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Directfreelance.com, freelance writers, freelance writing, scam, verbumsoft, writing jobs, writing scams
Well this is my first ever blog so I might as well start by chucking myself in the deep end and get off to controversial start. Let’s talk about scammers. My comments are made from my own experiences over the last few days, I have drawn my own conclusions, you make up your own mind.
The Confession on Directfreelance.com
To start off I must confess to being a mature man with plenty of life experience, yet not for the first time I have allowed myself to be parted from my money because something caught my eye; please believe me when I say greed is not a factor, I was just looking for something a bit different to write about and no fee was advertised.
When you subscribe to websites like Linkedin, as many of us do, you kind of expect to be entering an area of safety as companies like this have well deserved good reputations, believe me when I say this blog is not having a dig at Linkedin or any similar companies but I am definitely having a dig at the sophistication scam companies go to in order to legitimise themselves by their use of companies with good reputations.
The Bones of Directfreelance.com
Although I have been a member on Linkedin for several years I never really used it; now due to outside factors I find myself having to find work through alternative routes, Linkedin was suggested as one of those routes so I have increased my activities there.
I have joined several groups hoping to meet like-minded people, receive and give advice and ultimately find some reasonably paid work; I even found my brother in one of them and still haven’t quite recovered.
One such group is simply entitled ‘Writing Jobs’ and although the group has 3000+ members and operates as any other group their logo includes the words Verbumsoft and Directfreelance.com.
Screenshot Directfreelance.com
Their ‘Promotions’, there is only one, is for the above website. Like a lot of people looking for work I went off to explore and discovered a professional looking site and free registration; so I registered.
Jobs were a bit thin on the ground and the details of them sparse but some of them sounded quite interesting projects but $59 seemed a very high price to pay so I left it there. Sorry I forgot to say you can’t bid for a job unless you’ve paid; yes a warning bell should have been thundering away in my head it probably did but I couldn’t hear it because of the tinnitus. Honest!
Arriving back at the site a few days later, more by bad luck than bad judgement, I looked through more jobs and got hooked on one that I really thought looked challenging, interesting and doable; I applied then I realised I needed to join. Well I don’t know what type of day I was having and not to make excuses but I had some money lying around in PayPal so why not; Yes I still have the bruises from kicking myself.
I put my bid in and needless to say 3 days later I had heard nothing nor was there any other activity on the job.
I went to the group page and found a discussion where a member had asked if anyone knew anything about Directfreelance.com there was one reply pointing out it may be a bit dubious so I added a couple of my own, not to harsh but relating my experiences. http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Writing-Jobs-2645481.S.80207564?qid=1c4808d9-78c6-4924-8dc0-66b269f338c1&trk=group_followed_item_list-0-b-ttl
A few minutes later I refreshed the site but could not see my efforts. Oh! they’re in the pending folder awaiting approval; no they’re not, they’re in the ether as they are not on the discussion board nor in my pending file. Hot off the press I can see that the facility to comment further on this discussion has been removed.
I emailed Directfreelance.com regarding a cooling off period so I could reclaim my money, the reply I received is quoted “Unfortunately, we do not have cool off period for the full membership.” I think the phraseology in the sentence says everything. Wandering around the ‘Help’ area shows glimmers of the same type of grammar.
But it didn’t end there. within half an hour I had received an email saying there was a new project available assisting someone to write a document they’d researched but didn’t have the ability to write it concisely; there was no ‘area’ ‘defined’ i.e. it didn’t have a country of origin.
Suprise, Suprise Directfreelance.com
And the bell starting ringing again! - PISA BELL © Nestor A. Grinbank
A bell was ringing, not the tinnitus this time. Whilst going through the available jobs the night before this same job was amongst the available jobs and had been there for a few days; with the location listed as Nigeria, I remembered because I chuckled. Just for devilment, I’d already resigned myself to my lost money by now, I went back to the site to read the posting and found the original one had gone and the new posting had Nigeria as being the defined location.
Conclusion on Directfreelance.com
I feel quite strongly that I have been ‘scammed’ and lost some of my hard-earned content mill writing wages and some of you can quite rightly say it serves me right for being stupid or gullible but if I fell for it how many others have.
I know my conclusions to this little episode, I will leave you to draw your own.
Obviously I won’t be able to post this to the ‘Writing Jobs’ groups website but will post links in other Linkedin groups and report my feelings to Linkedin. I aim no criticism at any of the members attached to this group.
I would like to conclude by making some honourable sweeping statement along the lines of ‘sacrificing myself for the greater good’ but I will be honest and just accept I’m a ‘door knob’ minus the door.
Speak soon
*****UPDATE***** Checked back with site 14/02/12 and job was never awarded and no reply was ever received to my message.
nigelld of wrapcloth
Verbumsoft seems to be a scam indeed. I had unvolunatary contact with a very unfriendly manager of them and so I had to wonder about them and later I checked their details for security reasons.
The given address on translatorbase.com is below
Verbumsoft LLC
3500 West Olive Avenue, 3rd Floor
Burbank, CA 91505
USA
It needed me one Google search to find out that their Burbank “Headquater” is a virtual office address located in a Business Center:
CENTRAL PARK BUSINESS CENTER
3500 West Olive Avenue, 3rd Floor
Burbank, CA 91505
Now I wanted to find out if they are at least a legally registered company but my search on opencorporates did not promt any result.
The corporationwiki says that the principal is Bartosz Marcinkowski and they have max. two employees.
Their names sounded Polish to me and an IP check of e-mails coming from Verbumsoft suggested that their real physical IP location may rather be in Warszaw, Poland (although it can still be a proxy server – so I cannot confirm anything).
Hi Alex Thanks for the contribution. I like to learn about IP tracing if you have any tips. Thanks for the info Nigel
Nigel I realize this is an older post, but as I was searching for information on this company I ran across your blog post. I also checked them out with BBB and lo and behold http://www.la.bbb.org/business-reviews/Website-and-Web-Page-Development-Services/Verbumsoft-LLC-in-Burbank-CA-100100245 “F” rating. They sell bids to potential buyers (clearly how they are making money). I rate this one “hiding under the cloak of legitimacy”.
Thanks Doreen. Re-arrange; – A leopard does not change its spots.
Nigel
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I prefer oDeks above all other Freelance sites.
I must give oDesk a better try
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Thank you for the post. I know a site I do not want to join while looking around internet land for writing gigs. Great work on your first post by the way.
@Rhonda Thank you for reading and your nice comment
@Gordon Thank you also I will publish my next blog by Monday if you read between the lines you may realise who I may be writing about.
Nigel
Hi Nigel;
Thanks for this. Just today I saw a post for work-at-home-jobs on one of the LinkedIn Boards I belong to. A few months ago, this same poster was plugging realwritingjobs-dot-com!
I worked for nearly twenty years with the B.C. Ministry of Labour, and one thing that always gave me satisfaction was seeing job scammers exposed. I really and truly despise these people. Unfortunately, they will keep popping up again and again and we need to keep whacking them whenever they do.
Gordon
I wasn’t sure that I would continue to follow this post, but it continues to interest me as more people leave their comments and experiences. Marc I think you have the right idea, but I would suggest forming an enterprise of our own that takes the best that everyone has to offer and just form our own media agency.
Focus on the strong points of each member and position the agency toward a certain customer base. Just my two cents.
Thanks for the warning! Sorry you had to lose money over it though. eLance.com is about the only place I would really trust. Even though they are a pay-per-bid site, you can at least get 15 free bids up front. Both my mother and my brother have had success through them. I haven’t really tried, I muss confess.
I filled out an application for a work-at-home site online, and once I got the reply email saying that I passed their grammar test, i was then able to purchase their kit. Lucky me! I deleted their emails and even blocked their address in my email filter. A few months went by and then I started getting phone calls, one even said, and I remember this vividly, “Why don’t you want to earn money? It’s very easy and you could earn over $1,000 a day.” – I asked him how much he made a day doing what he was doing, but he wouldn’t answer my query, wonder why…
To make a short story long, they called back at least a dozen times. I kept asking them why they were so desperate to sell me their “kit” when I could just look up everything they offered on the Internet myself. i know how to Google!
This is just one example of the scams out there – there are a LOT of writers (well, mainly people who think that they are writers) out there who are out of work, and willing to write for pennies. There are almost as many scammers out there willing to do anything to make a buck.
What we need is to make our own collective, to promote ourselves to publishers and then to act in a completely honest and forthright manner with our writers, all members being equal, with nobody being guaranteed a spot within. At least 5 articles, to our chosen titles, would have to be completed before admission, and articles would be submitted for free – payments only to those who sold articles. And, make it more of a Marketplace type environment, where we have publishers ask for content and provide it to them within a day, a week, whatever – sort of sounds like Helium, but done with no cuts for being the middle men, as all members would also be responsible for site maintenance, etc – gads, that sounds like helium again – maybe we could call ourselves Oxygen?
Hi Marc
There are so many of these people around I viewed 2 sites being promoted on group discussion boards today. They weren’t blatantly obvious but just a hint of detective work and bang hit the inappropriate flag button and hopefully a moderator will remove them.
Thanks Marc it is so important to share these experiences.
Marc, Nigel and others,
I fully agree to Marc’s point. Let’s start something ourselves, something real and honest. Cut out the middle men. Make our own website.
I will throw in English-Dutch vv, Spanish-English, Spanish-Dutch, and German-Dutch.
Seems a nice project to me to start 2012. What you guys think?
Thanks Ralph If I had any idea how I might be tempted
I have been saved from Verbumsoft, etc. by Nigelld’s blog, which I found by checking into them before sending them any money.
Thank you all who have commented, as I am sure you all have helped to save a lot of us from falling into this trap.
I also had the thought of the cooperative, which would make a lot of sense and provide legitimate, safe and fair platform. If anyone of you want to pursue this idea, count me in.
Glad to be of service Dirk, if we don’t share our experiences we will never beat these con-men
Nigel
Unfortunately, I paid a fee to Verbumsoft. Over a full year I got nowhere. Every offer was closed before I could apply, or else I simply never heard from them, or they asked for rates that nobody could accept, not even a teenager living at home with his or her parents paying the bills. In my humble opinion, then, Verbumsoft is just another scam.
Well we are both in distinguished company then Bob lol Thanks for reading and commenting Nigel
@Marcia Clarke-Marcia that’s not to say that there are not a few good sites to go to to get work, but you have to pick and choose what is really worth the pay. I do bid on jobs at Elance, and I am working on building my skills in other areas all relative to writing and also blogging.
What I’ve found so far this year is that many companies are trying to outsource much of the content to freelancers, so we all have to up the anty so to speak to become and also stay competitive in this ever growing field of employment.
Nigel, this is a VERY good post; very interesting. Oh – I’ve had my fair share of being robbed wholesale by scammers. I’ve been very gullible… and only now have really toned down and slowed down on my search for online opportunities. Sometimes you know its a scam, yet all reason goes out the window when you read so many convincing stories of success and payments. Sometimes I wonder.. “When will I ever learn?” You are not alone with such an experience. Many of us are… but we’re the wiser from such experiences; I should hope so.
Hi Mandy
I am so glad I’m not the only one who believes they’re a fairly intelligent and streetwise individual who still falls for this type of scam. My nature is such that I always see the best in everyone and only realise otherwise too late.
Thank you
Nigel
Thank you Marc
Scammers exists in my dictionary as I’ve added it to the dictionary lol
Thanks for the heads up on constant content although I may struggle with having a comma or two out of place. lol
Nigel
great first attempt! There are way too many scammers out there, (but why is “scammers” not a recognized word???) who get people to write for pennies an article, let alone per word!
There are some great sites, though, but you must be able to write perfectly here – try constantcontent.com – they will reject for one misplaced comma, and not even tell you where, but their pay rate is very good, and many publishers are looking for regular writers, some for as many as 10 articles per week.
Hope this helps – they are most definitely not in the scamming business.
I was reading through this and spotted your suggestion to try constantcontent.com. But the site doesn’t appear to exist. Can you forward the URL?
Hi I get them on the following URL https://www.constant-content.com
Hope it helps
Nigel
It was purchased and is now run by Yahoo!… no more upfront payments, unfortunately!
it is now Yahoo!.com – they pay revenue share, but have projects that pay pretty well – Helium.com pays the same revenue share with a $1 upfront payment – Factoidz pays the best….
Thanks Marc
Thanks for the heads up, Nigel.
It is through reading posts like this one that I have learned what to expect in the freelance writing world. I’ve registered with a couple of freelance sites but have yet to bid on any jobs; mostly because I have been heeding the warnings, advice, and comments made by other bloggers.
Just as Animekid, I am leaning towards starting my own business in order to skip the freelance writing treadmill. As he says, “many of the sites do not offer great pay”, and to me, it seems like a waste of effort and time to do so.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks Marcia
Unfortunately some of us get enticed in which gives these type of sites the impetus to carry on
Hi Nigel. I’ve been at freelancing for just about a year now, come next month. I had to come into this because of circumstances and I’ve been at it ever since. I did take a look at this site a while back, but my wife and I and a friend who I partner with on occasion said to me that it seemed like a lot of cash to have to part with…so I didn’t.
I know that many of the sites don’t offer great pay for some of the writing work, so in my case I started my own business, and this year I have to really push the envelope to get writing jobs that will actually help pay the bills. Good Luck to you and sorry about the lost money but at least others are aware of the issue with Verbatim soft/whatever they want to list themselves as.
Hi Animekid
Thanks for your interest and best wishes to you too.
Nigel
“A bell was ringing, not the tinnitus this time.” Funny!
I enjoyed reading your first blog and if you aren’t sure exactly what you want to blog about you may have stumbled upon your blog’s raison d’etre? Expose those scammers for other writers…your subscriber list will grow! (Visit Craigslist…you’ve only scratched the surface!)
I am sorry you lost your hard earned money…but if it makes you feel any better…you are not alone!
Go, Nigel!
Anita~
Hi Anita
Thank you.
I believe it is an uphill battle, they really don’t care and we care too much.
Nigel
Good information, and thanks for the heads up. These bid-fer sites are, for most people, a waste of time and money unless you’re willing to churn out content for a $1.00 per piece.
Tell it like it is, Nigel.
Best,
Paul
Hi Paul
Thank you for taking the time to read it.
Nigel