Freelance writers, especially in the beginning, do themselves a huge disservice by taking on assignments from and partnering with or providing service to organizations that do not play well with others. Some of these organizations are manipulative and take advantage of psychological tools used in marketing to misrepresent themselves. I have been a professional freelance writer for many years and have made similar mistakes by jumping into contracts that were unfair to my own business and personal growth. I’d like to use my experience and success to help other writers avoid these traps and identify some of the absolute worst clients, platforms, services and organizations I have ever worked with and why. I hope this article helps other freelance professionals conduct business as a business and not be taken advantage of like some type of desperate employee taking whatever they can get. YOU DON’T HAVE TO! Always remember, that a contractor is IN BUSINESS FOR THEMSELF just as the company that hired the contractor. This is not the same as at will employment. You have leverage. Use it. Here is the list of absolute worst freelance writing platforms online.
Scripted
If you are interested in providing countless revisions for free each time for articles that pay next to nothing for high quality output on your end, try Scripted. Nuff said.
WriterAccess
WriterAccess cannot seem to decide what they are. Are they a broker platform for freelancers or are they an actual agency? This lack of distinction could possibly leave them vulnerable to a lawsuit by freelancers as the company directly intervenes between freelance-client contracts to monopolize their business against the freelancer, directly competing with them, similar to how Amazon has previously partnered with companies only to put them out of business later on with competing products or services.
ContentWriters.com
This company falls lower down the list of worst companies because my experience with them wasn’t as absolutely horrible as Scripted and WriterAccess, but problematic nonetheless. In addition to freelance writing, I also publish content, hire freelancers and use freelance platforms for outsourcing on behalf of my clients. This company gets some points for decent prompt payment and quality of platform compared with the others, but it loses out on its communications. Freelancers expect clear solid communication from their clients. I was abruptly cut from my contract for quality reasons without warning. There were no requests for revisions either. I could never trust a company such as this nor could I rely on it for my own freelancers’ sake. If ContentWriters.com were a bit more upfront in their communications with freelancers they may never have even ended up on this list even if my writing wasn't up to par.
Freelancer
I have never bothered with this one, so it's the last on the list due to my lack of personal subjective experience. However, many freelancers report bad experiences with this service and it requires paid membership for freelancers to use. That’s a bad combo for Freelancer, so I will likely never even give it a try.
Conclusion
I urge the Freelancers Union and individual freelancers who have had bad experiences with these companies organize and take action on these platforms and their business practices. Send them letters. Speak with attorneys versed in employment and labor laws as well as small business law (remember that contractors are in business for themselves and are not to be considered or treated as at will employees at any time during contract work). Start petitions on sites like change.org and others. Start groups on Facebook and provide reviews and blog posts about them online. This may lead to some change for freelance service providers like us.