While Academia-Research has been touted as a writing site that pays, my research has led me to believe that the site is not as legit as it appears to be. Here are some interesting information that I found out about it.
While Academia-research has been touted as a writing site that pays, my research has led me to believe that the site is not as legit as it appears to be. Here are some “interesting” information that I found out about it. I’m aware that it is possible that I may offend the sensibilities of some writers whose profiles I may link to in this article. For that I apologise. I am not trying to insult or humiliate any of you, but rather am trying to highlight the fact that you have been made use of by the site.
1) Academia-research contacts customers through it’s sister site Masterpapers.com. For proof that they are affiliated, one needs only to look at the links to affiliated sites at the bottom of Academia-research’s homepage. Masterpapers.com is right there. So what’s the problem? If you click the “Why Masterpapers?” tab on Masterpapers’ homepage , you will find them stating, under point 1 of that page, “All our academic writers are native speakers who can proficiently meet the high standards of UK, US, Canadian and Australian English”.
So now they are not only lying to writers they hire about hiring standards, they are also lying to customers.
2) Non-payment issues. While Academia-research may not as be blatant as some other writing scam sites when it comes to not paying writers, they will still find excuses not to pay a writer.
Here are some links to forum discussions and articles where writers have complained about non-payment.
Their mode of operation seems to be to pay writers for their first few months, and then to delay and fudge on payments.
3) For a company that claims to be in service for 5 years and that is in the writing industry, they sure are sloppy when it comes to editing and proofreading their own website. And what is it with the testimonials by writers who have achieved “premium writer” status on their site? You would think that a “premium writer” would show a better command of English in his testimonial.
4) They have listed their address as
Academia-Research
Empire State Building, 350 5t
350 Str
New York City, NY 10118
USA
only to take it down from their website after it was exposed that this was a fake address. They have however, not bothered to take down the address on other sites where they posted press releases. You can view one such example here.
So, if that is a fake address, where are they from? They are actually based in Ukraine and operate from there.
Here is a link showing their old Whois records.
Their current Whois records, which was updated on 19th July ‘08, shows this address.
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
So, is Academia-research legit? Or a scam? I leave it up to you to decide.
