company, once you find a specific writer at any company or once you find any specific freelancer, you're probably much safer than just trusting the luck of the draw, even at that same company. It makes no difference who started the company.


No offense intended, but I don't think you understand these two issues. Please consider the following before you just respond for the sake of arguing the points:

1. That's the reason companies can't complain that "their" writers also compete against them simultaneously by doing as much freelance work as they can. The fact that we're contractors is meaningless to them when it comes to their writers poaching their clients after making contact through the company. If the customer uses the company first, the company has a right to expect its writers not to steal them. It is totally irrelevant that we're contractors in that respect.

2. This doesn't really make sense. By definition, if the customer chooses to go to a writer after receiving work through the company, the customer must already like the writer's work. There's no basis for assuming that the writer will suddenly produce bad work or rip off the customer causng the customer to retaliate by informing the company.


I didn't read the whole thing carefully, but right off the bat, I noticed that this is absolutely incorrect and suggests to me that the article was actually written by an essay company:


In my experience, no essay company actually gets involved in matching any orders to any particular writers. The process is 100% automated by means of a virtual bulletin board where every order is posted and from where all the company writers can freely choose any order on the board. I've seen references (here) to companies that restrict access to certain orders to writers of a specific status at the company, but I've never encountered that personally. Just the fact that the article incorrectly states that company's matching up writers with assignments as a general "plus" for companies makes the article suspect to me, although I have no idea whether it's purposely misleading or simply uninformed.

Actually, you're almost always going to be using a "freelance" writer either way, simply because most essay companies rely 100% on freelance writers to actually do the work they sell and most company writers also do as much freelance work as they can get on their own. If the writer's good (or bad), it really makes no difference whether you go directly to that writer or through a company. The main advantage of using a specific freelance writer is that once you've found one whose work you like, you always know who's doing your work; when you go through any company, the quality of the work always depends on which writer (of hundreds) actually takes your order and there's obviously going to be a difference between the best writer at any company and the worst writer at that same company.

You can definitely request specific writers from most companies, but if your preferred writer opts not to take the order, it becomes available to all the writers just like any other order unless you expressly specify that you want only that writer or a refund. Respectable companies will honor that limitation (and most cc companies will probably rule in your favor if they don't), but then you're back to having no writer for your assignment. That's equally true anytime a freelancer can't take a project you offer, but you'll get a definitive answer before issuing a payment; with a company, you'll pay first and then get your refund after the cancellation gets processed. Also, because we only receive about 50% of what you pay for any company order, there are plenty of assignments we will gladly grab as freelancers that might just not be worth the same time and effort (or inconvenience, depending on our workload at any particular time) for half that price if we have to split our fee with a company.

As freelancers, we're also able to offer more direct "customer service" including a direct phone number and it allows a more personal relationship between customers and writers. Most essay companies do have some form of relay message system but they don't allow any direct contact or email between customers and writers because they have to protect themselves against writers who might use that info to try to steal customers from the company. I don't steal clients from any company that uses my work but the flip side of that is that I find it really irritating when I see a request for me on a company board from a customer who actually says he or she chose me from reading my posts on essaychat instead of just contacting me directly through the contact info we're allowed to post on there. Same goes for contacting me directly only after I've written for you through a company: once you've placed a company order, you're their customer and you're permanently off-limits to me as a client.

I'm not an expert on the topic, mainly because I've never had a payment disputed but I know another writer who had a PP charge disputed (the details are in an old thread here) and PayPal ruled in his favor.

My impression is that a customer would have to be able to prove the case to them, just the same as any other PayPal dispute and the same is probably true with cc companies. If a customer shows a plagiarism report and/or the online source where a writer just copied and pasted or a marked-up file showing all the ways a paper failed to meet the order specs, I'd expect the charges to be reversed.

I also know that you can't trust a PP transaction that is post-dated waiting for funds to clear on the customer's side or "flagged" for review before it clears on your end. I had a recent scare along those lines where I let someone post-date the PP payment and then it said "payment reversed by sender" the day after I sent the paper. I contacted the customer and found out that she had no idea and that it had been reversed automatically because of some apparent delay with the verification from the banking institution. She reissued the payment immediately, it went through, and I had to apologize for assuming the worst because PP apparently doesn't distinguish between payments that are (really) reversed by the sender and by the sender's bank, referring to both situations as "payment reversed by sender."

Are you new to this work? Because, in my experience, all you really need to do is use some irreversible payment method like PayPal and wait for the payment to go through before you start writing.

Unless you fail to meet a firm deadline or a customer could show PayPal or a cc company that you plagiarized or something, I don't think you really ever have to worry about having a payment reversed on you.

As long as you get paid upfront and provide the work you promised, you should be pretty safe.

The only nonpayment experience I ever had was a long-term (3+ yrs) client who had asked me to wait for payment once in a while before and had always made good. She asked to delay payment on her last two papers (without mentioning they were going to be her last two papers) and then stiffed me on them.

She even had the nerve to ask me for more work about a year later, offering to pay in advance (but without offering to pay for the last two papers from the previous year).

Since then, I never make any exceptions to the prepayment rule because if we get stiffed, there's just nothing we can do about it...and if this particular customer could do that to me after 3 years of such a polite email relationship, anybody else could do the exact same thing.

The writer cannot refuse a rewrite just because he believes he fulfilled your specs; but you also don't necessarily get one just because you told him he didn't. It depends on what the order actually said. If you asked for a section on a particular psychological theorists, (for example), and it's not there, you get a rewrite. If you decided that you want that particular theorist included only after receiving your paper, that's not the writer's problem. Sometimes it's less clear and both writer and customer believe they're right. Admin decides after reviewing and, sometimes, arguing with both writer and customer. Every writer has had to eat a rewrite he believes was unjustified and some customers who believe they were entitled to a rewrite didn't get one or had to pay for the extra pages to add what they forgot to ask for in the first place. It always depends on the facts of the situation but the more specific you are in your order the less room there is for differences in belief later on. It's not much different from what happens when customers have an argument with a mechanic that's settled by the garage owner or with a waiter or chef that's settled by the manager.

You should definitely complain about the way that writer handled your particular order. The appropriate thing for the writer to do in that situation is to give you timely notice of any anticipated problem or delay. There's no issue about getting a refund if the paper genuinely fails to follow the order instructions, especially when it's also that late.

Scholar: my only objection to your post is that there's no such thing as any writing company that doesn't have writers capable of writing a bad paper. That doesn't make them "scams" or "farces" because no scam company ever gives full refunds; some of them never even send any essay in the first place. Never providing a paper, reselling old papers as new "original" papers and outright plagiarism are scams. If you limit your comments to your orders, you won't accidentally impugn the whole company or writers like me who do very good work and always contact customers appropriately about problems or delays.

Finally, on rewrites, if the objective order specs were not fulfilled, the writer will have to do a rewrite to avoid the order being refunded. But, at least in my case, most rewrite requests are completely ridiculous because they're requests for brand new "requirements" that were never in the original order. Speaking just for myself, I may get 2 -3 rewrites a month (out of maybe 50 papers) and of those, only 1 or 2 is really my mistake. If it is, I fix it ASAP. If it isn't, I let the customer and admin know exactly why. If the customer still wants to press the point, it may take a day or two for admin to review, contact the writer, and get a response...and there could be a few cycles of that between the writer and admin before the customer gets a rewrite or an explanation that we can't "rewrite" papers based on your realization, only after you received it that you should have told us something you forgot to include in the order we filled.

I feel bad for Scholar and have no argument with her. Hopefully, she can reach some sort of resolution with the company if the work provided was sub-par. I was just explaining to her that there's a huge difference between a "scam" company and a situation where the customer just isn't happy with the quality of the work provided by any essay company. I'm guessing that Scholar and everybody else reading this (except you) already understands that. The sarcasm was just a way of pointing out your stupidity and not intended toward Scholar and the only "joke" here would be you.

Totally free, obviously. Just like that free oil change you get from any new auto mechanic you try out before leaving your car for major transmission work; just like that free hair trim from any new hairdresser before trusting them to give you a totally new hair style the night before a big event; and just like that free meal you can get at any restaurant before you book the place for an important dinner affair. Professional writers and writing companies also work for free anytime new customers just want to try them out while looking for someone whose work they like.

Customers considering using any essay company or any freelance writer should always just order a few smaller, less important papers first (ideally, with plenty of time to spare before the actual deadline) before trusting any company or any freelance writer with a major project. That's just a bit of common sense that's understandable to anybody who is not playing stupid or who is not genuinely stupid. Anybody who plays stupid as well as you do is obviously not just playing.

As you acknowledge here, all sites probably have ESL writers. Scholar suggested that a site is a "scam" because of that. I suggested that using some ESL writers doesn't make any site a "scam." Scam sites take money and never provide an essay or provide copied and pasted essays instead of original writing.

I'm not an "agent" of any site. I compete as a freelancer against every site I write for. The site in question has hundreds of writers and has indicated to me on several different occasions that its administration considers Phee lyks, ResearchPro, and me to be among their top 4 or 5 writers out of those hundreds. The fact that we're also the most successful freelancers too is no coincidence. I imagine there might be quite a difference in quality between the writing of the best and the worst writers (ESL or not) on the list of hundreds at any company. If your paper doesn't get taken by the best native English speaker, that doesn't make the site a "scam." It's why I always suggest that new customers first find a writer whose work they like before trusting any writer or any company with a big, expensive assignment.

The site is 100% legit and run by a couple of guys in Texas. I'm 100% American, born, raised, and educated in NYC, and the only 2 other RD writers I know are also American and one of them is also from NYC originally. Yes, I believe Research Done does also employ some ESL writers, as all other essay companies do, but the site is no scam. They have hundreds of writers but I'm only familiar with the work of a few. And yes, you should always try out any company or freelancer first on a shorter, less important paper to find a specific writer you trust before you place any big or important order, in general.

Nope. Never received a dime. After months and months of emails and phone calls promising payment by about ten different dates and as many different "tomorrows"and phantom Money Gram transactions (by "Category 4" transactions that MG says don't exist), and wire transfers that never came through, and excuse after excuse after excuse about providing the "codes" for those transactions and then more excuses about gall blader surgery in a British hospital that said it had no patient by her name listed when I called and provided the exact spelling of her name provided via her Ipad by her "sister" and then another month of excuses about supposedly being holed-up in a "Trump" building here in Manhattan the whole time in a building whose address, street number, and phone number she couldn't provide (in a month), after undergoing sinus surgery at a NYC hospital she couldn't name, she finally announced her conclusion that she eventually posted here that she never owed me any money in the first place.

Nope. I reported the content of our phone conversation the last time she called to complain about my comments about the situation here. She was demanding that I "Google" something about her or her family and I told her that I just wanted my money or her out of my life. (I should have told her that I'd Google anything she wanted as soon as she Googled the terms "Elevator" and "Lobby" and "Doorman" as in all "Trump" buildings have elevators and lobbies and doormen who know the street address of the building.) She screamed "you'll get your damned money" and hung up and that was the last contact between us. Since then, she posted some nonsense here about "not" owing me anything in the first place, despite the hundreds of email exchanges (including dozens that I forwarded to WB) and dozens of phone calls confirming the debts ranging from $1,200 to $1,725. So, it's more than obvious that she never had any intention to pay me another dime and that she was never in NYC supposedly holed-up in a "Trump" penthouse for a month in a building whose address and street number she couldn't ascertain in all that time, much less with a 27/4 "chauffeur" named "James" who is never available and doesn't have a cell phone.

No. I originally agreed to just credit the full amount to the other paper he wanted instead. When he changed his mind and asked for a full refund, I told him he could still have a full credit or a refund minus the cost of a page because of the time involved in finding a suitable article, analyzing it, and sending him a synopsis of it on very short notice. The time necessary to find and read the article is included in the price of the whole 2.5-pg paper but that part of it actually takes more time than writing a single page afterwards. Same if you ask me to read a 10-pg journal article and then ask to cancel an order of a few pages about the article after I read it for you but before I write the paper. We don't do 100-word orders and I'd already spent the time to accommodate his request for more work than he was actually paying for as a courtesy. If you ask for a refund before I've wasted any of my time doing the research or reading all your source files, you get a 100% refund with no problem. Once I've spent time on it, you're paying me for at least 1 page because I'm out the time already spent on your project.


Thanks, but the stupider the person the easier it is to predict behavior. This one's even too stupid to avoid proving me right.

We all sometimes get obnoxious clients. Pheelyks just had the bad luck of running into one who was psychotic and very vindictive. Just this week I had a new propsective client send me a project due later this month and then respond to my price quote by asking for a reduced rate because he's going to be sending me more work in the future. NewsFlash: almost all clients who use me once end up using me many times afterwards and if I give any discounts, it's always going to be to long-term repeat customers and not first-time customers who start off by asking for special treatment before we've even done business. In addition to asking for a price break, he also wanted to know if I could throw in another 100-word synopsis of the chosen article and get it to him in 24 hours. Already, I know this person is going to be a problem customer but sometimes people who start off that way catch on and it's a pretty simple 2.5-pg paper asking to take a position on a current news story for a journalism class. I ask if he wants to choose the article and he says to just choose anything I want. Price is $75 for 2.5 pages and the overnight 100-wd synopsis of the article thrown in as a courtesy.

So I select a 5-pg article from the NY Times earlier this week about cyber warfare and Iran's nuclear facilities and send him his 100-wd synopsis as requested. Today, he emails to say he didn't use it because he preferred to use a totally different topic of interest to him and that the 100 words was supposed to include his position and not just the article summary. Offers to send me another $90 to apply the $75 to a longer paper on Syria. I read his long email and assignment instructions for that and tell him no problem. Next response from him says he changed his mind and wants a refund. I respond that he can have a full $75 credit for next time or $45 back as a refund. He writes back that he wants $55 back because my time spent on it so far is worth $20. I just refunded his $45 and told him not to bother me again in the future because I don't want his business.

When you do this for a living and you deal with hundreds of clients annually, there are always going to be some who become problems. Pheelyks just got stuck with one who's more vindictive than most. If anybody ever did to me what Sandyy did to him, I'd publish the person's name right here along with the assignment prompt and the essay and the emails so it comes up anytime a future employer googles him. This one has just informed me that he's opening up a paypal dispute over the full amount unless I return another $10 so my initial instincts were right. If you do this for a living long enough, you're always going to run into these types periodically. If you ask me, Pheelyks was way too nice about it.

And because stupid people are very predictable, expect the single stupidest person on this forum to chime in soon and focus exclusively on the 3rd sentence in my last paragraph completely out of context. (And I'm not talking about the client.)

The site is totally legit. We're supposed to just let you know if we anticipate a problem meeting a deadline. I have an order on my account right now that was due 5 hours ago because I can't write it until the customer answers a question that I sent yesterday...so the comunication delay sometimes goes both ways.

I'm sorry, but we usually have constant deadlines...much more often than not, multiple deadlines every day.
We can't necessarily take every request and sometimes people request us for topics we don't really do because
they like our work on previous papers or because they heard of us on this forum. I appreciate the request though.

Sorry, Dragon. We don't necessarily take every request, especially when it's totally out of our preferred areas or when we're already booked solid with work. In that case, we can release it to the board for other writers immediately if we see it or it will go public for other writers automatically after 3 hours if we don't take it. If you are absolutely sure that you don't want any other writer besides your requested writer, you can say that in your order description and that you want a refund if that writer isn't available for it. You could also specify that no ESL writer is acceptable and that you will dispute the charge if you receive any ESL writing. The first is easy to enforce; the second might be more difficult because you'd have to convince your cc company that it's ESL writing. Both should deter any ESL writer from taking the order and the company would probably refund the order without a dispute and charge it against a writer who disregards your specifications, but I couldn't say for sure.

Just want to make sure nobody reading this quickly misses the the, because (as this customer can confirm), I wasn't the writer and had nothing to do with this particular order. Most of my company customers end up requesting me again. In fact, it happens so often that I can't accommodate all of their requests and have to let many of those orders go public. What WB is referring to is simply that all essay company writers are actually freelance independent contractors and that the source of this customer's problem is the writer and not necessarily the company.

There was no prior indication that the enterprise was a scam. They had a very professional and functional website and they made initial payments. From the start, payments were delayed and (I realized only after checking back much later) that they were never 100% of the balance owed. It's possible it was always a well-conceived confidence game designed to suck in new writers and then start ripping us off gradually to delay our realization. I know that I wasn't particularly careful about reconciling the statement balance with payments because I've never had a negative experience with any writing company before. That would certainly be consistent with the ridiculously over-the-top praise and (especially) with the constant promises of bonuses and I-Pads and spontaneous self-imposed "fines" for late payments. The I-Pad nonsense went back to last year around this time and was supposed to be an "Easter Bonus" and Hala claimed to be in shock last October to find out that I never received any bonus last year. It's also possible that Perry was right about the business just gradually falling apart with them squeezing as much work out of new writer as possible without any intention to pay them once they got behind in their bills and to try to keep the thing afloat that way at our expense. But that wouldn't explain all the ridiculously effusive praise and the promises of bonuses and so forth going all the way back to 2010 in my case. I'm thinking that whole tone and style is more consistent with habitual crooks and well-practiced scammers.

I'd agree with this. A normal sane person who is not a habitual con artist would at least have some remorse or shame. They'd be extremely apologetic in their tone instead of indignant, as though the people to whom they owe money and who've been promised numerous times that they'd get their money by a date certain are "annoying" her. (I left this out of my rough transcript of our last phone conversation, but she also said "You'll get your damned money" like I'm the one being unreasonable for demanding it or something.) There's also something that's not quite "normal" or "sane" about maintaining her end of all of these ruses in hundreds and hundreds of emails (just to me over a few months, let alone all the others) when there's obviously no intention of making any further payment. A normal person would just admit there's a financial problem and apologize for being unable to pay instead of pretending transaction after transaction "failed" while making constant indirect references intended to create the simultaneous impression of great wealth and privilege. As I've said before, anybody of the wealth that Hala likes to pretend to have would consider these debts pocket change and not worth the time to email and call about for months on end. The one client who stiffed me on her very last two papers after using my work for 3+ years is a perfect example in contrasts: she just apologized for not being able to pay me and said she was going through hard financial times; she didn't claim to be unable to make the transaction because she was stranded on her family's yacht in the French Riviera. Still a low-life thing to do, but she didn't compound it by dragging it out for many months and wasting that much more of my time with her endless nonsense and fantasies about living the type of life she obviously covets. It must be exhausting to spend all day and night responding to multiple victims about phony wire transfers, phantom Money Gram transactions, non-existent "agents," multiple surgeries, making dozens of overseas phone calls, and supposed individuals in possession of her I-Pad. That probably explains the "grogginess" in her voice in most of her phone calls.

I'm perfectly content with my life and not the one making up ridiculous stories about penthouses and chauffers intimating that my family is fabulously wealthy to impress relative strangers.

You ever get the one about the Superdupersecure "category 4" MoneyGram transactions that are so secret that even MG's official representatives who answer questions sent via the MG website believe don't exist?


Damn. Guess that means I won't be getting all those great jobs she promised about writing books for her at the new company that WriteRightTeam was re-opening as shortly. Maybe her chauffer "James" knows something about it. I'll drop by the "Trump building right across from Central Park" one of these days and ask them about the Egyptian jet-setter whose family owns the penthouse they built for James on the roof of the building.

Yeah, I left out a lot of details. One of the last times she called me to promise her "chauffer" would be bringing my money to me was around 1:00 AM local time. About 3 hours later, my phone rings again:

"Hello?"
"Beth"
"Who?"
"Beth"
"What can I do for you, Hala?"
"Oh, Charles! Sorry...sorry...sorry..."
-Click-

As was the case about half the times that she called, she sounded extremely "groggy" (let's say it was just groggy to be as polite as possible about it...although it sounded very much the same as when she called after her two different supposed "surgeries" when she was obviously doing her best to sound zonked out on her pain medication). Just to recap: Surgey #1 was the time that her "sister" emailed using Hala's IPad saying she was in Cromwell Hospital for gall blader surgery. I called Cromwell and they had no patient by her name or by the corrected name her "sister" provided when I mentioned that afterwards. Surgey #2 was the sinus surgey she had in NYC at a hospital she couldn't name after which she had to stay in bed recuperating for 2-3 weeks in the penthouse apartment in a "Trump building" whose address, street #, and phone # she didn't know. She claimed to be in NYC for about a whole month without being able to find out where she lives because she "hardly ever goes out." Her response to being challenged and told that she's obviously nowhere within a thousand miles of NYC was to say that she was in "the Trump building right opposite Central Park" and "Ask the company where I am if you don't believe me." I have all this nonsense on tape if she ever refutes it here.

The last time she called me was to complain about what I'd said here (and in my last email to her) about her probably living in a mud hut with a coat hanger for a TV antenna and an electrical cable running through a hole in a window screen tapping into the electric pole in a Cairo street (or something like that). That was the last I ever heard of this international jet-setting professional business woman who lives in "penthouses" and who has a "chauffer" on call 24/7 but who obviously needs our money more than we do.

A high price won't necessarily guarantee high quality, but a ridiculously low price does greatly increase the likelihood that you'll get a lousy piece of work from an inexperienced writer.


Spoken like someone who's never had a client he thought he could trust not make a promised payment after the fact. I had one client for about 3 years and dozens of papers ask me to trust her for her next two papers until she got paid. After all that time, I figured she was trustworthy and didn't want to be rude and say no. It turned out those were her last two papers for her degree and I got several very apologetic emails promising to take care of it as soon as she could, but that was three years ago and the last time I wrote anything for anybody privately that wasn't paid in full in advance. She even had the nerve to email me about a year later asking if I'd write something else for her if she paid for it in advance...suddenly, she had some money for a new essay but apparently never considered using it to pay me any part of what she already owed me. The new essay she wanted was an employment application letter detailing how financially responsible she is. (Not kidding.)

Asking for samples is a good idea, but there's no way of being sure who actually wrote that sample. Your best bet as a customer is to test out a new writer or new site with a short paper of a few pages and just don't wait until you need a 20-page paper in 3 days to start looking for a writer. I'll write as much or as little as someone wants to pay for in advance, but I no longer even schedule an assignment on my calendar until however many pages someone asks me for is paid in full. No exceptions. Nothing personal.

Actually, the company emailed me that night and asked me to take a look at it and to respond to it simply because I've been one of their top writers for almost a decade. The very fact that I use the exact same name as a company writer, as a S/N here, and on that site should make it pretty clear to anybody without an agenda to attack the company or me that I've never tried to hide who I am or what my affiliation with that company is. If I were a company "representative" trying to hide that fact, (especially after being accused of it constantly by you), I'd do it under some made up new S/N to hide that fact, exactly the way some idiots here pose as "satisfied customers" of their own websites.

I've just been one of their best writers since 2003 but I don't "represent" or speak for the company.
Sometimes, I do try to answer legitimate customer questions here if I happen to know the answer, and
I always respond truthfully to refute the blatant lies about the company from competitors that I know, first-hand, cannot be true, such as those typically coming from Stu4.

I'd expect the OP to get a response from customer service in a reasonable time but I have no access to any information about the order.

For a perfect example, a student just started another thread off like this:


I have every right to tell this person that I'm qualified to write the paper and know the topic well (if that's true), but that I'm a U.S. writer. I do not have the right to create a UK-sounding email address and pretend to be a British writer to get the assignment. That's all any of us have been trying to explain to (some) ESLs forever.

To first-time customers, it may or may not be apparent in short emails...and when they get a paper that sounds like ESL, they may not even recognize why it sounds so strange to them because they're not experienced writers. But they know it doesn't sound quite right. Any more experienced customers usually know right away, which is why they post comments on forums like this one saying that they avoided a website because the text was obviously ESL or that they were disappointed by the fact that their papers were obviously written by ESL writers. It's not substantially different from the reason American writers should also disclose to Brits that they're American.

Again, the main point is that the only reason anybody cares in the first place is because ESL English sounds different to us and doesn't sound the way we do in our written voice. It's not racism or prejudice or anything else. Native English speakers want their paid writing to sound like native English and not like ESL English. If an ESL writer discloses that he's ESL before and a customer chooses to use him anyway, there's no problem. The only problem is that many ESLs have decided to misrepresent themselves for the purpose of getting business they would not have gotten from clients who do care about the ESL/native speaker distinction without lying to them. I have no problem with ESLs who are honest about it and you shouldn't have any problem with customers who care enough to ask about it before paying their hard-earned money for professional writing.

Exactly. Native speakers make characteristic mistakes of grammar and even those mistakes are recognizeable as those of native speakers. ESLs often know not to make some of the typical mistakes made by many native speakers who aren't very good writers, but the types of mistakes that ESLs typically do make are never made by even the worst native-speaking writers. That's why some of us are so opposed to ESLs marketing themselves falsely as native speakers and it's the reason customers have a right to know that you're ESL if you are: your English sounds different to any native speaker even if the content of your writing is good and your grammar is technically correct. If your writing weren't so easily recognizeable as ESL writing, nobody would care one way or the other. The fact is that it does and that's why customers care about it and have a right to know whether they're hiring a native English speaker or an ESL writer.

I've always openly admitted that my primary reason for being here is to increase my customer base and that I also write for ET/PHDD and for their associated companies.

I have never posted anything negative about any other essay sites because my knowledge on the topic is strictly limited to the sites I work for and to one other group of sites owned by WRT (Oxbridge and WriteRightTeam) that ripped me off by never paying me for my completed work and then wasted a lot of my time with a series of absolutely ridiculous lies about making arrangements to pay me. (Obviously, none of Hala's promises about paying me while she was "in NYC" for a month ever came true because she was never within thousands of miles of NYC, let alone in the penthouse of any "Trump building" with a personal "chauffeur.")

Defending the commercial sites I write for against blatant lies from competitors doesn't benefit me at all and defending Pheelyks actually conflicts with my financial interests because we're direct competitors for the same pool of potential customers, but anytime I read statements that I know for a fact are complete lies, I defend both of them simply because I think it's the right thing to do. If I were any of the things Stu4 has accused me of being, I'd never go out of my way to defend any company or (especially) another writer who's a direct competitor; I'd simply keep my mouth shut, allow Stu4 and others to lie about them and hope to benefit from people believing those lies and offering me their work instead of them.

I don't "run" or represent, or get paid to defend or promote any commercial website and neither does Pheelyks; we're both just writers for several of them and have always been very honest about that. To my knowledge, WB has no association with any of those sites either. ET and PHDD are different sites owned by SNR and nobody's ever denied that. They have different pricing scales because they offer somewhat different services and policies about reselling papers (ET does but no earlier than a few months after they're written whereas PHDD never resells them at all and charges slightly more partly because of that). I don't blindly defend the sites I write for either. I've always acknowledged that your essay depends on which writer chooses to take it (at any company) and the only thing I've ever said in defense of those companies is that they're 100% legitimate in that they always provide the essay you order; they provide rewrites if the writer screws up; they fire writers for plagiarism; and they always refund your payment 100% anytime a paper cannot be written for any reason.

What I am: A very experienced writer who writes for many commercial sites as well as for freelance customers.

What I represent: Nothing more or less than the truth about myself, the companies I write for, and other writers, even those who compete directly against me when I know that accusations abou them aren't true. Unlike you, I have never disparaged any competing website because I don't operate that way and I've stated many times that I don't know anything about any sites that I've never worked for.

For the record: I have no idea who WB is and I used the PM system here to establish contact by email to fwd a few dozen of the exchanges with WRT/Hala as they were occurring to document my complaint before expecting WB to take my word about it without any proof. Nobody here (including you, if you were honest) really doubts my version of being ripped off by WRT and Hala won't refute it either because she knows that I recorded all of our phone conversations and would just post them here as audio files if she tries to lie about any of it here. There are also 3 or 4 other writers here who reported the exact same pattern of non-payment and endless excuses and promises from Hala that never resulted in payment.

As WB pointed out, if it weren't in direct response to your pathetic untrue attacks on the companies I happen to know about firsthand, I'd never even refer to any of them by name on this forum. I gain absolutely nothing from "promoting" Pheelyks either, because we're competitors, but when I read obvious lies about his writing or business practices, I refute them because I happen to know the truth and don't want people like you to be able to ruin the value of this forum as a legitimate source of information about which writers and companies are trustworthy and which ones aren't.