Me too. Let's hope the negative effects of this bad press can be unwound. Eek.

Hi there,

I've been absent for a while as something pretty awful happened to me, the details of which I'd rather not go into. However, Jason, I'm sorry to have let you down. Please get in touch with your paypal details and I'll refund you the deposit. I am NOT a scammer, but occasionally things outwith our control happen and this was such an instance.

Regards,

Steven

While I agree with PV that your English is nowhere near good enough for the purposes of academic writing, I'd assume that if the company is actually reputable and you genuinely haven't been paid because the student failed, then they would likely have given you greater detail and potentially have asked you to re-do the work at no additional expense to them or the client. This is a red flag for me. Moreover, how long after the submission was the payment supposed to be paid? If it is just a few days, then I feel that it's unlikely that the student will have submitted their work and had it both marked and returned already. Another red flag if this is the case.

Oh, that happens a lot here. I once took my mum travelling with me to Asia. There was a lot of talking slowly and loudly, on her part, accompanies by wild hand gestures. It was pretty embarrassing. She calmed down after a week or two. Haha.

I have a lot of foreign friends with differing levels of English, and I have always been conscious of making sure that I speak English more formally with those with lower levels. I actually find it very cringe-worthy when I hear native speakers using idioms or really colloquial words when talking with foreigners, especially when they are met with confusion or a blank stare and they simply repeat the same thing. It's so awkward.

Yeah, in desperate times I've taken on product reviews and the like, which pay a couple of £ per review. If I squeezed enough into a day, it just about made it worth the effort. If it was just one or two on offer, it was pointless.

I also generally just take something from the first page of search results, which clearly isn't the way forward.

I don't completely disagree that re-branding would be a good idea, but I think the wording used would have to be that which a student would find to be synonymous with the activity involved. Unfortunately that activity is best described by the sorts of search terms prohibited by Google, as mentioned by Major. It seems that terminology indicating assistance with work will fly, whereas words indicating the undertaking of work will not.

Out of curiosity, does anyone write anything other than academic work on a paid basis? This was my original intention when i graduated journalism school, but it became apparent very quickly that to make it in the world of journalism generally involves doing a lot of work for free before anyone is willing to take you on. Even if you want to carve out a career as a freelance journalist means building up a huge portfolio of work, usually completed for free. At the age of 32, I've been considering my options, and I've applied for and been accepted onto a masters degree in public policy. Getting funding for that will prove difficult seeing as I already have two degrees and received funding for both, so funding the degree privately may be my only option. So, all I have to do is save. Oh wait, I need some orders for that. And we've gone full circle.

Haha, why thank you. Now, is it really in Esperanto, or is it some jumbled Google translate mess? ;)


I definitely don't think (s)he's being serious. Are you? No, you're not. That would be quite some undertaking. I'm keen if you are though.


I've never heard this term before. I don't often use this adjective often, but it is rather fabulous, I do say so. Is 2100 a guess or did you read that somewhere. Is it definitely heading that way at a fast pace for sure. Us English speakers generally have it easy in terms of language, but I have to meet my partner's parents soon, both of whom are French and don't speak English, so I'm at a disadvantage with that one. I'm currently dusting off some old French language books.

Yah yah yah, I get it. I feel like a fool. I've learned my lesson. I'm usually far more savvy, but generally I'm quite good at spotting a bull****er. Clearly not on this occasion. However, in my dealings with other writers passing on work and with essay companies, I'm yet to encounter one willing to pay upfront. Of course, this would be ideal, but the potential for them to be fleeced is also there, so I can see where the reluctance lies.

This is probably true, which is, of course, a shame in so many ways. Not only do legitimate writers get less work, but students are faced with an even more difficult task. Sorting the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.


I should probably start doing the same. I've given it a try, but I don't think it has been successful at all. It could be worth hiring a professional to take a look and see what they can do. Have you guys noticed a marked difference between your sites, if you have them, before and after application of SEO?


From my experience with Google, I'd guess that they would be on this pretty quickly. Out of curiosity, aside from aggressive and/or illegal SEO practices, are the Ukrainian companies, on the whole, known to be scammers or otherwise?

Haha. Is there a prize? I've noticed that most American writers charge per page and that most American students who contact me have been assigned work with a required page count, either exact or approximate, but in the UK this is really uncommon. As far as I know, students always work to a word count here. Any idea as to the justification for working to a page count, especially when no indication is given as to the font size and line spacing to be used? Perhaps there is a standard assumption that students will use 12 point Arial or Times New Roman with double line spacing or something similar to this? In which case, I can see the logic behind a page count as opposed to a word count.

I'm actually relieved in some way, not to make light of everyone else's misfortune, that I'm not the only one whose orders have declined significantly of late. I had convinced myself that I wasn't advertising myself well enough or that I was missing something that other writers were doing. I'm currently looking for an alternative means of making a living, because I'm not convinced that this is a viable option for the future. I'm anxious more of the time than I ever was before and I just can't deal with it any longer. Financial security is definitely the direction in which I'm heading.

I agree wholeheartedly. For the reason you state, it would never fly though. Moreover, the majority of attempts to introduce 'universally acceptable' anything fail. Take a look at Esperanto. Great idea in principle, but just didn't work out in reality. Obviously that's a much larger idea than a single referencing style though ;) On a side note, I have many friends who are university lecturers or professors, and not a single one of them checks citations. So, I'd place a bet on the proposition that many people don't even bother using the correct ones in order to save some time. Although, when I was at law school, I had a very fastidious professor for family law who could often be found in the law library checking random citations, so it does happen.

I'm sure I replied to this before, but for some reason it's not there any more. We are still part of the EU, but it's all very much up in the air right now. The referendum result, which is to leave the EU, is not legally binding, and a great deal of pressure is being placed on the EU to ignore the result for a number of reasons, one of which is that it came about due to a relatively small majority. Anyhow, we'll see what happens. It's quite a mess. If it all goes ahead, Scotland will hold a referendum for independence and remain in the EU. The EU has shown overwhelming support for this. Again, we'll see.


I, too, have been participating for the same reason, and while I wouldn't argue that it is altogether unpleasant, I am still unsure of its efficacy. I haven't seen my rating decline, but I have noticed that sometimes it shoots up considerably following my contributions, whereas on other occasions it creeps up just nominally. This seems to be regardless of the word count of contributions. Also, while my contributions are always relevant to the discussions, I'm not sure that the discussions are always particularly a beneficial additions to the community. Furthermore, the number of ads on essaychat, where most of my work originates from, has notably decreased to the point where just a few of us have been featured on there recently, but the number of orders I have received has also decreased. Go figure? Anyone would imagine that, with competition diminished due to others not bothering to contribute here, business would thrive. Not the case for me for sure.

Scammed by another writer

It was absolutely my own fault for being so foolish, but I was scammed recently by another writer who passed on some work to me. I took no form of prior payment, and onceI sent the work I never heard from him again. His name is Joel Kennedy and his e-mail address is billionaireken@gmail. Do not trust this guy. I thought about posting the essay online, but the only person who would suffer would be the student who commissioned the work, so that's not fair. Sigh.

I have no need to use plagiarism scanners other than when a client asks for it for peace of mind. If the client requests it, who am I to argue?

I've never been asked to use that method yet. I'm always surprised by how strict come professors are about referencing methods. I think it takes away valuable concentration from the content. I had a professor at university who stated that we should pick a method, stick to it, and ensure our referencing is consistent, even if it deviated from one of the popular styles. I always thought that to be much better than being obsessed with a particular style, knocking off marks if a date wasn't in brackets, or if a comma was used instead of a full stop, and so on.


I've never even given this a try.

I've attempted to keep a couple of blogs over the years, but they always fell by the wayside. My most recent endeavor was blogging about backpacking around the world for a couple of years, but in the end I was too busy enjoying myself and interacting with people to write about it. I'd constantly meet very spiritual, earthy-types around campfires in India, who I thought lived very simplistic lives, only to see them hunched over a $3000 Macbook Air the following day in a cafe. Those people were better at blogging than me.

Haha, I see the confusion here.

This is a very altruistic move. I'm impressed. The new Essaychat. I hope it works out.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. I usually leave the reference list until the end to save losing the flow to scroll down to add each one as I go.

This used to my best avenue, but recently it hasn't been working out so well for me. Craigslist isn't so popular here, but I do get something from that now and then. The most popular alternative in the UK, Gumtree, recently banned the promotion of our services, unless for editing/proofreading only, so that isn't much use either. Google adwords is a constant battle and sites like freelancer and upwork are useless. I'm nearly at the end of my rope trying to figure out the best way to promote myself.

That is still, to this day, one of my favourite shows. It never stops being funny.


Out of curiosity, do you bash on with writing and then go back to referencing, or do you do it as you go? Maybe even both interchangeably?

I recently spoke with an American chap who felt that our use of English was outdated and that North American English was the way forward. How do you all feel about that?

It's relatively inexpensive, though. However, each document has to be under a certain word count, so if you're over you'll have to pay for more than one scan. They can be purchased in batches though.

I just did a Google search expecting this to be some local dish, but it's a music venue. Haha. My bad.

Well, it sounds like you're all much faster, and consequently probably much richer, than me. I take my proverbial hat off to you all ;)

From their 'Why us?' section:

"The majority of custom essay writers hold academic degrees in different academic fields."

Concerning much? I'd hope that this applied to ALL of their writers.

Are you really THAT surprised? Below is their 'About us' section. PLEASE. BE. CAREFUL. FOR. THE. LOVE. OF. LARRY.

/copy-paste removed/

There are some great bargain basement flights available online to India these days :P

Noted. I was just curious about the "You're welcome."

I thought essayscam/essaychat had a way of verifying the countries in which users are situated?

Was it your suggestion writers2beware that FreelanceWriter do that?

Do ESL writers think that everyone is dumb enough to be fooled into thinking they're native English speakers? Or do they just have a false sense of confidence in their English abilities? Baffling.

It's actually quite endearing actually and makes me think their justifications are true. Clients who don't seem to have issues with guilt are more frequent and usually the transactions are faster and more efficient. The ones who need to justify need reassurance that everything will be fine.

I definitely think that it helps to underline credibility, but unfortunately it means that scammers can offer a false sense of security :(

True. Does anyone else find that clients who come to you as the result of recommendations can still be wary even though they've been told that you're trustworthy and capable of producing good work? The paranoia and wariness of clients in such instances has always confused me a little.

I have found some model writing companies which pay the same rate per 1000 words as I charge independently, but it makes me feel a little sick to think about what they must be charging students if they can pay such high rates while still managing to retain what is presumably a considerable cut.

Oh, I generally never offer samples for this reason. The best thing to do is to ask for them to devise a random essay question, which for which you can write an introductory paragraph or the like. That way, legitimate companies get to see the standard of your writing, while scammers who just want to publish or sell your work will be put off.