Writer Wrangler

By Lil’ Herbert Fuchida

I’m sure someone out there in Writerland is doing a wonderful job of finding good jobs on Craigslist. If you’re that person, you’re the exception to the rule.

Overall, Craigslist has become one of the worst possible places to go gig hunting. Somewhere along the way, the soulless scammers and thieves and the self-righteous elitists of the online content world all decided to make a stand on the free classified site.

The Evil Forces

(more…)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

By Lil’ Herbert Fuchida

If you know me, you know I’m on a one man mission to blow up all of those nasty freelance writing scams.  Every once in awhile, I spend a little time here detailing the latest and/or not-so-greatest techniques being used to rip off writers.  In the spirit of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, I thought we could talk a little bit about fine-tuning your freelance writing scam sensors.

Those baddies are always cooking up new ways to use and abuse writers.  If you want to advance through the online freelance writing world without getting ripped off, you simply must develop the ability to see a scam coming.

(more…)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

By Lil’ Herbert Fuchida

Every once in awhile I contribute a post here exposing the latest and not-so-greatest scams perpetrated upon my brethren in the contet writing community.  

Whether it be the slimy Craigslist people who are making a living off of free samples or the wannabes with empty pockets promising “higher rates in the future”, I detest all of those creepy scam monkeys and love ratting them out.

However, the job of a scam hunter is complicated when his own compadres litter the search engines with specious claims of being scammed.

(more…)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Kill the Custom Sample Scam Zombie

By Writer Wrangler Writer
 Li’l Herbert Fuchida

Never, ever give a client a custom “sample”. Period.

Scams are like zombies. No matter how much you beat them up, no matter how many limbs you sever, no matter how many times you empty a revolver into their chest cavity… They just keep on going! If you want to transform the undead back into the regular dead, you gotta take off their heads.

And that’s what I’m going to try to do today. I want to take a long-running scam that chews up writers like a zombie chews up brains and rip its head off. In that spirit, let me repeat the first line of this post:

(more…)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

By Writer Wrangler Writer

Li’l Herbert Fuchida

So, you thought that setting up shop on one of the freelance job boards was going to protect you from lowlife scammers?  Think again, my writing friends.

(more…)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Another Writer Wrangler Investigative Report By Li’l Herbert Fuchida

Those wonderful people from the Internet marketing world hire web-based freelance writers to do a lot of work. Many of us couldn’t make ends meet if it wasn’t for the “IM” crowd.

Yeah, we complain. They try to low-ball us. They expect too much and they want it too fast. Etc. We gripe, but we need them just like they need us. And we can’t really get too hacked off about the rates we’re offered, right? After all, it’s just business. They can’t pay top dollar unless the material is producing a profit for them.

That’s the story we tell ourselves about those rates, anyway. We’d like to believe that all of the people we meet out in IM land are “good guys” and that they’d pay us more if they could afford it. Maybe, we hope, they’ll hit it big and the money will follow on the next job.

(more…)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

by Li’l Herbert Fuchida

Once upon a time I read about this little rip-off strategy somewhere, but I can’t for the life of me remember where.  I didn’t think about it again until I recently spotted an ad looking for writers.  The ad itself sounded okay but the underlying dishonesty renders it completely indecent.

(more…)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites