Interview with a Former Freelancer Working for "Livingston Research"

The following is an interview with a real (former) freelance writer / editor who worked for the "Livingston Research" company associated with the following sites:

gonerdify.com - they get about 80% of orders from there (this is their main website)
essaysreasy.com
txtnerdy.com
geeklylab.com
geeklyhub.com
assignmentlab.com

We understand you are a freelance writer who used to work for a company called "Livingston Research," correct? How long have you been working for them and what is your overall experience as a writer/editor?

Not exactly. In March 2018, I successfully passed registration with Livingston Research as a freelance writer. By the way, although my English is advanced, I am a native Ukrainian. So, they approved my application and I was able to work on orders, which I was doing rather successfully - I had only about 4 revisions out of 300+ orders that I wrote. In October 2018, I was invited to the headquarters to work as a full-time writer. Then, in January 2019, I got promoted to an editor (the position is called a Quality Assurance Manager in the company). I have been working as an editor since then to the present moment - just left the company the other day.

My experience as a freelance writer was rather decent as I was doing my job well - I never had arguments with managers or clients. Moreover, I even received some "thank you" letters from customers for A papers. The only issue for me was the so-called "low season" that takes place in summer and December and happens due to the lack of orders from students who are predominately on their breaks.

Once I became an editor - all my good impressions about the company disappeared right away. Why? The main objective of an editor at Livingston Research is to reduce the refund rate the company gets every month. In order to do that, our policies, basically, told us to make the paper LOOK good before it is sent to a client. It does not have to actually BE good. I mean, the content can be absolutely irrelevant. But as long as it has a decent format, structure, and appearance - it's "good" to be sent. Our managers assume that clients will submit a good looking work and MAYBE get a good grade for it. If not - they will return to us for a revision.

And that is only the tip of the iceberg.

What is your overall evaluation of the company's performance/attitude towards freelance writers?

Overall, the Writer Support Team (so-called Success Managers) treat freelance writers kindly. Although I, personally, did not contact the company often as a freelance writer, I heard all the phone conversations with other writers - I was sitting next to the guys answering the phone. 90% of freelance writers' concerns were the fines that we (Editors) applied and their low rating on the platform, which leads to the termination of cooperation with them.

What is the company's quality/refund policy; is it fair to students?

Unfortunately, the refund policy is absolutely unfair. As a client asks for a refund, in 80% of cases, they will not get a full refund. The reason for that is that our policies tell editors to make partial refunds, depending on the client's claim. So, if you tell us "there is a lack of word count", you will be refunded about 20% of the order price. And here comes the interesting part - you paper may be total crap, we will apply a 100% fine to your writer, but we will never let you know all of its issues so that you don't ask for a full refund. Got the trick? A writer gets no money for a bad order and you do not get a full refund - the company just keeps the difference!

Regarding the quality... There are about 3000 writers registered in the system and only 15-20 of them are reliable and deliver high-quality papers, which is not even 1% of the employees. And these good writers prefer to work only on expensive orders that are 8 pages long and higher. So, the chances of you getting a paper without a single flaw ordering a 1 or 2-page long order are miserable. Let's be honest - there is almost no chance at all.

And when you tell them that your professor gave you a C or D - they will ALWAYS tell you that this is an "uncommon situation". Of course, you can get a free revision, BUT it will be done by the same writer that will fail it anyway if he/she did it the first time.

So, the quality is really poor - every day, editors process from 10 to 30 refund requests and there are 5-7 revision requests coming in every hour.

If you were a student, would you order an example research writing/editing service from the company? Why / why not?

Never. First, it is because I don't want to waste my money. At LR, a price for one page starts from $25 and goes higher depending on the deadline and additional options. Second, I know that it will be almost impossible to get a good writer (will tell you later why). Third, is because I know English well enough to write papers on my own. The majority of our customers are either international students with poor English skills or working students that just have a serious lack of time. The saddest part is that almost every customer that is not satisfied with the paper says "I could have done better by myself - I was hoping to get the highest grade with your help, but the paper you completed got a C (or lower)."

The company lists US/UK locations on their website. Are they correct?

Absolutely not! Our headquarters is located in Kyiv, Ukraine. Its real address is Bohdana Khmelnyts'kogo Str. 78B building - just so that you could check on your own if you happen to visit Kyiv. All the full-time departments, including the Client Support Representatives, Editors, Success Managers, the Marketing Team, and Directors have their offices here - overall, more than 150 in-office employees.

How many percent of the freelance writers, according to your knowledge, are native English speakers? Do students know their assigned writer's true credentials?

I can't tell you the percent - I can tell you the exact number! There are only 4 native speakers working as freelance writers for LR. They are Americans, but, honestly, they deliver poor works because they don't actually know all the academic standards. All the other writers (about 3000) are from Kenya, Philippines, Pakistan, Ukraine, Russia, and other Third-World countries. That's because out of that $25 minimum that you pay for 1 page - a freelance writer may get only $3. I doubt that Americans, British people, or Australians would work for that low of a payment.

And no, students never know their assigned writers' true credentials - managers make our writers create nicknames similar to their real names. So, if my name was something like Andrei Kozlenko, students would see me as Andrew Kozlowski - sounds American, right? Well, that's how it works.

Is there anything else you'd like to tell students and freelance writers about the company?

For sure. After having worked for 1.5 years for the company, I decided to leave it because the managers always make us lie to students. They will tell you that "our top writers that are proficient in your area will work on the order". In reality, we don't even classify writers by such categories - your order goes to our feed, where ANY writer can see it. The first one to accept it will be writing it for you.

I'd say that the company's policies are rather fair for writers because most of them deliver works that are worthless - I wouldn't pay a penny for it.

And our grading system is very loyal to bad writers. As I said before, we just make the paper look good and send it to customers. The writers do not even fix their mistakes to gain experience.



Reference: https://essayscam.org/forum/wc/stay-away-livingston-research-6152/

So 3000/4 = 0.0013 of company writers based in the "USA / UK / Australia" are actually native English speakers. Nice. Why post so many lies on the sites?

Unfortunately, that's exactly the kind of enterprise with which we legit writers have to compete for clients. After receiving the kind of work described, many of them probably just give up on this industry without ever trying another provider. Their main website makes them look totally legit, and unlike most of these types of companies, their web copy isn't full of obvious ESL indicators. About the only immediate clue that something isn't quite right is that one of their supposed testimonials from a student in California uses UK spelling.

This is quite saddening for the clients themselves. I know that there's a lot of controversy surrounding how students use these sites their own benefit; however, misleading the students into thinking that they are getting sufficiently decent work for them to at least pass their subjects is a disgusting appeal that has to be stopped. Not only is the site difficult to the writers themselves, but they are even more so tragic for the students themselves. It seems as though the only people who benefit from these services are the owners and editors of the company itself.

Somehow this "interview" comes across as a poison article from a rival company. The information is too precise and meant to make LR look extremely bad. Even though the article may speak the truth (and I am not saying it is) this very information can apply to countless companies that engage in the same scam. I would never say that the information applies to just a specific one. This article, though meant as a hit job on LR, exposed the shared secrets of writing companies within the European region. So the article should be taken as a general information source. It applies to all questionable academic essay services. This interview further highlights why it is safer and better for the students to direct hire the writer. It's just more logical to do so.

Drones to Diplomas: How Russia's Largest Private University is Linked to a $25M Essay Mill


krebsonsecurity.com/2025/12/drones-to-diplomas-how-russias-largest-private-university-is-linked-to-a-25m-essay-mill/

The great infosecurity investigator Brian Krebs tied Livingston Research back to the Kremlin and cited this post in his research.

A large proportion of online essay-writing services operate from low‑cost overseas locations and can involve misleading or unethical practices, so students should treat many of them with caution. Only a minority appear to be transparently run, well‑regulated companies with clear ownership and verifiable addresses in places such as the US or UK.

One example is UKEssays, which operated from the UK for many years but now trades through a suspicious company registered in the United Arab Emirates while still using "UK" in its branding. The company states that the move was made to improve its international presence, but this relocation means it now competes more directly with other international providers from Pakistan or Ukraine rather than being clearly based in the UK.

Livingston Research has segued into a more professional image that no longer follows the academic writing world. They are trying to re establish their company as a corporate research firm at this point. I think that will be difficult for them to accomplish since they already have a reputation as a questionable academic writing firm. However, nobody said they cannot try. We can only hope they have actual researchers employed these days instead of the barely educated writers they had on staff from their previous incarnation.