Thanks.

I believe the market for pre-written essays has been dead since 2007 when it was killed by turnitin.

I respectfully disagree. If you simply Google "self-plagiarism," the first page of returns includes excerpts from numerous university honor codes that explain exactly what it is and why it's considered to be a form of plagiarism and academic dishonesty. As I've suggested before, if someone really believes that reusing your own previous work for another class is perfectly fine, just ask any professor whether or not it's permitted on his assignments.

To me, the most relevant distinction is simply whether or not writers are willing to disclose their real names to their prospective clients more than what kind of name writers use for pseudonyms. The best possible protection customers can ever have against blackmail (in particular) is knowing the real names and locations of their writers, mainly because that makes blackmail entirely impossible.

Anybody who doubts this should just search the term "AI hallucination."

I'd say probably much closer to the end of next year.

Agreed. Likewise, the fact that an independent writer has used the same U/N here (and elsewhere) for decades supports the opposite inference: namely, that the writer has absolutely nothing to hide from prospective customers. The profile and search functions on this forum are also very helpful in that respect, because they allow you to review any writer's entire posting history, as well as comments from clients (and from other legitimate writers), all the way back to the date that the writer first registered a user name here.

That's exactly why I created the same ID on this forum in 2008 that I'd always used as my ID at every essay company (before going completely independent in 2013), and also as my primary direct local email address since 1999 or 2000. Good legitimate writers want prospective customers to be able to review and cross-reference our reputations and representations dating as far back as possible and on as many different platforms as possible, because we have absolutely nothing to hide and we understand the reputational and good-will value of maintaining a single online ID for 25 years.

I agree, but because AI generates really bad essays that are often full of completely fabricated information, not plagiarized content.

IP information is unreliable, both because it can be deliberately masked by bad actors and because it often (innocently) reflects only the location of the host's servers, which is (obviously) totally unrelated to the location of a completely legitimate company (or person) running a website. That's why your safest bet is simply to use only providers whose actual personal identity and physical location can be confirmed on your end, such as through local landline phone directories. Avoid providers who refuse to disclose their real names and/or whose names and locations can't be verified independently.

So, basically, AI-quality essays five years before the release of ChatGPT.

I have to strongly disagree. If I were a customer, about the last thing that I'd ever consider doing is using anybody just entering this field right now, when the vast majority of experienced professional writers who've done this work for many year are leaving the business, entirely. It's practically guaranteed that anybody actually entering this field now, for the first time, is just going to be using AI to write horrible essays, which customers could do themselves for free. New writers are even more of a risk today than they were when I last posted in this thread seven years ago.

I don't think "Brilliant Writing" would have been a bad name, but only an ESL writer would have pluralized Writing.

That's why the quality of work from essay companies has gotten even worse, because only the most desperate writers continue working for them at reduced pay rates.

Agreed.

That's actually good news for students. Since current AI technology is only capable of equalling the work provided by the worst essay companies and writers, it's been functioning as an internal culling mechanism by putting most of them out of business, leaving only the best writers whose work is way too good for AI programs to duplicate.

In one respect, this is beneficial to prospective customers looking for a legitimate writer. By now, the only remaining writers are the best of the best who've been doing this long enough (and well enough) to have cultivated extensive clientele lists. Less successful writers have already left the business, and there are probably fewer scam writers than ever, simply because scammers tend to target industries with significant potential, not industries under tremendous threat from a competing technology.

Today, it's no longer just the outright scams referenced by the OP back in 2011 that customers have to worry about. Even companies that were always legit now end up providing terrible AI-generated essays as often as not, simply because they can't trust their own writers not to use AI. Unlike plagiarism, AI writing can't be definitively identified by any of the kinds of scanners that essay companies used to keep their own writers honest when plagiarism and writers poaching customers were their main concerns.

There's probably an endless number of desperate unqualified writers who apply for work from any company they find without doing any research about it, just as there's an endless number of gullible first-time customers who fall for the promises of scam companies without doing the minimal amount of research necessary to find a legitimate and trustworthy provider.

According to their TOS, they retain exclusive copyright to the work that their customers pay for, and the only permitted use of any part of it is to paraphrase and cite it as "(OrderEssay.net 2025)" within your own essay:

"Full copyright in any Products or other materials delivered to You is retained by us and/or our affiliates and partners."

"...the research provided by our company may be used in Client's original piece of writing only if properly cited or paraphrased."

I'd suggest that customers only do business with writers who allow their customers to own the copyright and who don't police how their customers choose to use the work they pay for.

Apparently, it takes some people at least 11 years before they learn to recognize and correct even the most obvious redundancy in a very simple sentence.

This part is confusing, because essay companies don't typically share customer info with writers, in the first place.

In the 10 years that wrote for essay companies prior to 2014, the only thing I ever "got back" besides my payment was a pocket calendar with the company's name on it around the holidays, one time, around 2009 or 2010.

While it's true that a bad essay could be written in good English, bad English ("alone") is usually enough to make the project worthless to any NES student.


True. If they admit that they're not native English speakers, they're honest; and if they try to conceal that from customers, they're dishonest.

Please. Payment "months after" delivering projects is already a major "issue" that nobody who does this for a living is interested in dealing with, irrespective of the "personality" of the customer. Customers expect delivery on or before deadline, too, and not sometime after deadline because procrastination, irresponsibility, and inconsideration are all parts of the writer's "personality." Same concept.

Chances are the company received complaints about the writer's work and they were satisfied that those complaints were justified; so they chose to just terminate the writer without going through the back-and-forth headache of discussing those complaints with the writer and engaging in the inevitable argument about it. With at-will employment, that's their prerogative.

Correct. At least with traditional plagiarism, companies could monitor their writers' work by using plagiarism scanners. When it comes to AI, essay companies have no way of knowing; so any related guarantees are worthless.

Anybody earning $400 or more from self-employment in any calendar year must file federal income taxes; so that covers anybody actually earning a living in this industry, as well as plenty of people not even earning a living from it.

Most of us whose high-quality work enabled us to cultivating a private clientele already transitioned to 100% independence years ago, as soon as we were able to do so. Now that some of those same essay companies have substantially reduced their payout, it's a pretty safe bet that the only writers still working for them are desperate for work, because they don't write well enough to provide a quality product, in the first place, and never could have pursued any other options.

@noted
I agree with this 100%.

This thread perfectly illustrates why nobody who's been doing this kind of work for more than 5 minutes would ever write any project -- let alone actually deliver it -- before receiving payment in full.

If that's true, I suspect it means that the quality of work from essay companies has only gotten worse across the board. Good writers probably don't continue writing for companies at half their previous pay rate, which leaves only those desperate enough to stay, because they don't write well enough to have any other options or their own private clientele built from satisfied customers.

Commercial copywriters and social-media-content writers are even more vulnerable to losing their jobs to AI than academic writers, which is why so many of them have already been laid off or found their positions eliminated, entirely. That type of writing is well within the capabilities of current AI writing programs, because it doesn't require accurate, objective, analytical thought; it requires little more than familiarity with current affairs and social media and the ability to mimic a human voice. Good academic essays still require human writers, because just making stuff up, regurgitating existing content, and generating marketing spin and unsuported opinions just doesn't work for academic writing.

Totally agree with this. I understand that AI is actually very good for taking notes and creating outlines; it's just lousy when it comes to writing essays, unless you're shooting for a C-/D grade.

There are only two kinds of projects as pertains to originality: (1) custom-written original projects and (2) recycled pre-written projects. "Model" projects are also supposed to be 100% custom-written, totally original work, because the term "model" only relates to what the customer actually does with the work once it's delivered. Someone would have to be a complete idiot to pay for a pre-written "model" essay, because professors give those out for free, and unlike any model essays provided by an essay company, the models distributed (or provided on request) by a professor are actually from that professor's course and represent exactly what that professor wants to see in your projects.

Exactly. This is one of the main reasons that this industry exists in the first place: Assigning essays to students preparing to work in fields that involve no writing is a waste of their time, as is assigning essays in elective courses that students wouldn't even bother taking if they weren't necessary just to satisfy arbitrary mandatory general-studies requirements. Students majoring in Chemistry, Engineering, and Nursing, (just for a few of countless examples), shouldn't have to waste their time writing essays, in the first place.

The most important part of due diligence is making sure that you know the true identity and actual location of any writer you're considering. Never trust any provide that won't disclose that information and whose information you can't confirm independently.

Let me reiterate something that I've previously explained: namely, that the sole purpose of "chat assistants" at essay companies is to convert every inquiry into a paid order ASAP, and preferably, within the very first commnications exchange. Their answer to every question will always be that they have the "perfect expert" with an advanced degree in whatever the field of your project. They're always endlessly polite and "helpful" before they get their hands on your money. After that, if you have any complaint about the work that they provide and, especially, if you ever try to invoke one of their satisfaction "guarantees" or money-back guarantees, their tone will shift dramatically and they'll either refer you to the fine print of their "policies" that exempt them from any further obligation, or ghost you after a few exchanges, or start threatening you unless you retract the payment dispute that you rightfully initiated after they provide you with a totally worthless project for your hard-earned money.

While I appreciate the interest, I don't discuss my prices publicly.

The smartest protocol for anybody facing this situation in the future is as follows:

1. Respond to the very first threat of blackmail by explaining that Post #7 is exactly what you're going to post publicly if he contacts you again and/or contacts your school.
2. Block every means by which he contacts you.
3. If he finds another way to reach you and/or if you discover that he's contacted your school or publicized your name, post all his info right here as in Post #7.

While it would obviously be more beneficial to others for you to post his info here right off the bat, I understand that your first priority is to protect yourself; so retain whatever leverage you have by giving him a chance to leave you alone, first, instead of posting his info here right away, because once you do that, he has no further incentive to back off, but the additional incentive of pursuing revenge for your posting his info here.