Ditto to what Dylan has said. Quality is good and work is done to deadline.

In my opinion Custom essays.co.uk are to be avoided. It looks like they are an ESL company operating from India / Pakistan, although they claim to be UK based.

I'm not sure if I allowed to post a link to another forum thread but if I am then this thread is worth reading: essayfraud/forum/index.php?showtopic=151

What an interesting thread.

I wonder if students do really want 'perfection' in spelling and grammar if they are planning to turn the purchased essays in as their own. Some time ago I read an article online, on the NY Times website I think, in which an unnamed professor said that if a student correctly used a semi colon in an essay then he considered that the essay was most likely plagiarised. Of course the professor might have been teaching at a particularly bad school but it does raise the point that even native speakers don't usually have a perfect grasp of grammar.

I suppose the point is that what students want is an essay that most closely matches their own academic standard. This is possibly why problems still occur even with 'good' essay companies as people do have different standards and expectations; what I may think is a good standard of research and writing may be very different to what someone else considers to be a good standard and, as a result, we will likely have very different opinions about the quality of the work supplied to us by the same writer / essay company.

When someone wants their own post deleted then I see no reason why the site admin, if they agree to the deletion, can't delete the post concerned and state the reason for the edit. Deleting an entire thread because one company is named is ridiculous and makes people such as myself suspicious that the website is furtively promoting one company (by deleting any vaguely critical comments about it) while allowing comments critical of other companies in other threads to remain.

A random forum poster? I think not. I've just been looking at my old screen shots from this site and there so seem to be a large number of posts by you defending Essay Advisor and also one specific essay company which I'm happy to name if you'd like me to (I'm sure the essay company is just another company that you are absolutely not connected with but just happen to "like" their website). I'm not sure what happened to the threads but I still have the screen shots if you'd like me to post them to remind you of your past comments.

As for "What the hell do I have to do with what's printed in black and white on Essay Advisor's home page" - I really don't know but you do seem absolutely desperate to defend them even at the cost of resorting to abuse.

You missed my point, Amy1978. I didn't ask where you read this. I asked how do you KNOW this?

You seem happy to defend Essay Advisor incessantly and vigorously and occasionally abusively (which I don't mind incidently as I'm used to dealing with people who resort to abuse when they know that their argument is failing). You are happy to accept anything that appears on that website with absolute blind faith in spite of the website hiding the most basic information about themselves i.e. who they are and how they came into existence. So, I'm forced to conclude that you are either exceptionally naive and gullible or you are connected with Essay Advisor.


It depends which statements you refer to. If as you say, they were affiliated with a paper mill, it would make the statement that they are an independent watchdog completely untrue. Isn't that rather obvious?

It would also give you cause to wonder if, for example, a phenomena such as disappearing threads was related to their activities as a paper mill / essay company. If this was the case, they could hardly claim to be independent and acting in the best interests of the industry if they were deleting threads which mentioned their own affiliated company while allowing other threads criticising unaffiliated companies to remain on their forum.

How do you know this? (Don't forget your script Amy1978: this is an organization that you have no connection with). You do seem to be remarkably well informed about them considering your lack of involvement.


Their influence in outing criminals doesn't bother me in the least; I am happy that criminals like Essay Relief are outed. It is a pity they continue to spawn more sites and continue to defraud consumers but I don't think that a site such as Essay Advisor is helping stem the tide when there is a lack of transparency about who they are and how they operate.

My concern is that an organization is promoting itself as being an independent industry watchdog but is starting to look like a much more shadowy affair.

I would love for the essay industry to have a truly independent watchdog; Student Essay Advisor isn't it.

I don't know about the first part; I will find out though when I contact them about this story.

I do know though that "The Daily Mail" automatically deletes old content from its website though so I don't believe your allegation that they deleted it because of threats. Also, "The Daily Mail" was at the forefront of investigative journalism into Irish terrorism and the Irish Republican Army (responsible for over 3,200 deaths in bombing campaigns) so your claim that they ran scared from an essay writing company is simply laughable - but nice try dear.

Again, it is staggering to see the lengths you will go to in defending an organization that you claim you have no connection with. Staggering .... and completely implausible. Thanks for providing me with more ammunition though.

Even in a nasty and cruel world such as ours, the organization still has a duty to prove that it is what it claims to be and part of that is being open and transparent about who is behind the website.

I could set up a website and claim that I am acting as an industry watchdog, hide that I am the owner of the website by using a private registry service, and claim that I couldn't possibly consider letting anyone know who was behind the website or where it was based in case somebody attacked me. I could promote the site through Google Ad words etc ensuring high volume traffic and encourage others to seek 'verification' from me by stating boldly on the site that the industry is riddled with fraud and consumers should only trust verified sites. All very reasonable when taken at face value. But it wouldn't absolve me of the responsibility to prove that I was a legitimate industry watchdog in the first place and not promoting self-interest.

I don't doubt that Student Essay Advisor has some interesting information on its website, or that some of the people it names on its site as frauds are nasty people.

When the UK's "Daily Mail" outed the Essay Relief company as being criminals (in an article that Amy1978 helpfully posted on this website), what gave the story credibility was that the story was run by a national newspaper and anyone, anywhere in the world, who read the story online or in the newsprint edition could verify that the people publishing the allegations were a legitimate organization. The story was published under the name of a respected journalist and the newspaper provides full contact addresses (physical addresses, email, telephone and fax numbers) in every print edition and on it's website. That's what made the allegations credible.

Before I started this discussion, I was quite open minded about the site. I had noticed disappearing threads, but I hadn't really thought about what the ramifications of this were as, to be quite honest, the site wasn't of that much interest.

Having had this discussion though, and read Amy1978's posts in particular, I am now very concerned about the site. As Essay Advisor got a mention in the Daily Mail's article about Essay Relief, I am writing to the journalist concerned and asking him to consider looking into Essay Advisor's possibly self-appointed role as "industry watchdog" and the questions of bias that are emerging.

This is very worrying for consumers.

I can't find anything on Student Essay Advisor's homepage that says anything about who is behind the site. There are plenty of vaguely worded statements ("a watchdog organization"; "we also dissuade plagiarism"; "we help expose the dangers of diploma mills" etc) but nothing that specifies who exactly is behind the website, i.e. who exactly is "we"?

For any organization to exist, one or more individuals or existing organizations must have created it. I don't think it is unreasonable for people to ask about the organization's inception. If it is "a watchdog organization" then it's existence and management must be above reproach.

Amy1978, if Essay Advisor aren't paying you then I would suggest that they certainly should be. You do so much on their behalf and with such passion and conviction; it seems a shame if you are not being remunerated for your efforts. I do think that in this instance, your efforts are misguided though and, at least in my mind, your posts have sown more seeds of doubt about the site than were present at the start of this discussion.

Gantoris, if you ask them nicely they may forward your email to me; they have done this before when people have wanted to get in touch with me.

I'm curious, who are you to demand facts from Gantoris? You've already clearly stated you are not connected with Essay Advice; you choose to fight tooth and nail on their behalf because you "like" them.

If I wasn't suspicious about your links with Essay Advisor at the beginning of this discussion, I definitely am now!

I just mentioned that as I read one thread last night that was not there this morning; seemed very innocuous to me but the site admin obviously thought otherwise!

As a consumer, I'd really rather threads remained. Having spent some time reading boards for my research, I'm now very suspicious of any company that does not have any negative comments posted about it as no company is perfect and you'd expect someone somewhere to have a gripe, however minor.

I'd much rather the boards on such websites were left largely intact and that the site admin/original complainant/ company representative posted a response that stated what had been done to try to resolve the complaint etc. I think it would actually reassure consumers more that if there is a problem, and problems will arise even in the best companies, then the company's customer services will address the problem.

Obviously if someone just posted that 'x company is bad' then there is a case for deletion as no detail is provided indicating how the company has failed to provide a reasonable service. It is disappointing though when you see detailed comments, where the complainant has obviously taken time and effort to state the problem clearly and rationally, suddenly vanish without explanation. But as I've said before, it is the people who run the websites, whoever they are, who get to have editorial control.

PS You do realize that my comment that "online you never really know who is posting the messages and what their agenda is" applies equally to you and I :)

Major says "But "the French company" won't reveal it's actually based in France, not in the USA/Canada, will it? I think Essay Advisor wants to point that out and it's a good thing."

They might do. I don't think you can assume that just because a company is based outside the US then they are certain to misrepresent their location.

If any company lies about where they are based then I think that they should be avoided. There are many essay companies that claim to be UK based but are actually based in Pakistan and are widely known to be fraudsters (although perhaps not widely enough as they still claim victims).

Being based in the US should not be automatically considered to be synonymous with quality. A US based (and Student Essay Advisor verified) company used by one of my room mates provided her with what purported to be a university level essay. It was appalling in content, completely missing the point of the essay as outlined by the title, and read as though it were written by a dyslexic high schooler. Thankfully she got her money back.

Websites like Essay Advisor, and ripoffreport are useful, in spite of disappearing threads, but no website should be considered the definitive guide to good companies. Personally, I feel that students are better advised to talk to their friends and share experiences; at least they know that their friends are real people whereas online you never really know who is posting the messages and what their agenda is.

Major, I think your point is really about language skills and not about geography.

Personally, I would prefer that companies who brand themselves as "American" or "British" or whatever were actually a little less lazy and jingoistic and spent more time reassuring me that the person writing my people was a native English speaker who had graduated with a quality (honors) bachelors degree from a high ranking university.

If I'm paying for an essay I really don't want someone with a GED, who scraped into the Boondocks Community College, and then some lowly college or state university to complete their degree, writing my essay. I don't care if they are based in the US and speak English as their first language! With that sort of background they would be hardly well placed to write me an essay that is up to the standards of the university that I attend (which is ranked in the top 10 globally).

When I am ordering an essay, I would like to be assured that the writer is a native English speaker (whether that is the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc, I really don't care), that they completed their high school education to a very good standard, and that they obtained their honors degree from a well regarded (not just accredited) university; I would also like reassurance that the degree they obtained was in a subject that matches the topic of the essay that I'm requesting.

If a French company could offer writers that met that specification then I would happily order from them. Just because a company is based in France doesn't mean that it is impossible that they have native English speakers working for them. I've never come across an essay company that requires their writers to come into work each day in their office; writers are almost always freelance and work from home - wherever that may be - and payments can be remitted electronically.

It's too easy to get into geography bashing - an American company is not automatically better than a Canadian company, and a British company is not automatically better than an American company etc. With the rise in home working fuelled by the internet, British writers can and do work for American essay companies and vice versa. The trick for students is to try and find an essay company that makes a reasonable attempt to engage appropriately qualified and native English speaking writers so that the work that is ordered is completed to a high standard.

Maybe Ben could provide more information?? I think that comment should be directed to Gantoris as it is him that you are quoting.

From my point of view I would prefer any essay that I buy to be written by a native English speaker. Buying American doesn't guarantee that any more than buying British does; both countries have extensive immigration.

The references point is not really an issue any more. It used to be the case that if you cited something not available in your college library then your work would be considered dubious. With electronic databases such as Proquest / ABI Inform available in virtually all universities and colleges, students can access academic articles written in English from around the world without leaving their pc. It's also perfectly possible for a writer in Australia, for example, to use such databases for their research and limit the articles used to those that appear in American journals or British journals - whichever the client has a preference for. The location of the writer is not an issue for me; the main issue is the standard of writing.

They have my e-mail.

Is your blog something that you could post a link to here? I'd be interested to read it. I read some UK political blogs and find this one especially interesting iaindale.blogspot.com/ but it may well be less appealing to someone outside of the UK.

My dissertation will be written 100% by me. I have always written the assignments for my major subject myself, Major. I have used essay companies before, both in the UK and USA, but these were for my minor (what we call subsidiary) subjects which were basically course units that I had no interest in but needed to complete to graduate; it was my experience in using these companies that got me interested in this topic as a research area.

As for dubious content, I treat all posts on message boards and forums, even yours, as being dubious as I'm unable to confirm the identity of the poster. I've posted before on this website that with any post you have to be aware that the writer may be misrepresenting himself/herself to promote a particular company / sabotage a company's rivals.

Just out of interest what is your interest in essay companies / forums? You've posted previously that you are not in the essay business but you don't come across as a student. Essay companies / forums is obviously a topic that interests you as you've made 34 posts on the matter!

You seem to have misunderstood me. I'm not backing any one up. I'm simply interested.

I do find it fascinating when people get so fired up and passionate in responding to posts when they say that they have no connection with the company or organization that is being complained about. I could understand it if the post was criticizing a movie star or a sports hero but what is it about an essay forum that makes you want to fight tooth and nail for it? I simply don't understand.

As for Gantoris' posts, he may be connected with an ESL essay company as you say, or he may not. As I've no connection to Gantoris or to the website he has complained about I'm unable to determine what his motivations are. I'm grateful that he has posted some links as it has provided me with further information for my research. I take on board your points about the credibility of the links but I am still interested to read them.

You go to these lengths to defend a website simply because you "like" them?

Must be nice to have friends like that!

I do for one! I'm writing my dissertation on the essay writing business and online forums. I frequently take screen shots from websites as for some reason posts do occasionally disappear.

Sorry, I took it from the tone of your post that you knew what Gantoris was doing based on previous experience rather than you were surmising.

I don't see a problem with his screen posts unless he has doctored the replies by the company as these are essentially all he is showing.

How do you know that Major? I'm curious.

I'm also not sure about the 'verification' process at all. I don't know who is behind the site so have no idea if their 'verification' means anything.

I know that an American company that I have used occasionally (and is quite good) isn't verified by this site and when I asked the essay company about it they said they had never sought verification. I guess you can read whatever you like into that.

I don't think it is beyond the realm of possibility that someone could create a website to covertly promote one or two companies and disparage others in the same business. As I'm not connected with the website concerned in this thread, I've no idea whether the allegation is ridiculous in this case; I've also no idea if it is true either.

It is a matter for the person posting the comment to be able to defend any allegations or comments that they post.

My suggestion that if he wants to post anything he likes he should get his own website is reasonable. Of course he would still have to be able to defend any comments that he makes but at least he would have editorial control of what appeared on his own website.

I'm not surprised you were kicked off. All websites are owned and operated by someone and that person gets to decide what they want on their website.

I wouldn't be remotely surprised if a website protected companies that it was associated with in some way; it's instinct to protect those closest to you.

I think that a good proportion of posts online about essay companies are actually posted by people who own or work for essay companies: it's very easy to post a message saying 'I'm a student and this company is great' - nobody knows whether the poster is a student or in fact works for the essay company being promoted. Similarly, posts saying 'this company is terrible' may well be posted by business rivals of the company concerned.

If you visit several websites that allow people to post feedback on essay companies then you are more likely to get a clearer picture of the company you are looking into. It's always worth bearing in mind though that just because you can't see any negative posts about a company doesn't mean there has never been any on that site. Some of the sites that I visit are very entertaining to keep an eye on for the speed at which offending posts (ie any complaint or negative comment made about one or two companies) are removed while dozens of highly suspect comments remain about other companies.

If you want to be able to post anything you like about any company then set up your own website :)

I don't really want to post my email address on the web.

If you email the admin of this site and ask them very nicely they might forward your email to me.

They might have done, but I wouldn't use the first one! (bestessays is from Ukraine)!

There is no clue on their website where they are based (as in a physical address) although they say they are a 'US based company' and there is not even a phone number or email address - the only way to contact them seems to be through the contact form on their website.

Even looking up their domain doesn't tell you anything about them.

They say they've been around for 5 years on their website but the domain looks like it was only registered in 2006.

I don't order from companies who are so vague about who and where they are.

You don't "know" any such thing; you've simply jumped to a conclusion.

As far as I am aware the people posting on this thread that are selling their assignments are students that are selling essays that they have written and not writers working for essay companies that are reselling essays. That's certainly the case for me and I happen to also know it is the case for 'Dylan'.

There are broadly two types of essay companies in the UK (i) those that sell custom written essays, and (ii) those that resell essays that students have submitted to them and for which the student receives a cut of the sales each time the essay is resold through an online database. In a couple of cases, the essay companies has both the prewritten database and also offers the custom written service.

I'm noticed some US based essay companies offer both custom and prewritten essays so life isn't very different on the other side of the pond.

The legitimate UK essays companies advertize that they have a clause in their contracts with writers that essays will never be resold or published on the internet; they also offer this guarantee to customers on their websites. I would expect that the legitimate essay companies in the US would do the same.

I can't see any problem with students selling their own essays to essay banks when it is made clear to the buyer that the essay was written by a student, that it has previously been submitted as coursework by the author (so is most likely already in turnitin), and that any essay in the bank can be resold an infinite number of times. Anyone who wants a unique product knows to buy from companies offering a custom written service.

I'm dubious about them. They may be okay but their administration sucks. I sent them a short (2k) essay to test them out. After a couple of days they emailed back to say they accepted it for their database and asked for my bank or paypal details - I sent paypal as I don't trust anyone online with my bank details. I've never seen my essay on the online database even though they say it is there. I'm not sending them any more of my work :-(

I use Eve2 software that I downloaded online; I check all my work through this before submitting. It's reasonably effective but I'm sure it's possible that there are instances where it doesn't detect stuff.

My uni also uses turnitin.com and students have to submit all assessed coursework through that. I hate this software as it throws up material as plagiarised if you use material that you yourself have written and previously submitted. So if you write an essay in your first year and then use this as the basis of an expanded second year essay then the second year essay is marked as plagiarised. Bizarre.

Hi Abbie

I've used custompapers once and they were fine. I selected the level as "university" and the writing level as "very good" and I'm happy with what I got back (came in as a mid grade 2:1). I plan to use them again once term gets going - we only reregistered this week! - as they are a lot cheaper than their UK counterparts and the standard is pretty much the same.

If you are worried about sources for your essays you can send material to them such as articles or lecture notes that you want the paper based on. I don't know about your uni but mine offers access to electronic databases such as proquest etc so you can look up and download articles from there if you want to and then send them to custompapers. This takes the worry out of what sources they'll use and helps match sources with what your lecturers / tutors have on their reading lists.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Ben

FBY?

Amy,

I do know that ukessays.com and oxbridgeessays.com aren't connected.

UKessays.com is run by a guy called Barclay and he is forever in the newspapers in the UK - the company seems okay and he does seem an okay guy even though he brags about driving lamborghini and ferrari cars on the strength of the money he is making from students. "The Times" - which is a national newspaper in the UK did a piece on him and they agreed that the essays were of a good standard although they did the usual criticism of essay companies generally.

Oxbridge Essays is run by two brothers, Philip and James, who are mentioned on the previous page in this thread. They are new graduates themselves and their company has only been around a year. There has been a couple of mentions of them in the newspapers when they were trying to recruit students to work for their company but I haven't seen any articles that look at the quality of work that customers get for their money.

Essayrelief are total fraudsters.

It is possible that 'Anamal' is trying to look less like a company man with his latest post, but it is also possible that he is just an idiot student. There's no way of really knowing on here.

As ever, buyer beware!

Not sure what bearing your dad being loaded has on anything but thanks for sharing.

You may or may not be associated with OxbridgeEssays and you may or may not be a student at UCL - who knows. Your posts certainly haven't done either Oxbridge Essays or UCL any favours.

Anti-American and pompous and pretentious to boot. I won't be using them them again after reading Anamal's posts.

Best avoided :-(

I have previously posted on this thread that I have used OxbridgeEssays (amongst others) and they were fine - which they were.

I have also used ukessays.com and for two out of three papers they were fine - good 2:1 papers - the third paper was well written but I later found out that the statistics were inaccurate which invalidated the argument presented in the paper.

I have used paperstore.com and found them appalling. The paper was a poor standard, failed to address the question, doesn't use the source I had asked for at all, and their customer service was dire - the promised 24 rewrite arrived a week late and the standard was still unacceptable.

Junglepage.com were okayish. The paper was a little bit basic in coverage of the topic and it arrived a day late but it was a big improvement on the paperstore.

Custompapers.com were good - I've only used them for once so far but the standard was high; it was easily a good 2:1 standard and was an equivalent standard of the two good ukessays.com papers and the oxbridgeessays.com papers. Custompapers also delivered 12 hours before the deadline which was unexpected and much appreciated.

Given that the output of custompapers.com meets a good British 2:1, I will be using custompapers over the next academic year. They are far cheaper (£187/$300 for a 3,000 word essay versus £300/$480 at oxbridgeessays.com) and from what I've seen the quality at Custompapers is comparable.

As Anamal says, you might want to have some reassurance that an "expert" at an Oxbridge university has written your paper but that reassurance obviously comes with a hefty price tag. I'm happy with getting the same quality without the label and having money left in my pocket!!! That said, if Custompapers couldn't meet the deadline or cover the topic, then I would use ukessays.com or oxbridgeessays.com again but in my opinion custompapers wins hands down on quality and price.

That's great, but my point is that just because they replied doesn't make them okay. I think in this case they are okay - I'm waiting til Friday til I get my order from them to know for sure but I'm confident about them from what I've heard so far.

I wasn't criticizing you, just pointing out to other readers that it is still possible to get badly scammed by a company that has a good looking website, phone lines, and sends personalised and reassuring emails! As the customers are getting more savvy and street-wise, so the scammers are realizing that they have to do more to get your business.

Ben

I think custompapers.com are okay - based on other client's testimony - I've placed an order with them that is due on Friday so I'll be able to say for sure after that.

I'd be very careful though about thinking any site that responds to your question in a well-written reply is automatically okay. I got scammed by a UK based essay company (1stclassprojects.com) and was taken in by the emails I received that promised attentive customer service and a customized essay written by an expert in my subject. The emails were tailored to my specific questions, detailed, and well written and they made the company appear very credible. The essay I got was just random paragraphs of plagiarised text, that bore little relation to the topic that I requested, and the rewrites promised didn't exist; I lost almost $500.

With any big or important purchase, it pays to do a bit of research. Check this site, and similar ones that exist - but beware of any post that seems to promote one company as the poster may well be from that company! Talk to your friends - even if you want to hide the fact it is you that needs the essay (a friend of mine needs help with a paper ... have you heard of a good company that I could tell him / her about or companies to avoid).

Finally, if you've had a bad experience then spread the word so that no-one else gets scammed.

Ben

I just checked out the site. Personally, I wouldn't use them as there is no indication where the company is based or who is behind the company.

The 'About us' section is very wordy and doesn't actually say anything about who / where they are and certainly at the moment doesn't give any company registration details which they should have (and should declare on their website) if they are a legitimate UK business; if they can't complete their own 'About us' section with basic company information - or don't recognise that this info needs to be provided - then I certainly wouldn't trust them with my essay!

I may be very wrong but it looks a lot like another one of the UK-Indian/UK-Pakistani essay sites that are springing up across the UK.

More and more essay companies are starting up every week in the UK, spurred on no doubt by the many newspaper articles in the UK over the summer which reported big profits for essay companys with the owner of one talking about his ferrari and lambourghini cars.

I'd give them a miss.