Freelance Writer Guide Asks: Is iWriter legit or is iWriter a scam?
My readers know that I will typically walk through every aspect of a writing site, detailing procedures like applying to write for pay online, the experience one can expect once approved, and even pay frequency – iWriter breaks the mold because I don’t feel they deserve that treatment. iWriter was pretty low on my totem pole for review, as the site is extremely sparse on jobs and much like the scam Write.com seemed to perpetuate, drew newbies in with the promise of high pay that wouldn’t manifest until several months of pittance-pay grunt work had been plowed through.
Essentially, the idea is that you start off as a beginner at iWriter.com, and you aren’t able to move up to the higher ranks (premium and elite, respectively) until you’ve cleared at least 30 jobs. Beginners make about half a cent per word, which is ridiculously low; so low that I’d immediately dismiss it as a possibility for my fledgling writers. I checked the site just before writing this and the only job available to beginning English writers was a 500 word piece on Indian Real Estate that paid a whopping $2.63 and came from a client with a 53% rejection rate track record. Um, no thanks.
Normally I’d just shrug this off as a bad site and move on, but iWriter lined themselves up in my sights with an appalling email. Actually, the iWriter email wasn’t so bad, it was the stomach-turning iWriter.com SCAM it led to. Here’s a screenshot of the email, with my comments in red (click to enlarge):
“This breaks down to a whopping 2.02 cpw at the highest level available on their site.”
Okay, I’ll bite. A special iWriter test that I have to take to get a higher rank, maybe? Let’s find out by logging into the iWriter.com site (click image to enlarge) -
Wow. Just…wow.
So this iWriter.com scam expects newbie writers to not only fork over $147 (!!!) to prove that they’re “serious” about writing, they also want three free pieces of SEO content to prove your “worth”. Any freelance writing site that engages in these scam practices needs to be crossed off your roster, period. No legitimate site will EVER make you PAY to work for them on ANY level – that’s not how employment or freelancing works, it’s actually the polar opposite of how it’s supposed to work.
iWriter.com is a scam, iWriter.com is a waste of time, and they should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for attempting to take advantage of new writers like this. Avoid iWriter.com.
I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of iWriter’s fast track program. It’s spammy and ridiculous. I’m hoping they see the error of their ways and drop the program in favor of a free service or at least pay the writers for the content if they plan to use it. The whole thing just gets under my skin. I hate it.
However, reaching elite status on your own is not the impossible trial it seems. You posted this blog on February 5th, a Tuesday, so I’m guessing you logged into the site either sometime yesterday or today. Many iWriter writers choose the option to be paid weekly Tuesday morning or every other Wednesday. This causes iWriter to be flooded with writers on Monday and Tuesday hoping to pad their paycheck or at least bump it up to the payment threshold. This is great for clients since their articles are likely to be written very quickly, but not so great for writers looking for a good project, since the best ones get snatched up almost as soon as they’re posted. Instead, I recommend checking the site on Thursday, Friday, or sometime during the weekend. Personally, I visit iWriter almost at random, keeping an eye out for a fun, worthwhile project and ignoring the junk. It’s a great way to fill time between projects or earn a little extra spending money. It’s also a great way for new or young writers to try their hands at writing for clients. It’s not the full time job iWriter has been trying to make it out to be lately, but it isn’t a complete scam either.
Love your blog, by the way. I’m adding it to my feedreader. Keep up the awesome work.
Brinna Blaine
Living a Freelance Life
Hi Brinna –
Thanks for weighing in! I appreciate your visit and I love that my reviews are provoking discussion in the freelance community.
Even though achieving elite status may not be impossible, I will continue to have the site on my NO list for reasons beyond their “pay to play” iWriter scam. Beginners make, by iWriter.com’s own literature, less than half a penny per word. This means that beginning writers have 30 articles of despicable wages (more, if they get problem clients) to complete before they can hope to, maybe, make what’s considered median pay on other sites. I leveled my review guns at Interact Media recently because they have a .007/cpw option among other higher pay rates available to 4 star ranked beginners, and I called out the woman who runs the site on that fact multiple times in the comments there when she opened a dialogue. I’m sure you can understand – I’m certainly not going to give iWriter a pass on a rate that’s even lower than that one.
I’ve started the handful of writers I mentor on Textbroker – while their 3 stars make 1 cpw and their 4 stars make 1.4 cpw, it’s still above the line I’d consider outright exploitation. Sites like Textbroker, CloudCrowd, and Media Piston all have their separate issues, but reasonably fair pay for new writers isn’t one of them.
The fact remains that I adamantly refuse to support any site that even considers making their workers pay for the right to work for them. I’ve seen this behavior from real life companies like Cutco / Vector Marketing, and any “organization” that makes you shell out money for training/background checks/uniforms/etc yet does their interviews out of a room at the Holiday Inn is looking to take your money and run. Most young freelancers have ended up in the field because they’re tired of dealing with shady companies like that – I won’t steer them to one that preys on its own workforce.
I don’t think Brad Callen understands what goes into writing. I have sent support tickets because of rejections and the staff repsonded quickly. They will raise your rating. I only have 50 rejections since starting there about 18 months ago which isn’t bad, but that is still time wasted and money lost. At least now, a client can send articles back for revision. I also find the high rejection rates bothersome. The site has been low of work here the last few days. It seems that way on others except Media Piston which seems to be picking up. The site has improved , though , it needs more tweaks. I will stick with them for the time being. Cheating and explioting writers is not the way to earn money.
Hello!
I am a victim of iWriter. Just recently (or just yesterday), they have banned mine and my friend’s account of “spamming rating.” Ridiculous enough. I have about $35 in my account, while he has I think $15. We are both scheduled to withdraw our earnings this Tuesday, February 19, 2013. I filed a ticket complaining why we should be banned. Well, a support specialist replied and said, we are banned permanently and no funds will be reimbursed.
Spamming rating — in our defense, though, can’t we be each other’s client? I think it’s not even written in their terms that a client and a writer must not have the same address/IP address specifically. We have earned our ratings through working with clients. However, yes, we might have used each other to help increase our ratings a little bit, but how is that their concern? We did not hack. We did not scam. They even earned their commission from it. We are two different people who just happened to be “monkey wise” enough. Did we break any rules here? I repeat, we just became each other’s client.
They’re not gonna give us our earnings — isn’t Brad Callen being a thief here? It’s our money. We earned it. We worked for it.
Also, I’m thinking of a reason why they would offer such a “Fast Track Program” if they’re so concerned that premium clients will receive junk from the writers (aka us) who, they say, “illegally” earned a premium rating? Although they offer a test, I think, people who will be able to pay such an amount of money can also hire someone else to do the test for them just to pass.
Whatever. I just received a response again from Callen’s assistant, saying that “it’s still the same thing.” She’s implying we did break their “rules.” I browsed on their terms, it just stated that an account should be used by one person with legal identity. We are using one account under our own names. I said, we just want our money, they could ban us forever from their site. Brad the fucking Callen wouldn’t just give his ex-workers their money.
If I had money, could we file, say, a lawsuit? If we could, we would save money to do just that. I’m just so mad because if we weren’t good writers, we wouldn’t be earning that much, right? Although, $35 isn’t much, but to earn “that much” from iWriter, we’re good, right?
P.S. We were forced to try iWriter because we are not from the US, we cannot sign up for any other writing sites (none that we know of).
Hello Lala –
First of all, I’m sorry that iWriter banned you. While I don’t agree with the reciprocal system you and your friend had set up – the rules may not have explicitly forbid it, but common sense dictates it’s kind of cheating – I don’t think iWriter had any right whatsoever to keep your money. A few writing sites I work with have that rule set up, but it’s focused on commissions, not outright earnings. For example, if your friend wrote an article after connecting with your affiliate link and you earned a percentage from that, they may be in their rights to take that because it could be considered as earned dishonestly. But outright pay? No way. You made money through your writing work and they’re definitely stealing it.
While I can tell you aren’t a native writer, it’s only through a few very subtle turns of phrase and a missing word or two. Your grasp of the language is admirable, especially compared to other foreign writers I’ve seen. I would suggest you try out CloudCrowd, as you only need a Facebook account and a Paypal account to work there, regardless of what country you live in. Here’s the link – https://www.cloudcrowd.com/i/brls06 .
Yes, we may have really done something wrong. We acknowledge that. All that we’re really asking his team is for our earnings to be paid and then we’re all settled. It’s work-earned money.
What if he really doesn’t give it? Can I call him a thief even though we’re the first ones to “cheat?” Lol. I hate him.
Yes, I am not. Thank you for the admiration. I would try that. Thank you very much!
I don’t think you’d be out of line calling him a thief, though more accurately you should place the blame on the company, IWriter, as opposed to the founder. Newbie writers won’t be searching for his name before they sign up, they’ll be looking for site info. Understand?
Hi again!
I just have a question… I don’t know if this is silly, but here it goes… Do we own the rights for the articles? I mean, we were not really paid for them. The clients paid Brad but not us. I’m really sorry if this is stupid.
No no, it’s an honest question. I can’t speak to the legality of it, but I personally would consider you to still have the rights to it.
The tricky part is that the client paid iWriter, so as far as the client is concerned they have done what they had to do to gain the rights to your work. They’d probably be confused or angry if you approached them and claimed they stole your work. Your “beef” (as we say here in the US) is with iWriter itself, unfortunately.
Have you tried googling a sentence of your article in ” ” quotes to see if the client has used it yet?
Yep. Can I post the link here after I’ve finished? Haha.
I’m actually looking for “scamming rating” and I haven’t found anything about it yet. I think, we’re the first ones to commit it? Or we’re the first ones to get “caught” for it. I still believe we’re clean, although we know it’s wrong. Haha.
I love this blog and I appreciate this conversation with you. Have a good day!
Excellent review, Delaney! Your blog has become an invaluable resource!
Hi Delaney,
I came across your page on Google and was immediately captivated by your resourceful posts. My question is, are there any sites you can recommend that aren’t like iwriter and interact media? Sites that actually pay writers well? Please advice. Thanks
I write for them now and then and recently got a bulk order at a pretty high rate.
I agree that the half a cent per work rate for the first 30 articles is ridiculous; I’d suggest that anyone wanting to try it pick short articles that can be written quickly. It can pay off if you can actually write.
I’m glad to see they’re finally starting to catch onto the scammers who are working as teams so that they can reach the 5 star level. What good does it do you if you reach that level if you’re not capable of delivering quality? No one “forced” you to do anything, Lala. There are plenty of writing sites out there who will accept foreign members. I’d suggest that you try earning your rating the old fashioned way from now one because what you did is a scam that hurts legit writers.