Websites that Do Not Consider Writer's Opinions

As an experienced writer, I have come across websites that don't grant its writers chance to air grievances. what can the writers do????

What do you mean - like a situation when your customer is unsatisfied and you have nobody to discuss it?

yeah something like that. Instances when you got a problem, but the admin wont listen. Yes, it is ok to place customers firsthand, but also, writers should be considered. Some companies do not listen to writers even for a second...

@aplusman I feel for you. I have also been in the same situation numerous times with my previous writing company. While there is a message board in the order page for me to communicate directly with the admin when it comes to problems with the clients, I found that they always took the client's side in an effort to not refund the order, regardless of how unreasonable or illogical the claims of the client may be. Even when I have the problem escalated to QAD, I end up with the same result. My words all fall on deaf ears. Sometimes, I wonder if it is because they are Ukrainian and they probably can't speak English at a higher level than the client that needed my help, so maybe they don't understand what I am trying to explain to them. Or, if it is because when a client complains, no matter how trumped up the complaint is, the company sees that it has a chance to keep more money for themselves by penalizing the writer.

What I do is, I leave a scathing message for the admin whenever I end up in a similar situation. I remind them that the papers I turn in are always first rate, which is why I was able to bring in a steady flow of return clients over 11 years for them. I tell them exactly how I feel about the way I was treated in this particular instance and then send the message off. I don't expect a response because I know there is none forthcoming. I just take solace in the thought that whoever was on the other end had to read what I said. Like you said, they don't listen to the writers. However, by leaving a message, they at least have to read (part) of what I have to say.

As a company writer for 10+ years, I never had a problem with admin when it came to unjustified revision requests. In the rare event that I missed something in the specs, I simply responded to the client apologizing and provided the revision ASAP without ever involving admin. If the client requested an unjustified revision (and some of those were comically unjustified, such as where the professor added new specs after the project was already delivered to the client earlier than requested), I explained the situation to admin and they handled the client. Usually, it was settled amicably with the client understanding why the requested additional work had to be a paid supplement to the original project.

A semi-clever student might argue that they requested the project to be delivered on a certain date (and delivering it sooner than requested may be as unacceptable as delivering it late;)

I disagree. There would be nothing remotely "clever" about it. As you know at least as well as I do, prices are partially dependent on the due date requested at the time of payment. If a customer were to select September 10th today and pay for that due date, he could not demand that the project not be written until a few days before that due date, because that would make it a much shorter deadline and, therefore, a different price. What a customer could do is pay today for that project at the rate for a 3-day due date requesting delivery a month from now and then specify in the order that the project isn't actually to be started until 3 days before that due date because his professor is known to change specs at the last minute.

Otherwise, it would be absolutely ridiculous to imagine that any essay company (including yours) would ever entertain a revision demand because the product was delivered earlier than requested unless there was something very specific agreed to about that in the original order description. As you know, at least as well as I do, companies like their writers to take as many orders as we can and a popular writer can typically have 10 or 15 or even 20 different orders scheduled on his company calendar at any given time. We typically might have 4 or 5 or more different projects all scheduled for the same due date. It would be impossible to maintain that volume or even to commit to multiple projects with the same due date if we had to worry about completing our assignments "too soon." Absent specific negotiated terms to the contrary, the only reasonable interpretation of a due date is always "no later than" that due date and the fundamental concept of reasonableness applies to all contracts.

As a freelancer, I have taken projects ordered and paid for weeks before they could be completed, such as where my client sent me a list of 10 essay questions but would not be able to tell me which three essay questions would have to be answered until 24 or 48 hours before the due date several weeks later than the payment. In those cases, they pay for it as a rush project but it's paid and confirmed weeks in advance just to make sure I'll have the time necessary for it already blocked off in advance.

Re: semi-clever student

This is, after all, our bread-and-butter.

@FreelanceWriter in my case, the revision request of the client is always coursed through the admin because it automatically becomes a case for QAD, depending upon the type of complaint received and the amount of time allowed for the revision. The admin always makes it a point to not only leave a message in the messaging board about the revision request, send an email to remind you of the revision request, and then makes a phone call to demand that you check the revision request. With such a strict revision protocol in place, it is impossible not to include the admin in the discussion with my client. By the way, in my case, the revision always entailed simply changing content to suit the "referral" requirements of the student when it comes to their classmates use of the same paper. Or worse, the company demands a QAD revision one year after a paper is completed because they resold the same paper to a new student. Said company still practices the same policies today. The writers there, have to put up with "clever" students and an even more "clever" company. In such a situation, only the writer is on the losing end.

Don't even get me started on talking about students who change the deadline to a sooner date and then, when asked to pay extra, say they can't afford to pay and the company then asks the writer to just deliver the paper by the new deadline. The instruction then being that if the client is happy with the work, the company will encourage the client to give the writer a "bonus" if possible for a job well done. That doesn't always happen and when it does, the bonus isn't even equivalent to a page's worth of cost.

It could then be risky to deliver earlier than the requested deadline because that gives a customer more time to.. complain : I agree there are too many unreasonable students who would unfairly take advantage of anything they can (and when a company tends to side with the student instead of the writer, the working relationship can be too stressful in the long term).

@Major It also becomes risky to deliver the paper on schedule when an unlimited revision rule has been set into place. Can you imagine working for a company that sets it revision policy for a minimum of 2 weeks and a maximum of 6 months? I can. I worked and suffered under those unreasonable revisions at the hands of my most recent employer. I think the bottom line is that when one works as a contracted writer at an academic outsourcing company, a writer does not have much of a recourse in the event of problem orders. However, when one works as a direct-hire freelancer, there is more leeway when it comes to dealing with revision policies with the students. Once the middleman, meaning the company, is eliminated from the discussion, it becomes much easier to accomplish revisions and adjust schedules for the delivery of the paper.

I definitely agree that the working relationship that I had with that company was tremendously stressful and caused me to take leave from work for weeks at a time just so I could recharge and prepare for more abuse from both the company and the clients. It wasn't a healthy working relationship but, at the time, I did not have much of a choice. I am just glad that I was finally able to find a way to get out of the vicious cycle. Somehow, I managed to land on my feet even though I was petrified to leave the company at first. I consider myself lucky to have found this forum and this group of people to lean on at this point in time.

A worthwhile academic writing company (that doesn't treat their workers like disposable garb@ge) doesn't allow free revisions for more than 3 days after delivery and they surely aren't unlimited (if a writer followed the original specifications, the free revisions aren't typically reasonable ;)

@Major I wish someone would tell the current owners of Academia Research that their revision policies are wrong. Most specially, that the policy of allowing an essay to be revised in totality due to wrong instructions or lacking instructions from the student is unfair to the writer. The students should be paying extra for those things but instead... Oh well. Now you know of the main reasons that I left that company after 6 years of sticking it out with them. I still have friends who continue to work there and continue to suffer the consequences of mismanagement in the company. I am starting to wonder exactly how much they really charge for the papers for them to offer unlimited revisions over weeks and months. Now, they have a new policy, according to my friends, that indicates the need to provide a draft of the paper once 30 % has been completed. That is midway through the deadline. Which means one has to deal with revisions and client demands even before the paper is completed. Which, under that policy, will be a nightmare to accomplish. It has to be proofread and formatted, practically ready for use, even though the paper isn't complete yet. Unbelievable! I don't believe that any order is worth the "high" price that the writer can earn under those conditions.

It IS wrong, but foreign companies don't have to meet US or UK standards, so they do whatever they please.

Academic writing companies now pretend to have administration forums where the writers can air their grievances and the admin can pretend to read what was said and "assure" the writers that something will be done about it. Others, have created an HR email account to help them pretend that they actually care about what the writers have to say. Normally, those accounts remain unchecked and the posts at the forum, are locked as soon as a 5 post conversation gets started. What is the writer's recourse? If you feel really ignored and belittled, then stop working for the company. Only by affecting their writers pool can you really hit them where it hurts.

What companies? What forums? Where?

The companies that are still active do tend to still treat the writers as disposable garbage. They do their best to cut the salary of the writer for every order received not because the student was not satisfied with the paper, but because they want to keep more of the profit for that order. So they make up charges and complaints that lead to refunds or penalties for the poor writer. Since they have control of the server, there is no way for the writer to verify the complaints against them. I tend to believe most of the charges are trumped up.

I'm sorry, but no writer who isn't an absolute fool (or incredibly desperate for work) would ever allow a company to make any of the demands described earlier in this thread by "Smiley73." I'm doubtful that any legit American company would ever even have tried any of that nonsense in the first place, because it would have cost them all of their best writers. When independent contractors accept a project, their only obligation is to fulfill the exact specs, requirements, and deadline listed for the project at the time they accept it. The idea of unilaterally "changing" the deadline on the writer after the fact, demanding "drafts" at any point before the deadline, and especially, demanding revisions to a project delivered a year before so that it can be resold to someone else are all so laughably ridiculous that I have trouble believing that they ever really happened.