Star Outsourcing scammed me out of nearly 60 articles, to the tune of $1340 for one week's work. They found me on Elance, where they posted a very convincing job description with decent pay. I applied, Kelly Corton interviewed me and I was hired the same day. I worked for a week before things went downhill.
On the day I was to be paid, which was a Saturday, Kelly Corton became suddenly unavailable. I was sent an email from [email protected] the evening before, so I started poking around. This company is actually based in Nigeria and they have a long history of scamming writers. They use several different aliases and steal photos of their former writers and clients to use on their professional profiles.
To my knowledge, the police never do anything. I reported my experience to several different agencies and haven't heard a word about them lifting a finger to investigate. That's unfortunate, because they could get several felonies for every person they have ripped off. Maybe if you sent a bribe to Nigeria the police would arrest them, but don't get your hopes up. Dozens of writers have been ripped off thousands of dollars by these people.
I knew I'd never see my money or get any sort of retribution, so I sent DCMA Takedown Notices to their clients and published all of the content on my blog so that it wouldn't pass Copyscape. That week I got 5,000 hits on my blog from their clients.
After reporting the scam to Elance, they informed me that I would never recieve my money because the payment method Star Outsourcing used to verify their account was unusable. The job on Elance was deleted, as was their user account. However, they are still using other accounts. They are even using the same job posting. Elance deletes their accounts too slowly to save other writers from the ripoff. I don't trust any job posting from England now.
His company ordered several thousand words of content from me and never paid me for the work. Like others, I found this client through Elance. They set up an account under the name "cosmososhea" and then deleted the account when payment was due. They only post hourly jobs instead of fixed price jobs so that they don't have to fund the projects ahead of time. They deleted me on Skype and never answered my emails on Elance. I wrote articles for an apartment search website. This was in early May of 2014. I've seen two more complaints on here about Star Outsourcing since, and both were also ripped off on Elance. So they are still actively doing to this freelancers!
I was hired via Elance to work for Star Outsourcing. They appear to have hired around 25 other writers at the same time. I worked for them every day, all day, turning down other jobs, for one week. The sixth day after having started, they didn't appear on Skype as arrange (they were extremely active before this) and I went to Elance and discovered their profile was gone. I immediately sent my invoice. They appeared several hours later on Skype and tried to get me to keep working. I told them I'd found bad reviews (Ripoff Report was down, but I found other sites) and that they were making me very nervous. I was told that they had a dispute with another writer and that was why their profile was invisible and there was no cause for alarm. They told me that they would pay later that same day, two days early and I should relax and keep working. I refused, saying I would after being paid. There was no further communication. Since I did not use WorkView, Elance threw out my dispute for over $700 owed. I lost several other jobs because of this and my budget was destroyed, since I had hired childcare so I could work longer hours. This company is not only scamming writers, they are ruining lives. Do not be tempted to work for them!
His company ordered several thousand words of content from me and never paid me for the work. Like others, I found this client through Elance. They set up an account under the name "cosmososhea" and then deleted the account when payment was due. They only post hourly jobs instead of fixed price jobs so that they don't have to fund the projects ahead of time. They deleted me on Skype and never answered my emails on Elance. I wrote articles for an apartment search website. This was in early May of 2014. I've seen two more complaints on here about Star Outsourcing since, and both were also ripped off on Elance. So they are still actively doing to this freelancers!
I wrote over 60 articles for them and they owe me over $2,000.
They never paid and blocked me on all communication, leaving me without any money to pay for rent or food. I contacted their clients and let them know what happened, I also published all of the articles online so that no one could use them.
Do not do business with them, do not write or buy articles from them. You will get scammed.
Do NOT work for this company. They use Elance to recruit writers under the guise of long-term paid employment, when really, they take on jobs on ODesk and other sites and sell your work as their own. I worked a 60 hour week and produced 56,000 words for them. They sold this on as their own work and failed to pay the first invoice. Tried to assure me that payment would process the following Friday - five days later (when Freelancers lose Payment Protection) I have filed a dispute but have no guarantee that I will be paid as they have closed their Elance account. Complete scam, do not give these people your work.
I began working on Elance with this company, but a few red flags went up. They posted 25 different jobs and hired me immediately at a higher price. I should have followed my gut, but I needed money, so did the work, pushing myself for days, turning down other jobs. Four days later, they had arranged to start work at a certain time, but didn't respond, though they had been very responsive previously. Upon checking Elance, their account was inactive. I did more research, found the above reviews and got worried. I told them I would not work any more until paid and they told me that they had filed a dispute against a writer and their page was merely invisible. They said they would process payment early and pay that day, instead of Sunday, so I should keep working.
When I pointed out the reviews and said I would be happy to continue after payment, they stopped replying and went off of skype or blocked me. I am watching for my content (and warned them that they have no right to use it since they didn't pay). I did work for some specific companies, and will contact them about the fraud as well.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY! They appear to use many names, I worked for "Alice P." though I'm sure it was a man. Also, searches show that they are supposedly based in different countries on every site. For me, they were in the UK, apparently.
I was contacted on a freelancing website and was delighted to be offered fifteen dollars for 500 word articles. In the first week I produced 43 articles and the guy agreed the amount due and I filed a time sheet. The second week, a problem started. He was able to talk to me on Skype, and told me our contract had been temporarily suspended because of a disagreement with another writer on the same contract. He said I would be paid and that we should continue working. He also said that items should be sent via Skype rather than by the freelancer site workroom. I suspected this was due to the temporary dispute and carried on working for him. He gave me very hard tasks to do and I clocked up over 600 dollars worth of articles working none stop for three days from seven in the morning until bedtime. He has not paid. When I asked he took his picture off Skype and switched me off. He switched on again this morning and told me he had paid as promised last night and I should look at my accounts. I did and nothing was paid. I am waiting to see if my time sheet payment is made on its due date but doubt it. I have lost faith in writing online and the crooks who use writers and then drop them. If my content is not paid for I will be plastering it on the Internet with the story so people who bought from him will be aware that it's my content until paid for.
This company found me on Elance, ordered content from me across a week - several thousand words - and then cut all contact when payment was due.
Do not work for these people - the person in question uses the name 'Dasey' - as they are clearly scamming.
I will be watching for my content to come online - they asked me also to work for the costume company listed above - and will be informing those concerned about the situation.
Star Outsourcing Reviews
Star Outsourcing scammed me out of nearly 60 articles, to the tune of $1340 for one week's work. They found me on Elance, where they posted a very convincing job description with decent pay. I applied, Kelly Corton interviewed me and I was hired the same day. I worked for a week before things went downhill.
On the day I was to be paid, which was a Saturday, Kelly Corton became suddenly unavailable. I was sent an email from [email protected] the evening before, so I started poking around. This company is actually based in Nigeria and they have a long history of scamming writers. They use several different aliases and steal photos of their former writers and clients to use on their professional profiles.
To my knowledge, the police never do anything. I reported my experience to several different agencies and haven't heard a word about them lifting a finger to investigate. That's unfortunate, because they could get several felonies for every person they have ripped off. Maybe if you sent a bribe to Nigeria the police would arrest them, but don't get your hopes up. Dozens of writers have been ripped off thousands of dollars by these people.
I knew I'd never see my money or get any sort of retribution, so I sent DCMA Takedown Notices to their clients and published all of the content on my blog so that it wouldn't pass Copyscape. That week I got 5,000 hits on my blog from their clients.
After reporting the scam to Elance, they informed me that I would never recieve my money because the payment method Star Outsourcing used to verify their account was unusable. The job on Elance was deleted, as was their user account. However, they are still using other accounts. They are even using the same job posting. Elance deletes their accounts too slowly to save other writers from the ripoff. I don't trust any job posting from England now.
His company ordered several thousand words of content from me and never paid me for the work. Like others, I found this client through Elance. They set up an account under the name "cosmososhea" and then deleted the account when payment was due. They only post hourly jobs instead of fixed price jobs so that they don't have to fund the projects ahead of time. They deleted me on Skype and never answered my emails on Elance. I wrote articles for an apartment search website. This was in early May of 2014. I've seen two more complaints on here about Star Outsourcing since, and both were also ripped off on Elance. So they are still actively doing to this freelancers!
I was hired via Elance to work for Star Outsourcing. They appear to have hired around 25 other writers at the same time. I worked for them every day, all day, turning down other jobs, for one week. The sixth day after having started, they didn't appear on Skype as arrange (they were extremely active before this) and I went to Elance and discovered their profile was gone. I immediately sent my invoice. They appeared several hours later on Skype and tried to get me to keep working. I told them I'd found bad reviews (Ripoff Report was down, but I found other sites) and that they were making me very nervous. I was told that they had a dispute with another writer and that was why their profile was invisible and there was no cause for alarm. They told me that they would pay later that same day, two days early and I should relax and keep working. I refused, saying I would after being paid. There was no further communication. Since I did not use WorkView, Elance threw out my dispute for over $700 owed. I lost several other jobs because of this and my budget was destroyed, since I had hired childcare so I could work longer hours. This company is not only scamming writers, they are ruining lives. Do not be tempted to work for them!
His company ordered several thousand words of content from me and never paid me for the work. Like others, I found this client through Elance. They set up an account under the name "cosmososhea" and then deleted the account when payment was due. They only post hourly jobs instead of fixed price jobs so that they don't have to fund the projects ahead of time. They deleted me on Skype and never answered my emails on Elance. I wrote articles for an apartment search website. This was in early May of 2014. I've seen two more complaints on here about Star Outsourcing since, and both were also ripped off on Elance. So they are still actively doing to this freelancers!
I wrote over 60 articles for them and they owe me over $2,000.
They never paid and blocked me on all communication, leaving me without any money to pay for rent or food. I contacted their clients and let them know what happened, I also published all of the articles online so that no one could use them.
Do not do business with them, do not write or buy articles from them. You will get scammed.
Do NOT work for this company. They use Elance to recruit writers under the guise of long-term paid employment, when really, they take on jobs on ODesk and other sites and sell your work as their own. I worked a 60 hour week and produced 56,000 words for them. They sold this on as their own work and failed to pay the first invoice. Tried to assure me that payment would process the following Friday - five days later (when Freelancers lose Payment Protection) I have filed a dispute but have no guarantee that I will be paid as they have closed their Elance account. Complete scam, do not give these people your work.
AVOID This Company!
I began working on Elance with this company, but a few red flags went up. They posted 25 different jobs and hired me immediately at a higher price. I should have followed my gut, but I needed money, so did the work, pushing myself for days, turning down other jobs. Four days later, they had arranged to start work at a certain time, but didn't respond, though they had been very responsive previously. Upon checking Elance, their account was inactive. I did more research, found the above reviews and got worried. I told them I would not work any more until paid and they told me that they had filed a dispute against a writer and their page was merely invisible. They said they would process payment early and pay that day, instead of Sunday, so I should keep working.
When I pointed out the reviews and said I would be happy to continue after payment, they stopped replying and went off of skype or blocked me. I am watching for my content (and warned them that they have no right to use it since they didn't pay). I did work for some specific companies, and will contact them about the fraud as well.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY! They appear to use many names, I worked for "Alice P." though I'm sure it was a man. Also, searches show that they are supposedly based in different countries on every site. For me, they were in the UK, apparently.
I was contacted on a freelancing website and was delighted to be offered fifteen dollars for 500 word articles. In the first week I produced 43 articles and the guy agreed the amount due and I filed a time sheet. The second week, a problem started. He was able to talk to me on Skype, and told me our contract had been temporarily suspended because of a disagreement with another writer on the same contract. He said I would be paid and that we should continue working. He also said that items should be sent via Skype rather than by the freelancer site workroom. I suspected this was due to the temporary dispute and carried on working for him. He gave me very hard tasks to do and I clocked up over 600 dollars worth of articles working none stop for three days from seven in the morning until bedtime. He has not paid. When I asked he took his picture off Skype and switched me off. He switched on again this morning and told me he had paid as promised last night and I should look at my accounts. I did and nothing was paid. I am waiting to see if my time sheet payment is made on its due date but doubt it. I have lost faith in writing online and the crooks who use writers and then drop them. If my content is not paid for I will be plastering it on the Internet with the story so people who bought from him will be aware that it's my content until paid for.
This company found me on Elance, ordered content from me across a week - several thousand words - and then cut all contact when payment was due.
Do not work for these people - the person in question uses the name 'Dasey' - as they are clearly scamming.
I will be watching for my content to come online - they asked me also to work for the costume company listed above - and will be informing those concerned about the situation.