Why Do People Scam Writers Out Of Their Money And Articles

I have recently had to deal with another article scammer. I think I attract the bad ones. They start paying you to hook you and then after a couple of months, decide not to pay for work completed and put up on the Internet. The problem started a couple of weeks ago. I had been writing articles for Thomas (Sticky Link) with payments on time. After the last two batches of articles, he decided not to answer my email, Digital Point communications or Yahoo IM posts. He made himself invisible, but responded to people who wanted him to do work.

I found the articles online and of course, I did a Whois search to find the email address. Well, guess what, it was not Thomas's website, it belong to a very nice person who was also having problems getting the work completed after paying the money upfront for the work to be done. We started communicating only to discover that neither one of us was getting any results. He was not getting the work done that he paid for and I was not being paid for work I did, even though Thomas (Sticky Link) had been paid.

On Feb 25th he paid me $30 which left a balance of $62. He said he would pay the rest and still never did. The conversation I had with him Mar 1st showed his true colors. He was not going to pay because the client who I have been in daily conversation with was not making any more payments because the work was never completed. He already received $500 for uncompleted work. All I wanted out of the $500 was the rest of my pay, which is $62. He must have spent it because he said he could not pay me until the website owner paid him again for work not completed.

Mar 1st, after our conversation, he filed three disputes with Paypal trying to take back the $30 he paid for a partial payment and two more payments for articles dating Jan 23rd and Feb 7th. These articles had nothing to do with the problem at hand. He is trying to take back money for articles I wrote and he posted on the Internet. He told Paypal he never received the articles.

PayPal Message:
We recently received a claim from a buyer regarding merchandise that
Either was never received or did not match your original description. Please understand that until our investigation into this matter is complete, the funds associated with this transaction may be temporarily held. For more information, please review our User Agreement.

Now I had no choice but to relay our Yahoo IM conversation to the website owner that he was not paying for the articles and was trying to take money he paid me. The website owner is a gem, he told me what to do. I thank him for his help and information. I have sent the information to Paypal with the information I need and included that I could sent Thomas's own words stating he had the articles.

Here is a section of the conversation:

dailan (3/1/2008 5:46:50 PM): you should never post articles on the Internet unless they are paid for
Sticky (3/1/2008 5:47:04 PM): you sent them to me willingly
Sticky (3/1/2008 5:47:08 PM): do not blame me
Sticky (3/1/2008 5:47:13 PM): you gave them to me
dailan (3/1/2008 5:47:16 PM): yes I do
dailan (3/1/2008 5:47:33 PM): you should have paid like you said you were going to
Sticky (3/1/2008 5:47:57 PM): you really are not very smart since you are ruining long term income over something so small
dailan (3/1/2008 5:48:20 PM): if I cannot get paid, how is that long term money
dailan (3/1/2008 5:48:23 PM): or work

As you can see, he admits he had the articles. He still went to Paypal and filed a dispute and two other disputes, which I have conversation that he received the articles and was making payment.

I like to work with people who pay on time and do not steal articles. I have been back to digital point forums because another client I work for who has become I good IM friend as well, told me about a posting he was considering. He was thinking about having this guy called Sticky Link do some work for him to get him into the high page ranks. After reviewing the forum, I was shocked to learn the website owner and I were not the only victims.

I assume the moral of this story is that no one can totally trust anyone. Even someone you think may be a good client can turn. I guess having all that money handed to you for work not done, make some people think that scamming is the way to make a living.