What can I say? I honestly have to say this has been the worst week of my life! I am relatively new to the freelance writing business and I just wish I had someone to guide me in through this whole affair. I believe I am a good, honest writer and I guess I just trust people too much.
In the past week I have worked for a couple individuals that I met through freelance websites such as GAF, Vworker.com, Guru.com and Elance.com. If had known the tasks would be this demanding, I swear to God I would never have bid for them. I have to say, my worst experiences came with individuals that I ran into on GAF. Not only is the bidding system hugely biased in favor of the employers, but also the amount of work one completes is back breaking. The freelance writers have to bid for the jobs in an open auction sort of manner and as you expect it, the lowest bidder will most probably end up winning the project. Sometimes, the freelance writers will end up taking meager pay offs for herculean tasks that would in the real market situation cost the employer a fortune to have them completed as well.
On my first successful “bid”, which was apparently not officially accepted, I wrote a couple articles for a certain individual which he received and approved to be quite good. Shortly after wards, he canceled the project and I never received a single cent for my efforts. Apparently, if your bid is not officially accepted, then there is nothing the GAF management can do for you. What hurts me most is the fact that when I "googled" the titles of the articles I wrote, I found they had already been posted in a certain website as the work of the crook that took off without paying me!
I dusted myself off and took another job from an Indian gentleman that owns a writing business and needed about 2000 articles in two weeks according to him. As such he required a lot man power to complete the task thus he could accept a single bid. We however had a detailed discussion and he assured me he would pay me at the end of every week. If I had known the kind of punishment I was about to subject myself to, I sure as hell would never have taken the job for a million dollars! I was expected to write a minimum of 10 original articles per day and have them delivered before the set deadline.
Initially, the article topics were relatively easy and required little research to be completed. Then he started sending topics on issues I could not relate with thus requiring extensive research before I could sit down to write. The deadlines were ridiculous considering the amount of time it required to research. Once he sent me about 13 topics relating to the Singapore housing board selling or renting out its flats and before the deadline had passed he told me to stop the job as he had other pressing demands that required immediate attention. I was genuinely furious because I had spent hours, I didn’t even sleep that day, collecting information and writing the articles and then when I was about to send them he stops me! This meant that I had been working my ass off for nothing and I would not be paid. However because I was desperately in need of money, I overlooked the incident and took some more jobs from him
Trouble started when it came time to pay me. The payday came and went but I didn’t say anything and he even sent some more work. However, after two days, I decided to ask him about it and probably as you would expect it, the line went dead. I first tried to threaten him with not sending the articles I had just completed, then slowly reverted to begging but no response came. It may seem ridiculous that I was begging for what is rightfully mine in this day and age but that is exactly what I did and I am not ashamed to say so. In my head, I have already created a terrible perception of all Indian employers and have sworn never to work for them.
I really feel demoralized and this is my first article ever since the incident. I think I just needed to empty my heart’s heavy load before embarking on any other job. After a lot of thinking, I have decided I am not going to the victim again and as a consequence I have decided to upload on the net all the articles I wrote for the fellow. I have already checked that the articles are yet to be posted on the net and if I beat him or whoever he is “writing” for to it, then there is no way he is going get a single cent for plagiarized work. I just hope it works because the hate I have for him can only be eliminated by knowing that I have sabotaged his business. To all freelance writers out there, let this act as a warning to you.
Sorry yeyaaa
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