Hi

I've been with AK on and off for several years and it does vary from month to month what they are like to deal with. I will try and offer a balanced view... you can tell they're very busy and as such they need a lot of automation, this at times causes substantial problems as no 'human' seems to read the messages from clients to the researchers and back again. When you can break through and speak to someone you normally get quite a lot of sense and support.

Many of the clients have no real idea what they want and only know that they haven't got what they want when they get it (if you see what I mean). This creates frustration from an amendment point of view and certainly there is a tendency of AK to fall down on the side of the client rather than the writer which again is frustrating but not personal. If you can have a thick skin and are prepared to draw the line yourself (AK will never tell a client that an amendment is unjustified but if you push it or point out plaigiarism then they will on the whole back you up).

There are pros and cons, on the whole they're fine to work with but you need to accept that there is a definite bias towards the client and try and push through the automated system stuff if you want to stay sane!!

I used to work for AK and also left due to the 300% fines that popped up randomly. A few months ago I was contacted by them to inform me that the management team had changed a bit and the 300% fines had gone away. I rejoined them at this point and they have really cleaned up their game.

They are still a big organisation and you have to navigate the automated system at times but on the whole they have been nothing but fair since rejoining and I have been pleasantly surprised. I'd be amazed if these annoyances are recent.

I think you're misunderstanding where I'm coming from on this. I believe that AK aren't operating as above board as they would like not necessarily from a desire to be illegal but rather from a desire to ensure that they can levy 300% fines whenever they choose. Fining someone 300% several months after a submission because the client complains that on submitting the piece they did not get the grade they ordered shows that not only are their fining processes unfair but also that they recognise that clients will hand in work as their own.

By being unprepared to tell the client that they used the piece incorrectly and therefore cannot get a refund of they (albeit probably accidentally) put themselves into the category of being a dubious organisation. Their desire to fine writers wherever possible has sadly compromised the integrity of the organisation.

Jennifer has threatened the usual confidentiality clause whilst also denying that clients are 'allowed' (or at least not stopped) from handing in work as their own. If it is genuinly believed (as Jennifer has stated on more than one occasion) that students are not, in the main, handing in submissions as their own, then there will be no breach of confidentiality. I and I'm guessing others on here are slightly sceptical of this but it is simply contradictory to hold both statements at the same time.

Either students are not submitting as their own and therefore there will be no link between submissions and individual students = no confidentiality being breached OR

students are submitting as their own, will be identifiable and confidentiality broken = AK are acting illegally by encouraging this to happen.

Hope that makes it clearer.

Please what? I fully expect that links probably will be made as I for one do not believe the assertions made by AK that students don't use work as their own, but if they genuinly believe this and do all they can to prevent it, there should be no need to be concerned about issues of confidentiality.

Where model answers have been provided by myself or indeed others these can (and I suspect given the drive to clean up this type of activity) will, be added to the databases used to check documents submitted by students. As none of your clients submit as their own there will be no link between these model answers and any specific student. Rest assured no briefs are being submitted to the universities involved.

"I forwarded the email I received from AK to WB showing I was fined 300% for an issue where the customer claimed that the essay THEY SUBMITTED TO THEIR UNIVERSITY DID NOT GET THE GRADE THEY ANTICIPATED, And AK claim that customers are discouraged from submitting these as their own!!Surely the customer should have been told ' you should not have submitted this as your own work so tough - no refund' As if AK would do that!

And am I really supposed to believe you lost £240 as a result of this? You call this a fair amount?"

I had exactly the same experience with them and finally had to remove myself from their books due to the unpredictability of their fines and also the fact that they were blatantly condoning students submitting essays as their own.

Another problem I found was that fines would get levied several months later and basically at the discretion of the quality team despite the fact that no problems were raised in the initial 7 day period. This made it very difficult to have any idea of what was going on or what you were actually going to earn in any month.

Several universities are getting suspicious over here and I have used the evidence I have to support them in finding out students who are submitting essays as their own. I suspect AK will not be fully functioning for much longer given the clear drive being shown by universities to filter out this behaviour.

Hi all

I just stumbled across this after a google search or two... Anyhow I've been writing for AK for nearly 2 years now and up until now I've found them to be pretty good. Frustrating at times with a very slow response to any query you make for your benefit i.e. relating to payment but expecting double quick responses to amendment queries etc.

But in the last month or so they have got a lot worse. I'm not sure if it's an economic climate thing that has caused the company to try and get back as much money from writers as they can or whether there has been a change in the quality department which has resulted in quite a bit of incompetence. I do believe that it is just that rather than a deliberate attempt to swindle but at the end of the day the result is the same.

I'm currently having a battle over 2 'penalties' both of which I don't think should have been applied as all instructions were followed and it's clear that the client is just after a refund. Apparently AK have refunded but if they give in when the writer has followed every request / amendment to the letter I don't see why the writer should suffer.

The real annoyance is the fact that one of these penalties has been applied twice and one four times so I am now down a total of nearly £1300 over what should be at most a £500 penalty (and that I dispute). On pointing this out to the quality team you get a curt and totally useless response of 'tough that's our decision'.

Jennifer is looking into it and I must say that she has always been really helpful and responsive so hopefully I'll be able to report back with some good news :-) I do think that the main problem comes from the total lack of thought that the quality team seem to throw at situations, even with amendments they simply seem to cut and paste responses without actually reading them which is infuriating at best.

What I'm trying to say is that there is a pocket of total annoyance (quality) and it is a monthly battle to get the correct invoice agreed which is very irritating but if you can learn to take a deep breath and try to realise that it really is just down to a lot of thoughtless button pressing from some individuals then they can be a good company to work for. Rates are pretty good and there is a reasonably constant flow of work.

I will keep you all updated as to how this progresses. Naturally if they attempt to enforce the 2x penalty and the 4x penalty I will be pursuing it so much as I hope I don't become a test case we may get to find out how enforceable those clauses are!! ;-)

Quick update - through much correspondance they have taken off the duplicate for one brief, the original penalty is still there (was taken last month) and the 400% penalty for the second one is apparently going to stand.

I've given up this end and passed it to credit control to go through debt recovery and small claims if necessary - I will let you know what the final decision is on having such large penalties as it could be of interest to many on this forum.

N