Complaint Review: Guardian Liberty Voice

Guardian Liberty Voice has a brand new deceitful tactic, guys. Yes, every report here is correct except the guy defending this sleaze ball company, and guess what they are doing now? In addition to changing their name to the Liberty Institute like the last person pointed out, they are also going and removing negative comments from the web. A friend who also worked at this place along with me (we kept in touch after leaving) has reported to me that he put a comment warning job hunters on Indeed.com and it was REMOVED when he went back! The slime of this place is never ending, because now they are actively hiding important consumer information from innocent job hunters. This is so wrong. Will this place ever get shut down? It is just so unbelievable that they are allowed to run this scam out in the open. 

This well known ripoff news blog feed site is now placing ads for more writers to take advantage of under the new business name Liberty Voice Institute. Don't be fooled. This is Guardian Liberty Voice, the same scam company that makes promises that never materialize and instead pays slave wages. The name change is evidence of guilt and applicants are forewarned to avoid or report their Internet ads and spread the word about their corruption.

I thank everyone who has responded and welcome others who have been wronged to confirm growing suspicions and allegations concerning GLV. The web is full of crooks allowed to operate undetected and unpunished by authorities as evidenced by tens of thousands of complaints filed at this site. As further rebuttals are added, this content farm still has online ads to cheat other writers into a dead end slave wage gig that makes cloud gatekeepers rich while work forces suffer. Do the right thing and spread the word. GLV needs to be put out of business.

"Glen" said that trainees were told up front not to expect to make full-time wages from writing and/or editing for GLV (I did both), but this is not true. I was not told, nor was anyone else I worked with told this. It was clear we all hoped to make a living. Some thought they might make a lot of money working here, though I am not one of those who was so naive. It was clear to me from the start that I would, at least initially, be working for experience, but I was led to believe that in time a decent living could be made. It quickly became apparent this was not the case.

Glen also said writers did not make what they wanted because for many: "their content did not provoke an audience response or because they were not adept at promoting their own work." One of my articles received HUGE audience response and was shared on Facebook over 1,000 times, as well a significant amount on Twitter. I was one of two new recruits to make the largest amount for our first paycheck, but that was not even a hundred dollasr, for 50 articles! On another site I write for I regularly get in the tens of thousands when it comes to views, and have had over a million more than once. GLV does not get the views in large part because of their shoddy management, repercussions from Google and most especially because the quality of the writing is haphazard. If all the writers were really to standard, it could have been legitimate competition for some of the more established papers, but D. Chandler so very clearly is a megalomaniac who believes his success can follow even when he treats people badly, causing them to keep leaving. Nothing can work in this environment.

I was squeezed out for asking questions about why so many people were leaving. I did not have a venue for the question, because I had never been given one, and when I asked where the proper venue might be I was shut down, both in a meeting and by private email. When I called those at the top on it, I was suspended, so I quit. I was still assured I would receive pay for the work I did, but I never have. I am in contact with several others who left shortly before or after me, and many of them also have not been paid.

Guardian Liberty Voice is a content mill, and no amount of defense will say otherwise. The process is NOT explained clearly up front; writers are led to believe they have the potential to make money. 

There is a two week training called Boot Camp; the time demands put on trainees is ridiculous, and the "Hell Day" final exam is nothing more than a way to get a massive amount of articles pushed through on what is the biggest publication day, Sunday. If isn't a test of how well the writers write; if anyone has seen what is pushed through on those days, they would know that is definitely isn't about the quality of the content. Articles are published with spelling errors, contextual errors, factual errors, and so on. However, as long as the quantity is there so eyeballs hit the ads, that is all that matters.

Furthermore, people are not paid what they deserve; editors are lied to on a regular basis, with promises of ownership equity of $250,000; pay for recruits, pay for this, pay for that...but it never comes about. Contracts are always being "worked on", but never seem to materialize. There is always talk of "investors", but there aren't any. DiMarkco will tell his editors that he is too broke to make payroll, and is having to borrow money, but his wife is boasting about her new diamond ring and Mercedes on Facebook, not to mention a new home and a trip to LA for the Oscars.

Some editors put in anywhere between 15-20 hours a day because of the promises he makes about ownership equity. They run on nothing but fumes. He calls his editors at all hours, pulls them away from their families, and puts inordinate demands on their time. He is constantly pulling people into meetings for this and that and the next thing, with no compensation. He yells and bullies and makes himself out to be the one who has to keep it all together, when in fact, it is the people who are pretty much working for free who do it.  He takes particular pleasure in humiliating people and pitting people against each other so they won't talk.

As for paying the writers? It's a joke. He gets paid from numerous ad sites, but doesn't ever tell anyone what he actually makes. He doesn't share with his writers everything, even though he says he does. In fact, if someone does an actual numbers run, they can see the vairations. The easiest is looking at four ads vs. five ads, but someone would also need to look at all his payments, instead of just the ones he just lets everyone know about. Yet a writer is lucky to pull $50 a month, and some work for months without making even that. I will say that some writers do make decent money, but they have to write incredible amounts to get there. Good, solid articles get lost in trash, and talented writers get lost in the trash that is published - all in the name of making a buck. 

Writers burn out quickly in frustration, but he doesn't care. There is always a new crop of naivete to follow right behind so he can get his 200 articles on Sunday and make his money.

Read page 7 of that Tribune report, sorry, forgot to mention. Towards the bottom. He leaves a path of destruction. 

Regardless, the interpretation is a pyramid scheme or not, does not dilute the fact it is a scheme. 

First, and foremost, GLV was once a Google news partner and has since been blacklisted. Writers are fooled into contracts, writing in excess of articles in hopes of going "viral." 7-million readers? From when? No longer, try that number again. Viewership has dropped significantly due to the content mill status and reasons following:

• No charge for the two-week bootcamp? Golly gee is that supposed to be something amazing? The two week bootcamp encompasses how to write an article and how to navigate Wordpress. 
• Anyone can pass this nonsense, and people who have no business writing, have. They write on the same level of elementary students.
• Writers are encouraged to write as much as humanly possible, and are not paid per article. Since viewership has significantly decreased, do not expect an article to go "viral" unless you continue to take unpaid time to advertise it insanely.
• "Editors" are a joke. The owner, DiMarkco Chandler, calls anyone who remotely has a brain cell an editor during training. They then edit for free, with the promise of being paid 5 ads. DiMarkco has several advertisers, which clog the site so immensely, it has ruined Google views. But, hey Editors get paid 5 ads, which amounts to a few bucks for editing insanely. At times with nearly 60-100 articles in pending, most from non-English writers, that is basically slave labor.
• The owner contacts you all hours of the night, screw family time, he needs you to continue to edit for free and write for free.
• DiMarkco promises you "ownership" entitlement, which is basically a pure lie. And, why? See, he fails to share he is being sued by Guardian out of the UK for infringement. Guardian Liberty Voice is not trademarked and good luck selling a company that has lost an immense amount of views, and is being pursued for copyright infringement.
• The owner was arrested for domestic abuse against his wife. He likes cheating and beating women. That tells you his integrity level. Don't believe me? Check Google.
• Examiner officially pays more.
• The site is significantly clogged with ads. Just visit it! You will see, due that reasons and more, GLV has lost viewership and interest. It's basically a running joke.
• Writers can write for iWriter and get paid more. No joke. That is a sad fact.
• DiMarkco yells a lot and holds tons of meetings to tell you how important you are, but somehow your $2.50 check for 60 articles and a $75 stip-end fails to show that appreciation.
• Pay is consistently late.
• Reportedly, DiMarkco is looking to get into the pockets of politicians. lol that is funny. 

I have no idea who "Glen" thinks he/she is fooling. Themselves, obviously. Please see the below for confirmation:

http://lasvegastribune.net/download/Las%20Vegas%20Tribune%202013/lvt20130109.pdf

http://www.westernblotter.com/news/nevada/man-charged-for-battery/10347422.html

Oh, and GLV has no intention of paying taxes, so tax evasion is next. What a bad content mill place. Stay far away. 

This is a consumer employment issue because GLM is abusive to trainees and then eats up and spits out their work force when they wake up and get tired of being taken advantage of. The high employee turnover and continuous need for new ads are a tip off that this is just another content farm offering SEO traffic slave wages. When their staff decides what content goes viral and who's treated fairly, who can survive on a stipend every two months?

Most folks who do well are probably those who run it. This site seemingly follows a cutthroat shark business model where those who provide content are strung along while insiders make most of the profits. Consult the eye-opening books of pioneer tech guru Jaron Lanier to see why digital media has sunk journalism to a new dark age low and professional treatment or respectful compensation is a thing of the print media past.   

 How is this consumer complaint when no product or service was advertised or paid for? Not one single writer for the Guardian Liberty Voice has ever been asked to pay a penny to be part of the GLV organization. What our writers have received however is free training, free editing, a free platform for their work with over 7 million readers a month, free exposure for their bylines and free promotion of their articles via social media. STATEMENT: “They state up front this isn't a pyramid scheme, but they protest too much.”

To even insinuate that the Guardian Liberty Voice is running a pyramid scheme tells me that the writer of the complaint does not know what a pyramid scheme is. Each writer, of his or her own volition, applied for and was accepted to an exceptional two-week free journalism-training course. On the first day of that course, not only is our pay structure explained in great detail, writers are told flat out that the performance of their articles, which they have written as the sole proprietors of their own freelance business, will dictate the financial compensation that comes from page views and ad revenue generated. The CPM advertising method is clearly and abundantly illustrated and explained with great transparency.

Further, it is clearly explained that while some writers have had their articles go “viral” and have received compensation at the higher levels, that performance level is not the “norm” and that writers should not expect to be able to make a full time living from their articles. Some writers do have articles performing at that level, most do not whether because their content did not provoke an audience response or because they were not adept at promoting their own work. The news industry is extremely competitive and it takes skill and commitment to bring readers to an article.