- Report: #1054364
Complaint Review: Crowdsource Write.com - Swansea Illinois
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Author Not Confirmed
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Crowdsource Write.com
33 Bronze Pointe, Suite 150 Swansea, 62226 Illinois, USA
Phone:
(636)667-5331
Web:
www.write.com
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Crowdsource Write.com Owes me $973 for writing work I did between 1/21/2013 and 2/21/2013 Swansea Illinois
I'm a freelance writer who has been victimized by a corporate client, Write.com, a subsidiary of Crowdsource.com. Near the end of this last January, I signed on to write SEO content for Write.com, a company affiliated with Crowdsource.com, operating out of Swansea, IL. They hire people using the Amazon Mechanical Turk system, and pay via Amazon Payments. On Feb 21, after working with Crowdsource through the MTurk system for some weeks, Amazon arbitrarily closed my account (I assume it was arbitrary, since to this day I haven't received any information as to why they closed my account). My Amazon Payments account was also disabled. Between Jan 31 and Feb 21, I had completed 132 assignments for Crowdsource for which I had not yet been paid. I was (and still am) owed $973.
At this point, I contacted the email I'd been given by Crowdsource, [email protected],
explaining the situation and asking about an alternate method of payment. Someone called "Sam" -- no
last name, no email address or phone number -- wrote back to tell me that the Amazon system could not be overridden and that I could not now be paid. I found the Write.com Facebook page and posted a message about it there, reminding them that they still owed me the money whether or not my Amazon MTurk or Payments account is active. An employee named Sammie Schweissguth contacted me in my email inbox to tell me that the issue is with Amazon Payments because they are "holding my payment" and that Crowdsource can't possibly pay me any other way.
I contacted Amazon and got them to reactivate my Amazon Payments account. This was on March 12. I let Sammie know that my Amazon Payments account was re-activated that same day and she asked for the ID information regarding the assignments I hadn't yet been paid for. I sent her this information, and received no word from her, nor any deposits to my Amazon Payments account, over the next three weeks. On April 1, I wrote Sammie again to let her know that I still hadn't received any of the money. She responded that Crowdsource had approved and paid for all of my assignments, and that "Amazon is currently holding the funds."
This is untrue. Amazon is not holding any funds, because the money was never deposited into my Amazon Payments account. Crowdsource still owes me $973 for 91 assignments completed between Jan 31 and Feb 21. On April 26, I contacted Write.com again, letting them know that I had still not been paid, and that if I were not paid by May 10, I would contact the offices of Illinois State Attorney General Lisa Madigan, as well as the FBI Internet Crime Division, with my complaint. I also told them that I would be filing my complaint with several other watchdog organizations, including RipOffReport.com,
AbsoluteWrite.com, Preditors & Editors, epinions.com, Writers.net, the National Writers Union and the Better Business Bureau, as well as posting about the complaint on my own website. On May 3, Sam again contacted me to tell me that the "development team" is "looking into the issue," and, on May 6, he or she again contacted me to tell me that "all but three of these assignments have been paid." This, again, is a lie, and it doesn't even line up with the previous lie I was told about having been paid. None of the assignments have been paid. Crowdsource and Write.com still owe me $973 for work completed between Jan 31 and Feb 21, 2013.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
nanaquigrimpe
Morgantown,West Virginia,
Nonpayment Issue Resolved
#2Author of original report
Tue, June 11, 2013
I was contacted by Jayme O'Renic, the VP of Workforce for Crowdsource.com, on 4 June 2013 by email, regarding my nonpayment complaint. I spoke to her on Monday 5 June and she assured me that she had discussed the matter with Amazon on my behalf. On that date, $476 had been deposited into my Amazon Payments account. The rest of the money was transferred over the next couple of days. Ms. O'Renic was very polite and apologetic, and I feel she worked hard to resolve the problem.
