If you’re a freelance writer, you love to write and would love even more to be able to pay your mortgage with your superb mastery of the English language. You run an internet search trying to find paying opportunities to show how you can shine and you notice an infinite list of essay writing companies. First, you’re already starting to realize that the essay writing websites’ bulk of business comes from college students who wish to have their term papers written for them. Still, that darn internet bill needs to be paid so you read on.
Most of the essay websites offer $5 to $16 per page depending on the quality and timeliness of the work. That means a 10 page term paper could possibly produce a profit of $160 for you. Sounds ok, right? Well hold on there for a moment. As you read through the rest of the website you notice you don’t get paid until you reach somewhere around $400 in dues. If you want to get paid under that number, you are required to pay a fee in order to get paid. Then you realize there are fines for a multitude of reasons, none of which are technically verifiable. For instance, if the customer complains about your work, you are docked a dollar or two per page. If you only earned $5 a page to begin with, fines could be cutting your pay nearly in half!
However, that’s the least of your worries because as easy as it is for the company to fine you, it’s just as easy for them to never pay you. Payment inquiries are typically ignored and the only thing writers are left with is a fresh memory of “The Causes of the Great Depression” or a paper analyzing why America is in a state of moral decline.
Fraudulent essay writing websites are not only defrauding their staff of writers, they are also defrauding their customers. If you are a student, you are probably juggling four or five classes, a part-time job and a social life. So when Professor Ilovetermpapers assigned you a 10 page essay this morning, you struggled to figure out how you could possibly finish that over the weekend with work, sleep and all those parties. Well that’s easy! Run a quick search on the internet, scrounge up around twenty bucks and you just bought yourself a well-written essay and a free weekend. Score!
Well before either of you start to celebrate, you should know that many of these websites state they are operated in the US; complete with bogus US customer service numbers, however, the truth is quite the contrary. The most popular websites are run out of the Ukraine and Pakistan, and when one of their sites is exposed, they just create ten more. But what does that mean to you? Does it really matter that they are operated overseas? You bet.
The fraudulent essay writing websites tout that their “staff” of “500 professional writers” is waiting at your disposal to write that pesky term paper you just can’t get to. You will want to note, however, the look on your professor’s face as he hands back your paper for revision. That is the perplexed look of “I didn’t realize English was Timmy’s second language”. Most of the papers that come to you from these websites are written by people in foreign countries who fail to use proper American style English and are quite possibly full of errors that you would never catch as you forgot to read that chapter on the whole “1929 stock market crash” thing. (Unless, of course, you were lucky enough to receive one of the papers written by a legitimate, albeit starving, freelance writer.)
If you decide to ignore the moral of the story, which is, “Do not write term papers for lazy college students” and “Don’t be a lazy college student, write your own essays”, there are ways to make sure you are writing for or buying from a legitimate term paper mill. Before you sign up for any website, run an internet search on freelance writing scams, essay writing scams, or enter the name of the site you are thinking about joining. At the very least it may return a few forums where current or former employees or clients are discussing the pros and cons of the business. It may also return many of the scam watch websites out there created to protect freelance writers and students. One such website, essayfraud.org lists over 350 essay websites that are fraudulent either for non-payment to writers or poor quality work delivered to clients.
The scam watch websites also provide information on warning signs you should watch for in order to identify fraudulent essay writing businesses. For instance, if the website you are reading through contains poor grammar, most likely it is not a legitimate business. If they are charging you, the student, less than about $12 per page for custom research, you’re looking at receiving a paper from an ESL writer. If you are writing for a company that sells full term papers at $16.95 for the client but they promise a minimum of $5 to $16 per page for writing it, obviously there is some Enron-style accounting going on there.
Freelance writing scams are not limited to essay writing websites. Beware of fraudulent opportunities by double checking any company you decide to work for.
As for the students, colleges now have at their disposal many software programs that can check for plagiarism and purchased essays. You risk more than having too much fun on the weekends by purchasing a paper online; you also risk your academic standing as well as an expulsion. Mama always said “Honesty is the best policy”.
