Why no 'Terms of Service' when ordering from professional freelance writers?

When a student orders an example academic paper from an "essay company" - he/she can clearly see their Terms of Service, which is a formal agreement between Seller and Buyer.

What about professional freelance writers? Why don't they have any 'Terms of Service' available to their clients?

Or maybe they do?

By formal agreement, do you mean the way most essay-company TOS expressly prohibit their customers from submitting any of the essays they purchase for academic credit and specifically require them to cite anything they use from their work like this (XYZ Essay Corp., 2013), in any projects their customers submit for grades if they use any of the material their customers purchase from them? Those kinds of TOS? Or do you mean the way most essay-company TOS expressly retain copyright to all work provided and reserve the right to resell it? (Not commenting either way; just asking what you mean.)

What are the TOS used by your company?

Yes, this one.

What are the TOS used by your essay company?

The company I work for doesn't allow students to use the service in an illegal or unethical way. My question is specifically about "professional freelance writers" though.

So your company expressly prohibits customers from submitting the essays you provide them for academic credit. That's certainly one sure sign of a totally legitimate essay company and it's something to be proud of. Which essay company is it that you work for?

Do you also specify that your company retains all copyrights including the right to resell the work later, like most essay companies?

Your questions are irrelevant. If you have nothing to say on the topic (apparently you don't), skip it. Here is my reasoning:

1. Since the so called "professional freelance writers" have no Terms of Service, it means they should not be called "professional" in the first place. It's like calling a day laborer a construction expert.

2. Since "professional freelance writers" have no Terms of Service available to their clients, it means they don't care about the laws and policies of academic institutions.

3. If they don't care about the laws and policies of academic institutions, students who are considering breaking the laws and policies are more likely to order from them rather than from services that abide the law. It's a simple market mechanism - if someone is thinking about committing an illegal or unethical act, they seek the weakest point first. That is, they first seek the services of "individual freelance writers" who don't care about the laws as long as they get paid.

4. In the end, my next point is that any potential "reporters" or "journalists" who may happen to read this forum and who are interested in the stories about "essay mills helping students cheat" should rather focus their attention on "professional freelance writers" who don't have any Terms of Service and may be attracting attention of dishonest buyers. In my opinion, freelance writers (and there are thousands of them on various 'craigslist' or 'elance' type of sites), not essay services, promote black market because they do nothing to prevent their clients from misusing their services.

Do you think it's important at all (or "relevant") for people reading this to understand that, in many cases, the freelance writers you characterize as "not professionals" are actually the very same writers whose work the essay companies sell to their clients after taking out a middle-man's cut?

Admittedly, I can only speak for myself and for the other 3 highly experienced American writers whose work I know, but all 4 of us work simultaneously for some of the same essay companies while also maintaining our freelance client bases. While we all put in a very conscientious effort into any work we do for essay companies, I know from talking to all 3 of them and from my own experience, that, if anything, we all put in even more of a conscientious effort into our freelance work and frequently, we go more out of our way for our freelance clients, such as by providing more pages than were actually ordered or (sometimes) by squeezing in last-minute requests for the same price as their other orders, than we do for company orders.

Are you suggesting that the actual writing we provide is more "professional" when the essay companies sell our work to their customers after taking a cut of the payment than it is when we sell it directly to our freelance clients? Because, at least in our cases, we're the same writers of the work regardless of who sells it to the customers. In my view, either we're professional writers in both cases or the essays companies are selling work done by amateurs. Take your pick, but I don't think you can simultaneously characterize it both ways just to convince customers that they should all be ordering only from essay companies and not from freelance writers.

Again, I don't claim you are not an excellent writer; my point is about freelance writers not having Terms of Service which may attract dishonest buyers.

Thank you. If I understand your argument correctly, what you're saying is that any customers who buy essays intending to turn them in for academic credit are "dishonest buyers" and that no legitimate essay company wants the business from those types of customers. Is that what you're saying? (Again, not commenting either way; just trying to understand.)

It takes a lot explaining for you to understand ;).

If you read my 4 points above, I explained it in detail. Again, in my opinion "freelance writers" do nothing to stop dishonest buyers from committing academic fraud and this fact can be (and probably is) being exploited by such buyers. Having a proper Terms of Service notice should be the first step to fix it.

Understood. If essay companies' TOS expressly prohibit customers from submitting any of their work for academic credit, what do they do if they find out that a customer violated those TOS? Do they report them to their schools or something? Sue them for damages?

They "expressly prohibit them" - that's the first and the most important step.


They don't attract most of them in the first place and they refuse to work with them.

Got it. So if students plan on doing anything like actually submitting the essays they buy for academic credit, the one thing they shouldn't do is buy them from any essay companies, at least not from any legitimate ones; and of course, all the illegitimate companies are just going to rip them off or furnish garbage anyway; so they shouldn't use them either. Thanks for clearing all that up and for taking the time to start these kinds of threads; I'm sure many readers trying to better understand how this industry works find them very helpful.

You, again, care about your bottom line only. If you are a typical "freelance writer" working in this industry then I stand by my comments / 4 points above.

You're so clever.

What would happen to your bottom line if you were banned from this forum and cut off by the companies that you are so willing to publicly backstab and throw under the bus for personal gain? (Not commenting either way; just trying to understand.)

To answer your question politely: I've been writing for the same essay companies for 10 years and you and I both know that they have considered me to be one of their very best writers (of hundreds) all of that time. So if I were to suddenly get fired because you didn't like my posts on a forum that is not connected to those essay companies in any way, I would obviously know that you're really the owner of those essay companies after all your public denials about that here for years.

After 10 years of writing for them, getting fired so soon after you made very clear in the Obama Healthcare thread how much you detest me for being an atheist, I'd probably also conclude that there was some religious discrimination involved in your decision to instruct your employees to fire me a few weeks later without cause and for no other conceivable reason, even as an at-will-employed independent contractor.

I'm not looking to fight with you or with any essay companies. I don't ever start threads here like:
"Can customers do anything to avoid having their orders taken by the worst writer at an essay company?" or
"Do essay companies really know anything about the qualifications and credentials of the writers they hire?"

But lately, there seems to be a deliberate strategy of essay company owners, reps, or "affiliates" here of creating exactly those types of rhetorical threads whose obvious purpose is to convince prospective customers to avoid all freelance writers and to use essay companies instead. If a freelance writer dared to start threads like that here to do the exact same thing in reverse, all of the essay company owners and reps (especially those who are pretending to be objective "observers") would go absolutely nuts.

I haven't "backstabbed" anybody...and as far as that forged email that someone forwarded to you last year claiming I was "stealing customers" from the essay company you say you don't own and planning to "take it down" and also asking about your "spouse" or where you live, I emailed you and the essay company offering to meet them or you or your investigators anywhere in Northern NJ or Manhattan, and even told you you're welcome to come to my home so that you could watch me log into AOL to find the emails on my account from the same date and time of day as that forged email you received. I told you that the person who forged it probably didn't bother to change the time stamp on the header of the innocuous real email that I probably sent that person and I suggested that would prove to anybody concerned that the email you believe I wrote was forged by someone we both know had a vendetta against me. Neither you nor the essay company ever responded except to tell me that they wanted to just put it behind us and get back to making money together. Since that was more than a year ago, none of that could possibly have anything to do with why I'd get fired now. And my offer to meet any of you to conduct that test is still open.

Finally, as far as getting banned from this forum goes, I haven't broken any rules in a very long time. I didn't start the thread asking for reviews about me and even Major now seems to believe me that all I did was ask some of my clients to check the thread and post an honest response to it. I had no idea that any of them weren't already registered here and if they emailed back to tell me that, I told them to disregard my earlier email, not to hurry up and register here to help me defend against what I genuinely thought was a set-up by some of the very same people you consider complete scum. And before you suggest that what I did was somehow "wrong" anyway, ask yourself how that was any different from that time a couple of years ago when the reps at the essay company you say you don't own emailed me asking me to register over at Rip-offReports.com to post my honest response to the complaint of some other writer who posted complaints there about supposedly getting ripped off by that company?

My question is strictly in response to your calculated text that I quoted. It has absolutely nothing to do with past events.

The text you quoted was an entirely accurate synopsis of Major's thesis about essay companies and the purpose of their TOS. He characterized students who submit model academic papers for credit as "dishonest customers" that legit essay companies have no interest in doing business with. That's exactly what he said. Since you've said many times yourself that legit essay companies would never knowingly furnish essays to be submitted for academic credit, I don't know why you'd have a problem with what I said, either.

I'd strongly prefer if neither any essay-company reps nor any freelance writers tried to steer customers away from one another in rhetorically-titled threads obviously designed to do exactly that, but that's not up to me. I'd never start that kind of thread as a way of competing against essay companies but if they choose to "compete" that way, we freelance writers should be able to respond without fear of reprisals or any other kinds of threats from anybody.

To Major & WB:

In my opinion, it just does not make sense for reps or owners of legitimate essays companies who post here and legitimate freelance writers who post here to be fighting one another or using any (arguably) underhanded strategies against one another in the threads they initiate. All of us legitimate essay providers should be able to coexist here symbiotically without conflict the same way the legitimate writers who know one another all seem to get along and the way the legitimate essay-company reps all seem to get along with one another here as well. If there is a conflict here, it should be between us and all of the illegitimate scum who rip off customers and who ruin this business for all customers and all legitimate essay providers. You should not consider good freelance writers your "enemies" just because we're also competitors for some of the same business, especially when some of the companies being represented here actually employ some of us freelance writers who post here. Obviously, I have no control of what any of you choose to do, but that would be my most sincere suggestion and I'd be more comfortable interacting that way than arguing with you while the real scum watch this and probably benefit from it. Thank you.

Exactly.

I think that things started to get much more tense and combative around here when the owners made the decision to allow commercialized signatures. I've always thought that was a bad idea.

I respectfully disagree. Those of us who have simply chosen to use that feature have much less reason to argue with anybody about anything, not more. In my opinion, once the forum mods make that decision, it's just not appropriate for anybody who doesn't like that decision to be angry at anybody who just chooses to do what the forum mods have decided to allow. So far, I believe (without a single exception) every combative comment about that has come from members who have not chosen to exercise that option and not from members who have.

Translation:

If an essay company I've been working on for 10 years disables my writer account now, I may try to sue them under several legal theories.


Working as an independent contractor, your contract ends when your last order was completed. They cannot "fire" an independent contractor.


Not correct. You've had a freelance writer account set up for 10 years. That's a big difference.


It's not to convince anybody. It's to confirm the theory about a typical freelance writer.


Go nuts? I'd enjoy the discussion. If anything, you went nuts about my accurate arguments :)


Yes, students who submit model academic papers for credit are "dishonest customers" and legit essay providers refuse working with them.


I don't post here to make enemies. I just want to clear up some old and inaccurate misconceptions, mindlessly repeated by reporters or academic professors, who try to attribute academic dishonesty among a small group of students to legitimate "essay companies" that are in fact proactive in their approach to eliminating such dishonest buyers. And I think this thread proves my points.

Major, I'm not looking to argue with you either; but as long as we're clearing up misconceptions and inaccuracies:

I believe the contract I signed says termination without notice for cause or on 2 weeks notice without cause; and whether I'm an employee or an at-will independent contractor, I can never be terminated if it's because the company owner doesn't like my religious beliefs or for publicly expressing why I reject any other specific religious beliefs.

You would never be able to prove that (especially that there are writers who share your religious disbeliefs and have active accounts at the same time).


They don't have to worry about it unless they knowingly violate the TOS.

To which TOS do you refer? Does this post mean that students need not worry as long as they use the papers as models, rather than hand them in as is?

(forgive me if this is a dumb question. I am new here and still trying to get a sense of what this place is all about)

Hm, as a professional freelance writer you don't have a Terms of Service available to your clients?

I've tried to preface every post by reiterating that I'm new here, and still trying to get a sense of the place and its participants. I am quickly beginning to realize that there is a lot of suspicion, snark and sniping going on around here.

You mentioned "the terms of service." I was asking to which terms of service that refers. Yours? Those of a specific site? Of a specific freelancer? One specific term of service in a larger set of TOS? Etc.

I have seen some posters who assert without equivocation that they write papers for their clients to hand in as their own work, and others who describe their papers as "models." I have been writing academic papers for a living for several years, but until finding this site I never had an opportunity to interact with or ask questions of others who do the same thing. I was simply asking for clarification about your post, and I don't feel that your response was warranted.

When you send a quote or link to pay, do you include your Terms of Service? For example, do you inform your clients how they may use / not use the work etc?

What does this have to do with my question? My question was not about my TOS. It was about the TOS you referred to.

The answer is - I was referring to your (ie. a freelance writer's) terms of service.

You wrote: "They don't have to worry about it unless they knowingly violate the TOS."

And again, I ask you: to which TOS does this refer? It was a simple question. It seems different writers have different TOS, and I just wanted to clarify that you were referring to some form of TOS about model papers, considering that some writers here don't seem to adhere to that standard.

Don't get drawn in, lovecraft. Reading in other threads you'll see that Major tends to poke people in the eye. Even so, he does seem to add good input on occasion. I think right now he is in a mood to be obtuse.

You may actually refer to this thread and answer there if you have something to add.

I just realized that as I read through this thread

this quote from Major, for example: "I was referring to your (ie. a freelance writer's) terms of service" is clearly not true. After catching up on this topic, I see that when Major wrote "unless they violate the TOS" he was referring to the TOS of essay services. His assertion is that "professional freelance writers" don't have TOS in the first place, so he could not have been referring to them in the quote I asked about/commented on. He moved the goalposts a few times during the conversation i which I was engaged.

Seems like there is a s***-ton of agenda-driven sniping and arguing happening all over this site, and I'm not wired that way. Major could have just had a conversation with me, instead of trying to play some weird "gotcha" game

I'm trying to have a conversation.. I'm just insinuating that the majority of professional freelance writers (especially those who have no service website and work through email only) have no Terms of Service available to their clients. But I could be wrong, so you may express your opinion ;).

Not from my perspective you're not.

I asked "to what TOS does this refer"? Instead of answering my question, you responded with a loaded question of your own, one that was clearly agenda-driven.

I don't enjoy that sort of "conversation"

I refer to TOS of individual freelance writers who work directly with their clients to provide academic research/writing/editing services. Sorry for not having been clear enough.

Yep, Major has a major hard-on for messing with freelancers.

And I'll just go ahead and say it:
The Terms of Service for any academic ghostwriting service do not hold any legal weight whatsoever. The terms do not protect the clients or the writers in any way. It's like saying the HR department at my university is looking out for me and the students. All BS. The Terms are just rules, which are regularly broken and adjusted to suit the needs of the person/entity who made them up. Which is to say that the Terms are completely ad hoc. They can be interpreted and re-interpreted in any way that you like. This is especially so if the law gets involved. I'll even speculate that not many academic ghostwriters or academic clients, if any, have gone to the extent hiring a lawyer. As such, there is no significant difference between a service company and a freelancer on the basis of Terms of Service alone. None. And I won't entertain another word from Major unless he ponies up a really good insult with some choice words.

It seems you are not being truthful, Major.

This conversation was predicated on a discussion about ESL students who might be challenged by their professors if they submit a paper that is too well-written. You responded that such students would not have a problem "unless they violated the TOS."

You were clearly (at least it's clear to me) referring to essay-service TOS with that comment. In fact, you could not have been referring to freelance writer TOS, given the fact that you claim such TOS don't exist.

I don't particularly care for "gotcha" games and efforts to move the rhetorical goalposts during conversations/arguments/debates.It's just not my thing.

When I asked to which TOS you referred, you could have responded "the one that admonishes clients not to submit model papers as their own work." I did, in fact, assume that's what you were talking about, and my question was only meant to seek clarification. You twisted it into an effort to raise (revive?) a debate about essay services vs. freelancers. Let's just all be honest about the fact that that's what happened, OK?