cjinc.info, Legit or a Scam?

Many people, job hunters in particular, wonder whether cjinc.info is legit or a scam. I found myself wondering the same thing recently as I was looking for a typing job and I decided to write a post on my take on the website. Here it is:

I have been seriously looking for other ways of earning online apart from academic writing. I figured that typing jobs wouldn't be a bad idea. A search on the internet returned cjinc.info as one of the search results, though a sponsored result. I immediately clicked on it and was excited to see their rates-US $ 2.5 to 5 per 1000 words for offline typing jobs and US $ 3.5 to 6 per 1000 words for online typing. That is an excellent rate by all means. I did quick calculations and figured that each day I would make a whooping $21 working for only 3 hours.

I am always wary of scams, there are so many of them online nowadays, and so I first checked for reviews on the site. There weren't many and so I went back to the site and analyzed it carefully using 'common sense'. First thing I noted was that the site had ads plastered all over. There was even a custom Google search feature. While I am not opposed to a site making money from adsense, this was the first warning sign for me. I have seen enough sites that will tempt you with job offers while their main aim is to drive traffic to their site so that they can earn from adsense, affiliate programs and other such gimmicks.

The second warning sign was unprofessional email addresses: cjinc.info@gmail.com and cjinc.client@gmail.com. I cannot believe that in this day and age a company that wants to be taken seriously can use a free Gmail account instead of a business email.
   
The third warning sign was appalling grammar. English is my second language and so I cannot brag about my fluency and accuracy in English but trust me, I can tell appaling grammar from good grammar. Take for instance this section in which cjinc.info explains about the nature of their typing jobs:

"We don't ask about Investment to our freelancer's for getting the typing jobs to us, but we really expect in return to our freelancer's a good accuracy work.in borderline time period as per our terms . We are ready to pay best in the market for the same to you."

One is required to complete a sample task before you can be considered for employment. First you have to select your country which I did after which I was redirected to a blogspot site-http://livedocuments.blogspot.com. Need I mention that the website was also plastered with ads?

Before I could be allowed to access the sample work, I was required to register-basically I was required to create a Paltalk ID and a job junction ID. I clicked on the "complete registration" link and was redirected to a different site, AGAIN. The site was creativejobsinc.blogspot.com. Here I selected my country after which I was redirected to a different site, AGAIN. The new site was http://www.offerkart.org/ and I was required to download a smilebox, whatever that is. Now, I do not just install every software that is on offer on the internet and so I figured it was time to quit my goose chase.

But before that, I went back to the 'complete registration page' and clicked on the link for creating a Paltalk ID and I was redirected to a blogspot site-work-nature.blogspot.com. Seriously? Why not paltalk.com?

I gave up at this point. I mean, why should I be redirected to 4 different websites, all of which are plastered with ads, before I can be allowed to register? All the sites are owned by the same person and I guess the owner is hoping that somehow you will click on one of the ads as you hop from one site to the other and possibly earn him some money through adsense.

I have to admit that that is a brilliant idea, but quite annoying for someone who is seriously looking for a job.

Please note that all the sites that you are being redirected to are blogspot blogs, free blogs for your information.

Make the judgement yourself. Personally I would not touch the site with a one foot pole. It shouts scam! I read somewhere that they could be getting people to register with their emails after which they could be selling the emails to marketers and this could not be a farfetched idea considering what I have gathered about this site so far.

Oh, and by the way if you do not create a Paltalk ID and a Job Junction ID using the links that they have provided, the links with the referral IDs, you might as well forget about that job-if at all there is any.

Kallery.net, is it spam?

 Have you been getting a lot of page views from Kallery.net from South Korea? They appear to visit every blog and they really mess up with the stats. Here is my story:

After reading countless articles on how I can earn a six-figure salary through a blog, I have been blogging with a vengeance. Well, not really because I still have not signed up with Adsense and so I am earning nothing from blogging. However, occasionally (mostly when my employer irritates me) I do write several blog posts.

It was a relief to see that at least I had an audience-a whooping 3 views moments after publishing a blog post! I was ecstatic, but wait a minute, all the views are from one source: kallery.net. So South Koreans are finding my content interesting and worth attention?

The first thing I did was to click on the referring URL-can't remember where I ended up (Many bloggers say that they end up at porn galleries which is very weird). My instincts told me to be wary of spam, but I had already clicked on it out of excitement. I did a Google search on the site and found several complaints from bloggers like me who lamented about visits from the site which really messed up with the stats. Apparently, bloggers who use blogspot.com are the main culprits. Some bloggers in Google product forum said that Kallery.net was just interested in advertising products to bloggers.

I slumped into my seat. So I do not have a worthwhile audience after all? Maybe I should still continue writing academic articles and get them A+ grades.

Realwritingjobs.com Scam or Legit?

Of late academic writing has been unsatisfying for me. All of a sudden the company I have been working for for 3 years on a full time basis has discovered that my writing is not so good after all. The result? Fines on each and every paper that I write due to proofreading errors. Blogging has sounded like the break I have been looking for. But how do I write articles that will drive traffic to my site? A search through the internet gave me an idea to check Ezine for the "most viewed articles". Unfortunately for me, the section no longer existed. But as I perused through the categories, I saw an ad that attracted me. It was about earning "$317" daily from article writing. It was an ad by realwritingjobs.com. I clicked on it and this is the message I got:

"We are currently not accepting members from your country, we apologize."

A closer look at their 'FAQS' presents one with this information:"Citizens of ALL countries can join". Well, maybe it was a technical problem.
I am from Kenya. That was a major problem and I could not imagine myself missing the opportunity to make a whooping $317 each day (Ksh. 25,360). Luckily for me, I have subscribed to easy-hide-ip.com and so I turned it on. Immediately I was assigned an IP in Canada and so I was able to access the realwritingjobs.com site. The site is designed to tempt someone to sign up with them. These are some of the information that you will find on their home page "no experience required to join", "writers needed, more writing jobs than we can fill", and "earn an excellent income". I immediately signed up with them-the sign up form just requires you to provide your first name and an email address.

Next thing I found myself looking at a checkout form. What the heck? Couldn't remember being interested in purchasing anything. Apparently I was required to purchase membership access for $34. That is a lot of money for any writer regardless of their geographical location considering that one can get the same services for free.

 I quickly searched the web for information on whether the company is a scam and I was glad  that I opted out as soon as I saw the membership fees.

Well, I never got to access the members area but the information I have gathered from their FAQs is that the site contains a combination of writing jobs from different websites. Basically the site webmasters rummage through the web for writing jobs after which they create a job database.

After being online for 3 years now, I have learned a few survival tactics and one of them is to flee whenever I am prompted to pay before I can be given work. There are so many sites that allow one to access writing jobs for free such as freelancer.com, elance.com and odesk.com. (well, you can still pay membership to upgrade to better plans, read more bid opportunities at freelancer.com).

I checked their website for information on free trial which some people claim is available for 10 days at $2.95 but could not find it. But I came across this: "a 60-day unconditional money back guarantee".

Basically, the website offers a service that is similar to that offered by freelancer.com with the difference being that clicking on the jobs takes you to different sites unlike freelancer.com which advertises its own jobs. The site is okey if you do not mind paying a membership fee of $34.

Oh, and take their promise of a 5-figure pay with a pinch of salt. I found this statement at the site: "In the past I've made well over $10,000 in a month writing articles". Keep in mind that this is a site with no jobs of its own and so the exact amount that one is paid to write articles does not depend on them.

I leave you to make your own judgement. If you are a bit lazy (you do not want to check several websites for writing jobs-you want all jobs in one place), you can try them.  The site does not give a lot of information (for non-members) but I have read somewhere that the fee is monthly so do a bit of research before signing up to avoid disappointments in future.

How to Choose a Genuine Writing Company to Write for

There are very many writing companies out there and for this reason, writers are often faced with the challenge of deciding which company to sign up with. While some companies are well known and are household names in the academic writing circles depending on one's country, some writing companies are unknown. For example, in Kenya, Uvocorp, Essaywriters.net, writers.ph, asiawriters, researcheden, writerbay, and academia-research are well known, mainly because they employ ESL writers.

Oftentimes, when a writer accidentally comes across a writing company through a search engine search, the first thing is usually to look up reviews on the writing company in question. A search of reviews yields a wide range of information depending on the popularity of the writing company in question. It is important as a writer to be careful when reading such reviews.

To begin with, some companies hire people to write reviews for them and for others the reviews are written by their own staff. Obviously, you do not expect such  reviews to be negative and so if as an academic writer you rely on such reviews as the basis for deciding whether or not to work for a given company, chances are, later you may regret.

In other cases the reviews are written by competitors. Such reviews are negative and are meant to discredit the writing company in question. Again, an academic writer should be careful when reading such reviews as what is written on the writing company in question may not necessarily be true.

 Lastly there are the genuine reviews. Such reviews are usually written by writers based on their interactions with the company in question. The reviews could be positive or negative. Again, it is important to exercise caution when reading such reviews because people differ in their writing capabilities and consequently their experiences with writing companies differ. For example, if a writer plagiarizes and is fined heavily, such a writer is bound to paint the company in question in a bad light despite the fault lying with the writer. Another writer may work for the same company and never be fined for plagiarism simply because he or she never submits plagiarized papers. If such a writer were to write a review on the company in question, he or she would write a positive review which would contradict the other writer's review.

Bottom line? Read reviews on writing companies but do not rely on them as the sole basis for making a decision on whether or not to sign up with them. Try to talk to friends and other writers who you know to hear out their experiences with the writing company of interest. It helps to dig deeper such as to ask for details on why exactly a writer was fined or fired.You may have a great experience working for a company that many people have dismissed as a scam.

Over, the years I have worked for companies whose former writers have painted in very bad light but personally I have never had bad experiences with the companies. Generally, it boils down to individual capabilities. If you can write high quality papers that the clients are happy with, most likely the company would have no reason to fine or fire you. The writing companies are nothing without their writers and so a wise human resource official would think twice before slapping a good writer with unjustified fines.

Do not forget to trust your gut feelings and to take the pay ranges on their websites with a pinch of salt. Some companies say that they pay a minimum of $6 and a maximum of $30 per page. On being accepted as a writer you realize that the pay can go for as low as $1.5 per page and $30 is just but an illusion. Yes, for some companies offering you $2 to write a high quality PhD paper is not a farfetched idea.

Advantages of Being a Freelance Writer

Being a freelance writer is one of the most rewarding and fulfilling career paths that one can ever take. Freelance writers are usually contracted by clients to write articles of different types depending on the niche that a writer has specialized in. For example, some people write SEO and web content articles while others specialize in academic articles. Whatever one's specialization is, there are several advantages of being a freelance writer:

Unlike being employed whereby one's monthly earnings are capped, for freelancer writers the  earnings are uncapped; you can earn as much as you want depending on the effort you put into  writing. Some people put in about 21 hours per week into writing while others put in more than 64   hours each week into writing. In most cases, the exact number of hours that one puts into writing depends on whether writing is the sole or major source of one's income. If writing is your sole source of income, you would want to put in more hours into it.

A freelance writer also gets to set the preferred rates. At the beginning one may find it hard to set high rates but once one has become an established writer, he or she can set the preferred rates and not worry about being pricey. After all, some clients are usually after quality and do not mind paying more for high quality articles. This freedom to set one's preferred rates does not apply for freelance writers who write through some of the writing companies as such companies set the pay rates and so a writer has to decide whether to work at the given rate or leave it.

Another good thing about being a freelance writer is that one gets to decide where to work from. It is not uncommon for freelance writers to work from coffee lounges or from the comfort of their homes. The best thing about being able to work from home is that one does not have to commute and this translates into savings on fare. For stay-at-home-moms, this means being able to look after children, do household chores and still be able to work. Being able to work from any location also means that one does not have to put off visiting friends and relatives for extended periods of time as one can still work while there provided that one has a PC and Internet connection.

Being able to work at any time is also another thing that makes freelance writing quite appealing. Freelance writers get to choose when to work. This means that there is no need to wake up at 5a.m. or 6 a.m. so as to make it to the office by 8 a.m or whatever time is stipulated as the reporting time. Some people find it better to write at night while others find it better to write during the day-it all boils down to individual preferences. The best thing about this freedom is that you can attend to your personal issues whenever you want to without asking anyone for permission.

Being a freelance writer also has its disadvantages. First and foremost, freelance writing is not for those without self-discipline. This is because without someone to boss them around some writers find themselves spending a considerable amount of their time doing nothing and this translates into lower than optimal earnings. Another thing is that with freelance writing there is no sick pay, no paid leave, and no guaranteed paycheck. However, if one is dedicated, freelance writing is far much better than being an employee.