Online writing jobs: "Writing sample" Fraud and how to avoid it

There are many scam schemes in the work-from-home freelance writing niche. One of the most popular is what I call the “writing sample” scam. While it generally doesn’t cost you money, it does cost you time, which is your greatest asset as a freelance writer.

You could end up spending a ton of time working for free. Here’s what this scam is and how to avoid it.

How the Freelance “Sample Writing” Scam Works

The way this online writing job scheme works is that a business will place an ad looking for articles or some other type of content (eg blog posts) on a certain topic. When you apply, you will be asked for a writing sample.

“Great”, you may be thinking, “I just wrote an article about this last week, I will send it as my sample.”

But they will respond by saying that the article must be original and that they want to “judge your writing ability and adhere to your guidelines” or some other similar jargon. They usually promise that there will be ongoing work “if your writing sample is accepted.”

So you think, “Hmm, an opportunity for continuous work. It’s only 300-400 words; I can write it in an hour or so.”

So you do it and you send it. Or you’ll never hear from them again, and / or if you do, they’ll tell you their writing sample “didn’t pass their guidelines, so they won’t be able to use it.”

“Good,” you think. It sucks that you spent your time writing the article, but you have some other sources that you can pitch it to and probably sell it.

One day, while mindlessly surfing the web, you come across your article, literally on your site. It just doesn’t have his name. They have pasted your name on it and are using it, and they haven’t paid you a penny!

If this happens to you, you have been scammed.

The reason behind these types of online copywriting job scams is simple – the business / person gets original content without paying for it. You see, they probably passed the same story down to hundreds of freelance writers who fell in love with it. So they’re getting hundreds of pieces of original content, for free.

Why This Online Copywriting Job Scam Is So Frequent

The reason they do it is because the content costs and they are too lazy or too stupid to produce it themselves. Many behind these types of scams are affiliate and internet marketers with hundreds of websites.

Paying someone to write original and informative content for their sites would cost them thousands of dollars. Hence, they take advantage of unsuspecting web writers who are new to the industry to produce the content.

How to avoid these types of online writing job scams

It is surprisingly simple. Do not write happy original free. Legitimate companies will pay you to write a sample if they are considering using it. However, most of the time they won’t even require it. The samples you already have will work fine. So remember this.

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