Issue With Scripted

[beanandpumpkin]

I've never really had an issue with Scripted that I can remember, so I was surprised to have a problem this past week. I'm going to share my experience because I didn't think they'd do something like this and I think others should be aware. Note that all conversations are paraphrased.

Last week, one of the "superhero" jobs came up. They were two 500-ish word medical articles and they paid $72 each. Although I was done for the day, I figured I'd knock them out and make a quick $140.

A couple days later, I got a message from Scripted saying, "oops, sorry, the client wanted a specific writer to do these. So no worries, we'll just remove them from your account."

I said, "uh, no, I don't think so. I did the work and I expect to be paid for it."

They said, "Oh, hmm. Okay, tellya what: We'll pay you for half. Have a nice day."

I again responded that that was unacceptable. My email was ignored.

A day or two later, I sent in an email to general support so they could take a look. No response.

This morning I saw that the half-payment went through. The articles have been removed from my dashboard. I checked the client site and they're not up, but the last pieces that they've published were earlier in November, so I will keep an eye on this.

My stance here is that this is Scripted's problem to deal with, not mine. What is stopping them from doing this on a regular basis? I don't write there much, so for all I know, they DO do this on a regular basis. I figured I'd let people know so they know that they're accepting work from Scripted that might or might not be paid. Their original "solution" was to just not pay me at all!

I'll update if I receive any type of answer to my emails to Scripted.

[Kiernansmom]

I've been writing there for 5 years and never had that problem. Once in a while, I have a small issue there, but it's rare. I would be upset if I were you as I agree this is Scripted's problem...but I can say they don't do this often, as far as I know. And honestly I get most of my work from there so I probably wouldn't raise a stink about this. I guess if I rarely wrote for them, I would push the issue further. I'd probably try to use the articles elsewhere, and if they complain, say you only got half payment for them so they're still yours.

[beanandpumpkin]

I've also been there for quite a few years and have never had a major problem, though I don't write for them often. They removed the articles from my dashboard, so I can't sell them elsewhere. It wouldn't matter to me if I worked for them more, though; writers can and should absolutely escalate issues that are unfair.

I can only imagine if I hired a writer, they did the work, then I said, "actually, the client no longer wants the article, sorry." Completely unacceptable!

[Kiernansmom]

Yep, like I said, that's not right. I don't think you did anything wrong here, and if you feel like pursuing it, then keep emailing them and hopefully they finally respond. I guess my original point was addressing your suggestion that they might do this often, and I'm just saying they don't, at least IME. Also, I don't write directly in their dashboard. I save every article on my computer and then paste it in (due to a bad experience on a past writing dashboard that deleted a couple of my articles!) so I assumed you still had them to use elsewhere.

[beanandpumpkin]

Yeah, that's a good idea. For all clients, I write in Google Docs, but for Scripted, I use their platform... haven't ever had a problem, but this just goes to show that something can always happen.