The OP says that he was struggling and needed some help. In my experience as a writer, if a student has been performing poorly throughout a given module and demonstrates some 'spontaneous' remarkable recovery, the type of consequence Trouble is experiencing should not necessarily be all that puzzling. Here's an illustrative example:

Recently I had to put together a lengthy market entry analysis for an international student's final, a paper that was the culmination of a six-segment module. Segment 6 was based on the information from segments 1--5. The student handled the first five segments without my assistance, and when I went to review them for the sake of writing the 6th segment (the final comprehensive document), I discovered a number of errors in the strategic analysis they conducted in segments 1--5. I corrected those errors in the final paper. Despite being well written, the professor accused the student of plagiarism, and the case is still pending.

My personal advice to my client was for him to urge the professor to submit the 30+pg document to turn-it-in, because otherwise there was no evidence of any plagiarism. I'm not certain what your circumstances are like or what you have already admitted to your school admins, trouble, but my client has been very steadfast in denying any plagiarism whatsoever. However, note that he could only be confident about doing so because I confirmed to him 100% that none of it was plagiarized. I guess my advice to you is to see if you can get in contact with the actual author of your paper and to try to ascertain whether or not they plagiarized any parts of it. If:

1) Your writer did not plagiarize;
2) Your writer is willing to work closely with you through this dilemma; and
3) You have not already admitted any wrong-doing to your school admins,

then you might still have a chance.

Hope some of my info helps you out, Trouble. If you get a chance, please try to post in greater detail about your situation and I will do my best to offer you some advice that is more helpful to you specifically. I have some experience with these types of situations, but it is really case-specific, so the more info you provide, the better we can help you.

Best of luck, mate.

-ACE

Hey there EW_Writer,

I used to charge some of my international clients through WU, and one time I ran into a similar situation to the one you related. Have you tried asking the fellas at your WU branch to search for the payment using the information of the sender (customer)? IIRC, they can cross-reference your info with that of the sender, but only if there is a valid MTCN for the transaction.

For what it's worth, after I registered my business as a sole proprietorship at Citibank, I was able to purchase a credit card swiping terminal. It's a lot more convenient than using WU, and the fees are a fraction of what Paypal charges...of course, it also depends a lot more on how much your clients trust you with their cc info.

Hope some of that info helped. Let us know if you learn anything new, and I'll try to follow up. Take care mate.

-ACE

P.S.: I whole-heartedly endorse Freelance's position of taking payment up front. While my particular clientele never screw me over, I've been in situations where I've had to wait unexpectedly long periods before I could finally collect. Any stable business has to be built on controllable/predictable cashflow....just my two cents. tc

Sorry happyme, my reply was to the opening poster. I just read your posts now...I sincerely hope you did not purchase from that 'writer'... sounds like a car salesman (no offense to any honest car salesmen out there).

-ACE

Maybe it's just my personal ethic, but any writer that is truly exceptional treats each essay the same way a passionate artist treats their works of art. I know it sounds ultra-cheesy, but when you're good at something, you naturally take pride in your work...hence your work should always be 'premium.'

With respects to the opening post about ridiculously annoying super-short-but-overachieving-1page-dissertation type assignments, my solution to that problem is to set a minimum charge for essays. I justify it on the grounds that even if the writing does not take very long, it takes greater time/effort/energy to write one page about an entirely new topic than it does to write continuously in a multi-page essay....so I charge a minimum rate for 1-pagers. For my business, that rate is 2.5x the normal per-page rate.

-ACE

The best writers are the ones you can deal with face-to-face, or that come highly recommended from individuals you personally trust. Otherwise, you really don't know what you're getting. You need to have some access to info about their track record. Anybody can post a bogus track record on a website and call themselves legit...the only way you can verify for sure is to consult the experiences of that writer's past clients. Best of luck.

-ACE