Heads Up, One Of The Top Online Magazines Is Doing Shady Shit
It's not on Substack or Medium, but freelancers need to beware.
Guys, I don’t like doing this. I really don’t. It’s something that fucking hurts me because I don’t want to be that person. But, I have to warn my reader base when I see something fucked up going on.
So, here I go.
About 10 years ago or so, I worked for a major relationship blog that’s still around today.
They are still making money off the posts I wrote for them. And I honestly had a great time working for them back in the day. When they reached out to me earlier this year, they came up with the concept of a dating advice app they needed writing for.
I jumped in. I did a couple of samples, got paid once, then got ghosted. I asked them what happened, no answer. At the time, I just shrugged it off. The ads for the app are still on their site.
I assumed that I didn’t pass the first drafts and then kept on keeping on. They promised me $500 a month for easy work. Maybe I wasn’t a fit.
Recently, this same company (now an umbrella company) started advertising for writers for an astrology site.
I’m pagan, so this was a natural fit for me. I did two articles, placed them for review, and then waited to hear back. Nothing came. I checked, and they were put under another person’s name. I wrote back, editors corrected it…and then ghosted me.
What was interesting, though, is that I noticed that the Trello board they put us on didn’t move. I started to question it, and that’s when the other writers chimed in. Something ain’t right.
Then, we noticed that the very person who got me on the project—the one I worked directly underneath all those years ago—had left the Trello board. There was no word about this. I emailed her, but no dice.
None of us were getting any callbacks, updates, or even a quick apology that it wasn’t working out. A fellow writer kept tagging the board’s new leader, even creating an “Issues” column.
A writer asked that they release payment for the work we did and fold the board in good faith. It looked (from our standpoint) like the project has shuttered as far as we know.
Despite all this, another writer noticed they are still recruiting on job boards for the project they’ve stalled on us. So, what’s going on? I took a look at the site and realized something wild.
I went on the sites that they hired us for…and let’s just say I found some evidence that my work was being published under others’ names. It’s not just me. Apparently, this happened with others, too.
As a former writer and editor for this company, I feel deeply betrayed.
You’d think that my time working at toxic places would have prepared me for this, but you know what? I never expected them to do this. Even though this particular site didn’t offer high pay, I always had a great time working with them.
I was there when they were just starting out. They used to believe in paying their writers and keeping an open line of communication between everyone.
To the person responsible, I’m really disappointed in you.
Like, really disappointed.
It’s not the money you owe me.
It’s the breach of trust, and it’s the sinking heartache of going online, seeing your headlines and ideas on sites, and realizing that you had no interest in doing anything to fix things.
It’s you throwing away years of good working together, not once, but twice. You know who you are. You oughta be embarrassed of yourself.
Since July, the upper management has remained radio silent despite keeping up a publishing schedule.
We’ve all reached out to the original person in charge and emailed with no response. This is not only unacceptable, but it’s a major slap on the face for those of us who needed that money. Some of us, like myself, are rebuilding our lives and need that money.
As freelancers, I believe that we need to have open and honest conversations about clients who treat their freelancers poorly. This includes ghosting people when it comes time to pay them, recycling our work without even crediting us, and not even giving them a heads-up about not being part of the team.
This has to stop. So, I will be the hero we need.
I approached another C-level executive who told me that the founder of the company, the person who hired me, had suddenly left the company. With them went a lot of private information and access to the inner workings of the site.
Half of the emails? This exec was locked out of the big ones (including the main editor one) without warning. She had no idea that people were not being paid or that there was a Trello board at all.
With all this said, I do not personally believe this was an honest mixup. I don’t believe the mixed-up names were an “honest mistake,” because it doesn’t make sense as to why my writing was in the Trash and then copied and pasted over elsewhere.
We began to uncover the full scope of this disaster. It was bad.
So far, here’s what we were able to find out:
The Trello board had entries with our links deleted. The deletion apparently didn’t register on the logging software used on Trello. WordPress, however, did have our links intact. We cannot get the potentially permanently deleted works back, per the new C-level executive.
Our submissions were trashed on WordPress, the copied into other documents that were published by the editors under their name. I got screen shots of the trashed articles and where they were on the site. Our posts that were published were deleted, the words copied and pasted (with brief “spin” edits) by the editors. Some of our articles were also permanently deleted, so we can’t even prove they were ours.
Some writers were never even told how much they were supposed to get on the article. Others, like myself, never got told where to send invoices. I was never sure if I just used the old address or a new one. Many of these people were just so happy to get their first big break in writing—just like I was back in the day.
My former colleague who was in charge of this randomly left for the UK with no warning. I tried to call her business phone. It was not in service. So, uh, yeah. That’s not extra sketchy at all. None of the freelancing team was alerted to the move.
The person left in charge had no idea about the Trello board being in use. I had to reach out via social media.
We are currently waiting to get paid. Some of us lost money because there is no longer evidence left to prove we wrote what we did. All of us have sent in our invoices. We are hoping we’ll be paid in good faith.
This is a lesson in learning how to protect yourself from predatory clients.
I let myself slip because they were an old friend, but I shouldn’t have. Here’s what I’d advise you to do:
Keep a backup copy of all your writing elsewhere. Do not trust WordPress or Trello, as those can be edited or deleted. Google Docs, specifically documents you own, are yours and come with excellent logging abilities.
Get everything in writing, ideally via contract. Emails are ideal. If you can, get a contract that states whether you will be credited, how much you will get paid, and ask for a written guarantee that you will get a heads up if you are being dropped from the project. Ghosting is beyond unprofessional and it can cause serious issues for people who rely on you for that work.
Follow your gut. If you feel something dodgy, it’s probably dodgy. If it seems like you are behind an opaque screen, it’s because you are. Watch what clients do, not what they say.
Talk to your fellow coworkers. If you are on a team, give them your information so you can talk to them, too. In the event that you get booted from the system, you will need to get as much information as possible to see if you are all in the same boat.
Warn others. Seriously. This shit only stops if we make it stop. It only stops if people find out what scummy behavior is going on behind the scenes.
Have a very upfront talk about how payment works. This is vital if you want to freelance smartly.
Fool you once, shame on them; fool you twice, shame on you. I should not have given them a second chance after what happened with the dating app. I shouldn’t have. But I did because I had a good experience once prior.
Screenshots are golden. Yep. Get those receipts. Because you never know exactly where it will go.
Know your rights. Being a business owner means that you know your rights if your work has been stolen. I am now out a couple of hours, but others likely had a lot more taken from them.
Remember that big names do not always equate to good clients. I got burned bad by several employers who were big names. I’m personally fed up with this.
If you are applying somewhere and see bylines of people you know, ask them about their experiences. I wish some of these newer writers would have approached me. I would have told them what happened with their affiliated business.
Finally, the best way to ensure you don’t get fucked over is to have your own blog and your own site. If you ask most people who write for a living, they’ll have a litany of horror stories with bad clients. I’m no exception to the rule. That’s why I stopped trying to find clients. I have a handful that I currently work with. If they drop me, I’m not going to replace them. At this point, I’d rather get a day job or stay poor because I don’t want to deal with the madness of chasing after people to get money. I’m going to keep working on my own blog. You’re more than welcome to follow me in my example.
And this, this is why I love Substack, WordPress, and Medium.
Both platforms let you build your own publications pretty well. Substack allows you to cultivate your own service. Medium gets you great lists and great exposure. If you own your own WordPress, you also don’t have to worry about it fleecing you.
Nothing beats having your own soapbox to stand on. So keep that in mind when you’re working as a writer.
Author’s Edit: I have been paid for what I could prove was published under my name as well as under a different name. I offered to let them keep the other two articles if they paid me for them as well. They did not pay for those, so I will be publishing them shortly.
The article will remain under a ghost name because, apparently, there’s no guarantee that I would have stuff published under my name. The company has, at the very least, paid me for what I worked so it’s no longer theft in my eyes.
However, I have still made the decision to cut all ties with Bolde after this all happened. Perhaps they have good intentions now that the OG left, but I personally no longer feel comfortable working with them.
It is awful, but unsurprising, that yet another publishing business is trying to gyp writers off and get them to work for free.
Although ... if you can prove this, then why not just say who they are?? It would deter anyone else trying to work for them.