Academia-research.com is a SCAM!! BEWARE / Fake Writer Identities

TRUE EXPERIENCE. I am/was a writer for this company and BEAWRE!!! THEY DO NOT LIKE TO PAY THEIR WRITERS AND WILL POST EXORBITANT AND UNWARRANTED FINES TO YOUR PROFILE TO AVOID PAYING YOU. THEY WILL NOT LET YOU SPEAK TO THE PEOPLE THEY CLAIM MAKE THE DECISION TO FINE YOU AND THEY NEVER PROVIDE THE EVIDENCE THEY CLAIM PROMPTED THE FINE, eg. the client's so-called complaints. I made over $900 in a 2-week period writing and filling orders & was fined over $300 without cause/proof. The next time, I got an order for $576 and was then fined $288 TWICE (288 + 288 = 576). At No time did they ever provide proof that the fines were warranted and they even claimed they were fining me for poor quality on an order where the client praised my work and requested me as their PREFERRED WRITER!! This company is a bunch of CROOKED SCAM ARTISTS, and I would NOT suggest anyone who wants and expects to get PAID for their work sign on with this company.

Hi truthaboutfreelancing,

I'm not surprised you got ripped off. As soon as you load the site, you can tell it's a fraudulent, shady-ass template site with a proxied-domain. Here are a few hints that it's a scam:

1. Academia-research.com. Come on, the domain in itself should be blatantly obvious as to the fact it's a scam.

2. The site itself. It's a template site. The scam artist probably has 50-100 sites like it. Once they get enough heat (ie people e-mailing them from random e-mails and calling from randoms #'s) and getting yelled at it, they jump ship.

3. Speaking of which, the phone number is out of service. This is a dead giveaway. Furthermore, this site in particular didn't even bother with a toll-free number, and instead went with a NYC #, so even fewer people would call. Most fraudulent sites use #'s as a guise of legitimacy, and almost never answer their phones (and when they do, scam site operators have heavy accents, typically eastern European/Pakistani/Indian).

4. The domain is anonymized. While an anonymized domain is not necessarily an indicator of a fraudulent site-- there are plenty of legitimate sites in the business that for, let us say, professional reasons anonymize their domains-- more times than not scam sites are associated with anonymized domains.

5. Straight from the template site, "we pay from $5 up to $17 per page which none of other companies in the industry can afford". Heh. Let me repeat-- heh. Perhaps in Pakistan or the Philippines.

6. Not a single backlink. (google "site:academia-research.com"). Again, indicative of a throw-away site.

7. Pure 100% fraud sign, from "What we do": "Generally, our clientele request Masters or Doctoral-level writing." This is an outright lie. It's even too hilarious to address. If you believe this, well then, my friend, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you, :)

Again, if you're going to write for someone, make sure it's a legitimate site and not a template site. Second, make sure it's based in say Canada, the US, UK or a Commonwealth country, where the native language is English. Speak to the owner. You can tell if they're a native English speaker and straight forward, or a scam artist, and like I said before, 99% of the time you won't be able to reach them.

Again, I sort of feel sorry for you, but you were way, way too gullible. Next time, hedge your risks better.

Good Advice. Always phone before you order and pay attention to the ring tone and above all how the person speaks. Most scam sites wont answer and operate live chats

What good do you think that does? The ring tone is produced by the phone doing the calling, not the one receiving.

I think he is referring to the particular sounds that one may hear when calling an "American" number that secretly forwards to the international number of the fraudster.

So, not the ringtone at all then. As long as that's clear....

yep. Countries have distinctive sounds ie US and UK are completely different to Ukraine/Pakistan one would think

Wow what an essay ! you are fined for $ 1000 for poor writing quality and facts without supporting references !

Hello,

I was just accepted to work for this website and i have been reading all these reviews (most of them...not really optimistic)..however, the majority of them date back to 2011 and there are very few fairly recent and reliable reviews (either here or on other websites). Does anyone have any recent update?

Quoting BGT:
5. Straight from the template site, "we pay from $5 up to $17 per page which none of other companies in the industry can afford". Heh. Let me repeat-- heh. Perhaps in Pakistan or the Philippines

I have been mostly working with UK based companies that pay well and are extremely reliable when it comes to payments, comments, and attention to writers (approximately 10-20 pounds per 250 words for articles that are not urgent). Hence, I dont think that 15 $ per 250 words is a bad or even average fee (for a non-native English writer working online). Perhaps i am wrong of course.

Thank you in advance for any replies
S.

@gkaz80 I did work at AR for a long 7 years. During that time, I found that my salary increased with every promotion that I got. While the rates did tend to take a severe dip during the slow season, the company definitely came back with the promised rates, or more, during the hot season. Unfortunately, there were times when the rates would still be too low for a writer to feel like he was being compensated enough. With enough complaints about it coming in from all the writers, they eventually installed a system that allowed the writer to indicate his "bid" on a particular order. The writer would then wait to see if the project would be assigned to him. I can say that during the time that I worked with them (up to early this year), I never had a problem collecting my salary from them.

While the rates may seem unreasonable, and unfair penalties were tacked on as often as they could, I found that the salary was good enough because I took only simple orders that did not require too much research work (I got sick for a period of time due to the heavy research workload I previously had) which meant that the final work I did normally did not require any revisions or penalties to be attached. While the rates are laughable at times, if you are attached to more than one company, the decent earnings start to come from the volume of the work that you do for each company.

AR Encourages Fake Identities Among Their Writers

In relation to actually bidding for orders, the writers now have to fill out their Public Information with a nickname, skills listing, and a thumbnail picture. They require that the public nickname be an English one, which tells you something scammy is going on. I am not so worried about the About Me field because, as my friend who informed me about this pointed out, it's the writers choice to be honest when presenting information in that section. My major concern though, is that they ask for a thumbnail picture to go with the profile. While any picture can be used, I am sure that the 3rd rate ESL writers will use the most handsome or most beautiful free picture they can find to go with their profile. They seem to think that the students hire based on looks first. Writing talents second. They want to try to reel in the clients by presenting a fake impression of who the writer actually is. So eye candy photos are the order of the day for them. I don't really see why their support team needs to vet the information submitted. It isn't like their ill equipped or ill qualified writers will tell the truth in their About Me field.

Academia Research is a rudderless ship. They have no idea how to continue to exist in a world where Paypal no longer allows them to pay their writers and their writers are on a steady rotation out the door. Their idea of keeping seats warm and orders filled is by constantly hiring writers who do not qualify for the job. Their application test is rigged to keep the actual ENL writers of their fold, and the ENL writers in. That is because if they hire ENL writers, they would not be able to fine them unreasonably. The clients would be too satisfied with the papers produced and they would want to keep that writer as a preferred writer. They hire the ESL writers because of their desire to not really fulfill client orders. Just do enough so that they can constantly penalize the writer that is crazy enough to stay connected with them.

How do you personally know that?

They are the biggest scam. Two months and still not received my pay.

Academia Research has been finding it difficult to pay their writers for one simple reason, they keep refunding the orders that come in. The writers who do not check their credited pay will not know about these penalties if they are not in the habit of checking their credits and arguing with QA when they are penalized. The company relies on novice writers for most of their work so that they can penalize the writers without being challenged. This is the reason why they find ways and means to release their senior writers, who they treat even worse. They use a credit/debit system of penalties, paying the writer one month then penalizing their total earnings the next month. They are highly unreliable when it comes to salary so decent and hard working writers should never work for them.