Leslie Lomax: Follow Up

So far I haven't heard from Leslie Lomax, my deadbeat former client. The preceding blog post does come up first in searches of her name and on the first page for searches of "Zelda's Antiques" on Google, which I suppose I should be happy about--but to be honest I'm really not a vindictive person and I'd rather just get the money owed and call it a day. Here are some unfortunate things I've learned in trying to collect what's owed.

PayPal is absolutely useless. At the beginning of this mess, I contacted PayPal and spoke to a man named Renato, who told me that I could file a dispute through PayPal for unpaid bills. He led me to understand that if I submitted the contract and all correspondence with the scammer, PayPal would help me collect if it decided I was actually entitled to the money. I sent a bill through PayPal to Leslie Lomax with a warning to pay in five days or I would pursue the dispute process. When I called PayPal back (because of course she didn't pay), I spoke to another agent who told me that in fact PayPal has no dispute system set up for screwed sellers--only buyers who don't get what they order can file disputes.

So much for PayPal. They offer no protection for writers whatsoever.

Writers' Weekly may or may not be of help. I also got in touch with Angela Hoy of Writers Weekly, who suggested I take a look at this article. This was helpful, but not the "send me all the correspondence and we'll kick ass and take names" response I was hoping for. To be honest, while all the advice on Writers' Weekly suggests contacting Angela and posting your complaint in their Whispers and Warnings forum, when I tried to do that I found out that this forum is in fact frozen. Score one for the scammers. Still, I did send Angela all correspondence and asked that a warning about Leslie Lomax be posted on the website so the message gets out to as many people as possible.

Update: I just heard from Angela, who told me I followed the advice in the article out of order--I thought getting in touch with Writers' Weekly was supposed to be one of my first steps, but it turns out I need to get back in touch with her after I've posted complaints in all the other forums and sites suggested. Some of it I can't do until I find out Leslie's location, but I'll do everything I can and then get back in touch.

Whois is of limited use. A big piece of advice I got early on was to look up the URL of scammers using Whois. While this is definitely helpful, it's only helpful if the client uses her real address and phone number. I couldn't do this with Leslie because I didn't have a website URL for her, but I do have a nonresponsive client I'm starting to fear will turn into another deadbeat--so I thought I'd look him up on WhoIs and give him a call. The number was there, all right--but it was out of service.

I've emailed Leslie with a link to the preceding blog post, as well as links to my blog in top search results for her name and her business name--just on the off chance she doesn't know it's up. I've informed her that I'm happy to take the post down when I'm paid. I still have a few more things to try, but they all involve finding her location and letting the BBB and Attorney General in her state know about her...which may or may not get my money back. Oh well--at least you know not to work with her, if she comes knocking on your door looking for someone to write her something.

This Post Should Be Simple and Easy--If You Know What You're Doing. (Heck, You Get a Free Education Just By Reading It.)

To get the background for this post, we're going to have to travel back in time to a post I did a few months back. The post was a reaction to those giveaway phrases people use in order to get a lot of work done for a little money--phrases like "this is an easy job for someone who knows what he's doing," and "heck--you're getting a free education just listening to us." Those phrases always rubbed me the wrong way, and I"m not alone--I found a post complaining about this exact wording on Kathy Kehrli's Flawless Word blog, which itself was a response to a press release from an e-business owner giving (bad) advice on how to attract writers to work for you. Anyway, the press release is no longer up, and it's been a long time--so I figured the case was closed here.

Recently, however, I got a ranting response to the above post from someone who passionately disagreed with me. I had never seen anything written before about the rationale behind using these words. I found the whole thing so intriguing that I took the time to write a detailed response--and since this is an old post, I thought I'd bring it up here in a more current issue. Here's the guy's comment (edited down, since it's extremely long; you can see the original by checking out the original post):

"Are you kidding me? ... I actually got this advice first-hand, that EXACT phrase, from two extremely successful individuals named Matt Bacak and Arman Morin, and let me tell you what - the information that someone gets from EITHER of these two is worth doing the job for a CUT rate, much less your standard rate. Matt alone charges $5k an hour for personal marketing advice, and 20k a day, cash, UPFRONT. Do you think these two might have something of value to share?...

The technique of saying that "This is a simple and easy task for anyone that knows what they're doing. Heck, you get a free education just listening to us." is a marketing technique used to appeal to a prospect's ego, weed out non-hackers who don't know how to write but just want a paying assignment, and offers the prospect something of value, which is the actual information the writer wants transcribed/ghostwritten, etc... No one's looking down on you by using these techniques. The raw information that people like Matt and Armand are seeking bids from writers for is sold for thousands upon thousands of dollars in it's edited form. It would behoove any person to perhaps let go of their own self importance and learn something from them...Anyhoo, just my 2 cents. (If u wanna delete this I'll understand.) Anyway, Make It A Great Day!"

Har, har. Here's my response (also edited down):

"You say that these people are worth listening to because they earn a lot of money for what they say. But the phrases they use are phrases characteristically used by people looking for very cut-rate work. If these people have so much money, you'd think they could afford to pay for the services of a decent copywriter--somebody with a proven track record of success in sales writing who could doubtless increase their earnings a great deal, instead of a bunch of cheap writing from inexperienced and/or unskilled writers.

On "this is a simple and easy task/you're getting a free education..." it's funny that you say this phrase is a marketing technique aimed at trying to entice writers to write for you for a cut rate by making them think they're getting something of value from you other than money. I'm in that target market--I'm a writer. That phrase strikes me as arrogant and condescending, and it tells me the person is trying to take advantage of me. Among professional writers I know, nobody really responds favorably to these phrases. So if that's marketing advice you get from people claiming to be professionals, it's bad advice.

About this phrase being intended to "appeal to a prospect's ego, weed out non-hackers who don't know how to write but just want a paying assignment, and offers the prospect something of value":

It certainly doesn't appeal to anyone's ego to infer that they need a "free education." It says you think they're not educated.

As for weeding out "non-hackers" (what's a non-hacker, anyway?) who are just looking for a "paying assignment"...um, that's all of us. All professionals, anyway. Believe it or not, writers don't transcribe people's info, write people's sales letters and marketing material and content articles for the pure love of writing or just to learn something. People write fiction and poetry for the pure love; they go to school to learn something; and they write business copy for money.

You say nobody will look down on you for using these phrases, but the community of professional writers will. These are phrases everybody in that community knows. They're a clear marker that the person using them is looking to hoodwink someone into working for them at much less than they should be earning (otherwise, the person wouldn't have to offer "a free education" instead of fair payment).

Anyway, so that's my $5k. You "make it a great day" yourself."

Why am I sharing this? Because it amused me. Because I wanted to see if anyone else out there had any thoughts (maybe better-reasoned ones?) on whether or not it's a good idea to use these phrases. And to give writers a peek into the minds of people who think these phrases work. Apparently, they think that by saying a project should be "simple and easy" if you "know what you're doing" and suggesting you need a free education, they're appealing to your ego. Maybe they should run a few tests on that before taking it to the bank.