Deadbeat client warning

A blog I used to follow -- Irreverent Freelancer by writer friend Kathy Kehrli -- was just resurrected in order to give a warning about a deadbeat client: Q2A/Bill Smith Group, which changed its name to QBS Learning.

It sounds like there was an all-too-convenient "merger" right around when payment was due.  Funny when the timing works out that way, isn't it!

In any case, Kathy is still owed more than $1,200 plus interest.  She even offered them a steeply discounted settlement if they could pay in full right away... Nothing.

Sounds like she's not the only one, either.  Visit her blog post on the Q2A/Bill Smith Group a.k.a. QBS Learning for the full story, as well as links to a thread with more writer complaints.

"The check is in the mail"

One of the things I hate is dealing with clients who are slow in paying. I'll actually sometimes decline to work again with certain clients who are especially bad about this, and I'll give preference to clients who pay with PayPal — despite the fees that are deducted for each transaction, it's worth it in order to get payment quickly and remove the possibility of the "check is in the mail" excuse.

A couple of months ago, I had two clients around the same time saying they had mailed a check, yet neither was arriving. This was the first time I'd actually had this happen with two clients at the same time, so I was actually concerned that something was happening to our mail! As it turned out, one client had forgotten to mail the check (it sounds suspicious, but I actually believe him because he went to the trouble to meet me in person and hand-deliver it), and the other had simply lied — clients may claim that "the check is in the mail," but the postmarked date will tell the real story later on!

Do clients really think we're too dumb to note what the postmark says?

I personally don't advocate working with a client who gives you cause not to trust them, even if they do ultimately pay you. Have you heard the "check is in the mail" line before, only to get it a week or more later than you would expect? If a client lies about when they've sent payment, but they still pay you, do you still consider that grounds for terminating your relationship with them?

No surprises here

Remember my deadbeat client, Bill Cameron, the owner of Cameron Ink and METROMODE Magazine? Well, I'm sorry — but not at all surprised — to report that he did not pay us by the end of November, as he had promised.

In fact, this morning he sent emails to all of us who are owed money that said he is planning to pursue bankruptcy reorganization. He's trying to paint it as this wonderful opportunity for us to get paid, but I am concerned he may be just trying to buy more time, probably in the hopes that eventually we will give up and go away.

I can't help but be skeptical. After all, he has claimed he's going to do numerous things, and so far the only thing he actually followed through on was making each of us a small payment of $50 in October. Two other times he claimed he was going to pay us by a certain date, and failed to do so: Once when the payment for our work was originally due, and again when he failed to pay us by the end of November. The rest of the time we've just gotten one excuse after another.

The kicker is that the man is still advertising for writers on his website. Doesn't that fall under the definition of fraud, to be hiring writers when you know — because you still owe other writers money — that you can't afford to pay them?

Don't write for Bill Cameron, Metromode Magazine, or Cameron Ink — he has a track record of not paying his writers, and still owes his last staff more than $2,000 combined!

Update on my first deadbeat client

Remember that deadbeat client I was having problems with a while back? Well, here is the whole sordid story. This will be a long post, so bear with me — it's worth taking the time to read!

My deadbeat client is Bill Cameron, the owner of METROMODE Magazine. His company is called Cameron Ink, Inc. Click here to see his MySpace page (which he recently changed so that it no longer mentions METROMODE, even though it's in the URL).

Basically, I was hired to write for the magazine earlier in the year by Bill's editor. I wrote for the April issue, it was published, I got paid. So far, so good.

The second issue I wrote for was the June issue. It was a double issue, so I wrote a total of three articles. I was also promised a kill fee for an interview that I put a lot of work into, but that just didn't happen. I was owed a total of $325 for this issue, which I was supposed to receive about a week into July.

Shortly after the June issue was released, I received an assignment for the next issue, which was supposed to be released in August. The article was due around the same time I was supposed to receive payment for the June issue. For the August issue I was to be paid $100.

When I didn't receive payment for the June issue, I emailed the editor and discovered that he hadn't been paid, either. I then started emailing METROMODE Magazine's owner, Bill Cameron. Bill claimed that he didn't have the money to pay me yet due to an advertising mixup, but would pay me as soon as the ad revenue for the issue started coming in.

I followed up with Bill once or twice a week over the next several weeks, but the story was always the same: He couldn't pay me yet, but he would as soon as he could. Oh, the details changed — he stopped citing the advertising mixup as his excuse, and started saying instead that it was because he was having to delay the August issue due to the economy; and he talked about a payment plan, but refused to give me any concrete details — but the end result was always the same. No money.

Eventually I began to believe that I was being strung along, so I contacted the editor and the other writers to see where they were at. The editor, I discovered, had been paid in full for the June issue, but not for the August issue. Neither of the other two writers had been paid for either issue. Between the four of us, the amounts owed totaled more than $2,000!

When payment for June was roughly two months late, the four of us sent him an email (via my email address, but approved and signed by everybody) demanding payment for both issues within two weeks, or we would report him as a nonpaying client to WritersWeekly.com, the BBB, RipOffReport.com, etc. Initially Bill's response was to basically threaten to not pay us at all if we reported him. (What he said was that if we reported him, he would put every penny he had into bankruptcy procedings, to ensure that we wouldn't get anything.) Then he changed his mind and started talking about a payment plan.

After some discussion amongst ourselves — because we wanted to be united and unanimous about everything — we decided to accept a payment plan, but only if he would make a first payment of $50 to each of us by the original deadline, and give us concrete dates and amounts for the rest of the payments. At first Bill agreed to this, but then he tried to talk us into a deadline extension. After we refused, he started saying that he couldn't give us a payment schedule, either.

Bill did not meet the payment date, so we went ahead and filed our complaints. You can see the Rip Off Reports here:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/380/RipOff0380179.htm http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/380/RipOff0380166.htm
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/380/RipOff0380178.htm
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/380/RipOff0380625.htm

WritersWeekly.com also has a Whispers and Warnings forum thread about it:

http://forums.writersweekly.com/viewtopic.php?p=65493

During Angela Hoy's investigation for WritersWeekly.com, Bill suddenly announced that when the "August" issue finally went to press at the beginning of October, he decided to cut my article, supposedly because he needed the magazine to be shorter if he was going to be able to afford to send it to press. (Since he has repeatedly singled me out as the one "spearheading" the complaints, I am pretty sure I know why he really cut my article!)

Citing a writer's contract that he never gave to us to sign, Bill claimed I was only owed a $50 kill fee for the cut article. Since I have numerous emails back and forth where we discussed payment of the full amount, I refused to back down. Angela also told him that since I did the work, he owed me for the article. Eventually, Bill gave in and agreed to pay me the full amount of $425.

Also during the WritersWeekly.com investigation, Bill said he would pay us each $50 by October 25, and the rest by the end of the November. He said that in early October. Two of us did receive payment on October 25, but since he didn't mail the checks until the day before (why did it take him three weeks?), one person didn't receive their check until October 28, and the other person has yet to receive theirs at all.

We'll see whether he can come up with $2,000 more to pay us all off by the end of November. Since it took him four and a half months to come up with just $50 for each of us, I think I am more than justified in being skeptical!

Finally, I want to warn other writers, especially Colorado freelance writers and Denver freelance writers, about Bill Cameron and METROMODE Magazine. His website contact page was recently updated to say that he is hiring freelance writers. Anyone considering working for him should know that he does not have the money to pay for articles when he assigns them — he apparently doesn't have money at all until his advertisers pay him, after the issue comes out. Judging by the fact that he still owes his last group of writers more than $2,000, I would say this strategy does not work very well!

I ask my fellow freelancers to spread the word that Bill Cameron of METROMODE Magazine is not paying his writers. I just hope anyone considering writing for him will be smart enough to Google the magazine first!

Writerlance update

Quite a while back, I blogged on a complaint about Writerlance. Writers were having their account balances disappear, and one writer reported that her account was deleted after she complained. Then the site went down. When I tried emailing Writerlance, my emails bounced.

Later, after the site came back up, I read on a discussion thread that the site had changed owners.

Six months later, the new owner of Writerlance has finally deigned to email its members:

Hello Writerlance user,

This is Michael Santiago the new owner of Writerlance.com. Durning the past 3 months we had some major issues with the previous owner still having access to our site and causing major problems.

We have finally regained total access to writerlance and can now resume business as usual. There are several members that have NOT received their writing fees and or been able to deposit money.

This needs to be straightened out asap so members can get paid for the work that has been done. We are reviewing pending payments now and will send out payments as soon as we can.

If you have any questions at all, please email:
websmartpro at gmail dot com

All other emails related to the site aren't currently working.

Thank you and we hope to serve you better in the future.

Best Regards,
Michael Santiago

I'm glad Writerlance has finally fixed the problems and sent out an update, and I sympathize with the problems they were having with the former owner, but come on — don't you think it would have been good business policy to email members a little sooner?

In any case, if you lost your account balance with Writerlance, use the email address above (disguised to make it harder for spammers to pick up on my blog) and see about getting your money back!

Lights, camera, ACTION!

After two weeks of trying to negotiate a payment plan, my deadbeat client failed to pay so much as a dime by the deadline, which was on Friday. Therefore, my biggest item on my to-do list today is to start filing reports and complaints.

It's a tedious, intimidating task, and I don't think I'm going to even try to get it all done today. I'll lose my drive if I allow myself to become too overwhelmed.

More on the subject soon. Right now I need to focus all my energies on writing these complaints.

My first deadbeat client fights dirty

I blogged Monday about my first serious deadbeat client. (Not editor — that was bad terminology on my part. The owner of the magazine is the deadbeat, and he isn't paying the editor either!)

Today I have more news: My deadbeat client is fighting dirty! Today in an email he threatened to intentionally not pay us if we report him. (On Monday we sent an email stating that if we were not paid in full by September 26th, we would report him to a whole list of organizations, including WritersWeekly.com.)

Considering he is also admitting to near-bankruptcy in his email, I'm not sure what he thinks is different about that, unless of course he wants the additional bad publicity of having threatened us.

Stay tuned, because the way this is looking I'll be broadcasting his name on a very public level soon enough!

My first deadbeat client

It seems I have run into my very first deadbeat client.

I've had a couple of clients try to stiff me in the past. One was over a paltry sum — a client tried to get away with not paying me the remaining 50 percent on a small project after it was completed. (I got the first half up front before I started work.) Another client claimed he wasn't happy with my work (a classic case of him not giving me information and materials on time, and then getting mad at me when as a result I couldn't meet deadlines) and tried to refuse paying me the last installment, until of course I threatened to report him to the propert authorities.

Both situations were brief, however, and were won out by my persistence. This time, I'm not so sure there will be a happy ending to the story. The owner of a small local magazine I write for is now more than two months late on a hefty payment. He has been giving me the run around for more than a month, but in the past week he started ignoring my emails altogether. I've been in touch with the other writers and the editor, and they are all in the same boat.

All of us conspired to write an email threatening to report him as a nonpaying employer/client if he doesn't pay us all within ten business days. Stay tuned for more information — if he doesn't pay (and I fear he won't), I plan to make sure the entire freelance writing community knows not to write for this guy!

Freelancers, unite!

One of our own, Kathy Kehrli of Screw You!, is getting screwed by a client named Madelyn Wattigney. The woman hired Kathy to "finesse" a press release and never paid her for it. The story has even made it into WriterWeekly.com's Whispers and Warnings.

Kathy recently tracked down Madelyn Wattigney online. She left a comment on her client's blog — a blog, of all things, about her activities for charity — and asked us all to do the same. I'm asking all my readers to head over there and leave her a comment urging her to pay up. If the freelance writing community gets together on this, I bet we can get results!

Beware: Leslie Lomax

On the request of another blogger, I am posting a link to her warning about non-paying client Leslie Lomax. She did the typical deadbeat client thing of praising the first article, asking for more, then never getting back in touch with the writer after she turned in the additional work. Unfortunately, the writer didn't have any contact information for her other than her email address, so she has no way to pressure the client into paying the rest of what she owes.

Two lessons to be learned from this situation:

1. A deposit or partial upfront payment protects somewhat against you getting screwed, but doesn't make it impossible.

2. Always get contact information for a client before entering into any agreement with them — not just an email address, but also a phone number and physical address.

And of course, stay away from Leslie Lomax!

Writerlance complaint update: Site is back up, multiple complaints

I blogged a few days ago about a complaint against Writerlance, and again today to report that my emails to Writerlance bounced. Within minutes of publishing the latter post, I discovered a couple of new things:

1) The Writerlance site is back up, and

2) I was wrong about there being only one complaint.

This thread on LiveJournal indicates that there are multiple complaints against Writerlance. However, it also indicates that the site was recently sold, and the new owner is claiming the problems are because of the old owner.

Is this true, or just an excuse? I don't know, but it does sound like at least one of the writers complaining eventually was paid.

Writerlance complaint update: Emails bounced

I blogged the other day about a complaint against Writerlance, a freelance bidding site that has evidently shut down without paying writers monies owed. I also mentioned that I had sent an email asking about the site being down to all three of the Writerlance email addresses I had.

The email bounced back from two out of the three email addresses I sent it too — both email addresses with Writerlance.com as the domain. According to the undeliverable message I got, it appears both email addresses were set up to forward emails to another account, which is no longer there — hence why the email bounced back, I suppose.

The third email address I had for Writerlance was a gmail address, which is where the new project notifications have been coming from recently. The email has not bounced back from that address.

As a reminder, I am not one of the writers having problems with Writerlance. I have not gotten work through that site in a long time. I was alerted to the complaints by a commenter on my blog, and did a little research on my own. For more information, please read my blog post about the complaint against Writerlance.

Writerlance complaint: Owes writers money, gone AWOL

In a comment on an older post, I received a comment from someone who had some disturbing news about Writerlance, a freelance bidding site: Evidently Writerlance owes writers money and isn't paying up. Even worse, the site is down and the owners have gone AWOL.

I've won bids through Writerlance a couple of times, so I know how it works. Clients have the option of paying their writers through the Writerlance system; once paid, the balance updates on the writer's account page. Writers have the option of withdrawing the money from their Writerlance account via PayPal or check.

I haven't bid on Writerlance much in the last year and a half or so, because the site has become home to ridiculously low-budget projects — and even more ridiculously, writers who will compete to see how low they can get their bids in order to write for these jerkoffs. I rarely even check the site anymore, so imagine my surprise when a reader told me Writerlance has gone AWOL, still owing writers money!

I did a little research, and so far all I can find is this Writerlance complaint. Evidently the writer was paid about $675 to her/his Writerlance account, and when s/he tried to get Writerlance to issue a check, all s/he got was the runaround. Finally, the writer threatened to contact the BBB, and her/his account was subsequently deleted from the system.

The same person appears to have posted his or her complain all over the Internet, so I'm not sure if there are really others who have had the same problem. I did find this complaint, but it may be just a less detailed version of the original complaint.

Note: If you know of other (different) Writerlance complaints, please leave links in the comments to this post.

Of course, the fact that the site is suddenly down is highly suspicious. The Writerlance WHOIS information indicates that they still own the site until January of 2009, so that isn't the problem. Unfortunately, Writerlance uses private registration, so there's no way to get direct contact information for them via WHOIS.

I sent an email to all of the Writerlance addresses I have to ask when the site was expected to be back up, but I haven't heard anything back yet. I'll post again if I hear anything further from or about Writerlance.

Ankur Shah: Another name to blacklist!

In talking with one of my fellow freelancers, I discovered the name of another employer whom I feel should be avoided at all costs. His name is Ankur Shah, and it seems that he has a number of different websites and projects. Judging by the complaints, it seems that he tends to get his writers on bid sites.

My freelancing friend won a bid to work with Ankur Shah at the beginning of August. She was to write 20 dating site reviews for his website, singlesrated.com, at $5 per article. Below is part of his first email to her:

There are24 [sic] sites that need reviews. Each article can be from 300 - 400 words. They have to follow the outline structure found on the links that I sent to you in the previous email.

These guidlines include sections for grade (out of 5) review pros cons
Price of membership (if you can find it)

We would like to get articles in batches of 5. Can you give me a SERIOUS timeline as to how long it would take for this project? We don’t have much time for this small project. We have many bigger projects to concentrate and we hope to work together for many more projects if you will continue seriously in this beginning project.

My friend finished the work in less than a week, and submitted the completed articles and invoices to Ankur Shah. Along with the next-to-last batch of articles, she included this note:

I was researching True.com and when I visited your site I realized an article has been added to the site already. I also noted that there was another article added that I had already submitted to on the topic, however, the article on the site was not mine. Due to this new development I am holding other articles until I hear further from you, your intentions. 1. Are you collecting from various bidders and only paying for the articles you choose? 2. Were you satisfied with the articles you have received from me? Basically, I need clear communication from you of your intentions with this project. If I am to continue submitting articles with no compensation in return then there is no profit for my services. As I have stated before, I am willing to rework the articles to your satisfaction. If you have chosen another bidder - the professional thing to do is to inform me of those intentions so that I can pursue services for other clients. I do hope that your services received from me have been professional, reliable, and curteous. Please notify me promptly of your intentions so that all services can be met as desired.

It's important to notice here that according to her email, Ankur Shah was already publishing her work to his site, and he hadn't even paid her yet! Not that he ever would... When my friend completed the 20 articles as requested, he sent the following email:

I have send your articles to my client for verification and will contact you as soon as I recieve response from client.

About a week later, he sent her the following excuses:

My paypal account is not working fine because they have blocked my account due to credit card problem. They restricted my access to my account and I cannot transfer the money to you raccount but I will request my one friend to send money to your account. Will it be fine?

And...

Also I have lost the articles which you sent please send once more the articles you did for me. I will be waiting for your response.

Of course, my friend never received payment or heard from him again. This was her final email to him (edited for brevity):

I hope this is merely an over site [sic] and that you have full intention of resolving this situation. I have made several attempts to resolve your invoice for the service I have provided you. I have patiently waited for payment on my services to you. I have graciously given you 2 free articles and have provided you with professional service. I have given you discounted articles at $5.00 per article, where as others would have charged between $20.00 - $30.00 per article. As per our initial agreement, I was to provide you with articles for you to review, if you were satisfied with my work, you were to pay $5.00 per article. As well as, in return, for use of the first free article, you would provide a professional reference with use of articles in my portfolio. I have not received payment, nor have I received your professional reference. You have published 9 of my articles on your site. ... Please contact me immediately to resolve this matter. Your business is important to me, however, a professional relationship is hindered when commitments are broken. Thank you for your time.

I suggested to my friend that she check out Writers Weekly as a possible course of action, and there she found another complaint about Ankur Shah. This one has to do with a completely different site, allpilots.com. However, it is clearly the same guy; even some of the emails are nearly identical. And he did the same thing to this writer: accepted the work, and then simply failed to respond to the writer's requests for payment.

In my opinion this "publisher" is a dirt bag of the worst kind. These two projects were run around the same time, so I wouldn't be surprised if he never intended to pay these writers at all. Be warned - stay far, far away from Ankur Shah and any of his projects!

Local news: Colorado scam against writers

I read Writers Weekly religiously every Wednesday, including the "Whispers and Warnings" section. Today's Whispers and Warnings included an ongoing soap opera with a magazine that I just realized was local. In fact, the horrible woman running it even went to the same school as me!

Jeannette M. Porrazzo, the owner of Form and Style Magazine, has many counts against her. According to the forums, Jeannette Porrazzo owes a writer and an editor each $5,000 or so, and is not paying because she is supposedly "seeking funding" for the magazine. However, on her myspace blog she admits that her magazine has tanked. And goodness knows how many other writers she owes money to: another writer wrote in to say that she and a bunch of writers were outright refused payment because she can't afford to pay them. She is in breach of goodness knows how many contracts, and actually seems to think that because she can't afford to pay up, she's no longer legally obligated to.

Moreover, this woman has sent both Angela Hoy and the complaining writers many emails trying to claim that they have no right to publish their complaints about her. Bull shit they don't! It's called "freedom of speech" - you'd think an aspiring journalist would know about that.

She also has published pictures of someone's wedding - including pictures of minor children - on her website, and is selling the pictures for a profit...without the people's consent. She took the pictures while she was finishing up her degree at Metro. You'd think a journalism student would also know about the laws prohibiting her from doing that. According to the forum post regarding the pictures, the parents of the children are planning to take her to court for it.

The story caught my interest because I like to keep tabs on the scam artists in the business, but also because it's a local - Denver area - story. So, I hope all writers - whether based in the Denver area or not - will stay far, far away from Jeannette Porrazzo and FormandStyle.com.

A warning to fellow freelancers: Stay away from this "employer"!!!

Early in my blog, I mentioned a child writer named Adora Svitak, and went on to idealize about the number of child authors that have made names for themselves in recent years. That post was partly spurred by the fact that I was "hired" by Adora's mother to review her book. As it turns out, my idealized view of the upstanding mother was a little off-base.

Here's what happened:

I agreed to write a review of Adora's book, Flying Fingers, in order to give her some publicity, and her mother sent me a copy. No payment was ever discussed; I was somewhat naive at the time, and assumed I'd get paid by whoever published the review. I queried and queried, but wasn't getting much luck. Then Adora's mother asked me to write a review for her to use as a reference, as she was trying to get an international contract for the book. I agreed to write the review, but as I was trying to find a publisher still, I told her in no uncertain terms that it was only to be used as a reference, and was not to be published, even in part, without my express permission. She agreed; in fact, she said that she would notify me of everyone she sent it out to.

So imagine my surprise when I was searching the internet for my pen name one night, and came across my name on a page that was entirely in Chinese (except for that translation of my name). I had Google translate the page, and discovered that Adora's mother had gone against her promise: she allowed a third of my review to be published in an article about Adora!

I was infuriated, naturally. I tried to demand payment, to no avail - unfortunate that I had never discussed the subject with her. Then I spent a good deal of time tracking down those responsible for the website's content. I insisted that the excerpt was a copyright violation, and must be removed immediately. I got the run around from the company that hosts the site, and an email entirely in Chinese from the site's owners, but eventually the article was removed. However, I never received so much as a "sorry" from anyone - not the website hosting company, not the website owners, not Adora Svitak or her mother.

In fact, the last time I heard from Joyce Svitak was several months before this ordeal happened - shortly after sending her the review, in fact. She asked me to edit her daughter's next work for free. Naturally, I told her no, and I haven't heard from her since.

As a full-time freelance writer, I feel obligated to warn my fellow freelancers to avoid working with Adora Svitak or her mother. Judging by my experiences, Joyce Svitak believes that a free copy of a book is sufficient payment for hours and hours of work - and she has no regard for the rights of the writer to their work! As a result of my naivete in trusting Joyce, I ended up putting a lot of work into something I'll never be paid for - but I also learned a lot about how to protect myself as a freelancer. I hope you, too, can learn from my mistakes.