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Site Review: Writing by Cyndi

Writers are a pretty close knit group. As a member of that group, I sometimes have to share information on sites that are not what they seem to be. In the past, I've written about Mahalo and what they did to their writers. It wasn't a pleasant task, but it needed to be done. After all, Mahalo was pretty lucrative for some writers (including myself) for a decent period of time.

Every now and then writers in search of work will come across relatively new writing sites that look like a promising venture. The problem is that sometimes these sites and their owners get greedy or completely mismanage the site and the fall of them is heard throughout the online writing community. That's because they don't fall soon enough to prevent writers from being taken advantage of. Sadly, WritingbyCyndi.com is a site that currently takes advantage of select writers because of poor management practices and the presence of greed.

When I first started working for this site, the payments came as promised. Then, within a couple of weeks, payments were spotty or nonexistent. The reasons declared were that Paypal lost invoices, the site hadn't been paid yet or, when all else failed, the writing was rejected. Email correspondence from the owner was emotional and filled with name calling and confusion. Paypal reminders were met with hostility and confusion over which project the invoice concerned, though every invoice contained the details of the individual articles.

At this point, I was prepared to quit, but since invoices existed (and months later still do) that were not paid, I was afraid that I would never receive payment. I was chastised for questioning my "employer's" integrity. I was told to stop harassing her, yet my only initiation of correspondence was through Paypal reminders and every single invoice reminder I sent was met with childish multitudes of emails and threats of litigation with closing remarks in the form of questions on how I would like to proceed.

How I would like to proceed is how every writer would like to proceed. I'd like to get paid for work that was already published. Period.

This is just another reminder of why writers need to do research on sites before working for them. Happy writing to you all!

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35 comments:

Cyndi said...

Kathy,

Where do I even begin?
The simple truth of the matter is that your work had to be re-written numerous times by the senior writers. I gave you ample chances to re-write, the client rejected them.

Would you like me to post screen shots of all the payment's you have received? That would simply clear up the manner, would it not?

That can easily be done.

A word of advice, try telling the truth once in a while it will do you a world of good.

Thanks for the post though, as it has brought me much traffic to my website.

Your services were not needed, I let you go, you are bitter. Case closed.

Now once again, stop with your silly games and go find a job :)

Anonymous said...

I think it's terrible when someone takes advantage of writers. One thing I've learned is that different writers have different views on just about every site that exists. I'm sorry that you had such a terrible experience with Writing by Cyndi. I too have had clients that didn't pay, and it's really frustrating to see your words published on a site and know that you were never paid for it. Best of luck with future sites.

Anonymous said...

The site is on par with other content mill type sites I've seen out there. Low pay for lots of work. Good writing should be rewarded with livable wages, not nickels and dimes.

Anonymous said...

kathy,

cyndi says she wants to clear up the manner. does she employ writers? seems that she hasnt had anyone rub off on her yet. i have read some of your work and enjoyed it. thanks.

ken s. said...

kathy, cant you see she wants to clear up the manner? funny isnt it?

Anonymous said...

I encourage you to add your two cents here, where she is seeking more writers.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218604

Kathy Foust said...

Thanks for reading and encouraging. And of course, if you enjoy my writing, then that just gives me one more reason to keep doing it!
As for the invoices, they were never paid and I expect they never will be.

Kathy Foust said...

Btw, I tried posting in that forum, but was not able to. It could be because I just signed up there though.

It's also worth mentioning that in her post her she states that the client rejected my work. Interesting then that I should find it published on thier site. However, they were kind enough to remove it after I spoke with them.

Anonymous said...

It's amazing that someone purporting to be a professional and who is running a writing service should have such awful, awful grammatical and spelling errors:

"That would simply clear up the manner, would it not?" (I believe you mean "matter.")

"Would you like me to post screen shots of all the payment's you have received?" (I think you'll find that should be "payments" -- no apostrophe.)

"A word of advice, try telling the truth once in a while it will do you a world of good." (That is a run on sentence, requiring either a period or a semicolon. I'll let you figure out where.)

Really, Cyndi? And you're criticising Kathy's work?

FWIW and FYI, I have no dog in this fight and I don't know either party. I just find it ridiculous that someone claiming to provide writing services can't even properly punctuate a blog post.

I think I'll believe the writer who can actually use the English language correctly over someone who's popping up all over the internet as a scam artist.

Kathy Foust said...

I have to say that this last comment gave me a laugh today.

The fact is, I left Cyndi's comment there for two reasons. The first reason is that I feel that we all have the right to defend ourselves and I would never deny someone the right to refute what I said. The second reason is that I know how writers think and I could easily see that Cyndi's post and the complete lack of gramamtcial skill with which it was written said more about her writing business than anything I could ever post.

For the record, I do moderate comments here, but only to avoid spam and abusive posts. I have not, nor will I ever prevent anyone from posting on here as long as they aren't spamming me or being abusive to me or other people who comment on here. In fact, I wouldn't even know how to block someone.

I have also noticed that lately there have been posts all over the Internet about Cyndi's lack of ethic when it comes to clients as well as writers. Another one bites the dust...

Anonymous said...

Glad I could bring a smile to your face. :) Hope you have better luck in the future and thanks for the warning about Cyndi and her organisation.

Anonymous said...

You are a horrible writer. You are also quite disgusting to look at. Instead of whining about he said she said, why not get your fat butt to the gym?

You could afford to lose a lot weight. Why not take all this energy and do something good?

I know you will never post this, but I do know you will read it.

You are one shady cat. Karma, baby. All I gotta say

Kathy Foust said...

The above comment was posted for the same reason that Cyndi's comment was left here. It is a demonstration of what you can expect when you confront a scammer. Note the intellectual undertone and the eloquent use of grammar. Ok...sorry, I just found it amusing and my sarcasm came out :P
I know my I.Q. and I know my skills. I'm also confident enough in myself to be able to laugh off the fact that weight was the closest this "anonymous" could get to saying anything demeaning to me Of course, I cannot take a serious critique of grammar from someone who so obviously has no concept of it.
In short,thanks for proving my point again. And thanks Google for making things so easy to trace :)
Lovin' the pvs that only increase with every comment :)

Anonymous said...

I love it how Cyndi corrected the grammar in her post after someone brought it up.

I find writers who correct grammar of blog posts and forum posts to be on the lower rung of internet trolls.

I think you guys have adequately addressed Cyndi's business practices, but I would like to see some suits filed in small claims court, or some notices sent to her web host that they are hosting a scam site. You should really call it a loss, resign from your position for inegrity's sake, and pursue other means of recouping your losses as noted above. Invoices, work orders, screenshots, communications, everything I've seen adds up to a great case in our justice system. I would like to see a donation site set up to pay for the legal fees. If writers are as closed knit as you say, there will definately be enough money collected to break Cyndi and her silly little site. Class action of course.

Consumer reporting is great, but scam artists definately deserve some serious repricussions.

Edit out by Kathy: it is easier to post anonymously. As long as you can tell who it is, that's all that matters.

Kathy Foust said...

I competely agree..even with the anonymous part. I know that Blogger doesn't always make it easy to post comments. I just find it cowardly that people use that option as something to hide behind. However, all my blogs accept anonymous comments so that I can better serve the readers.

I've also mentioned a class action suit to some other writers. The great thing about those is that the attorney will often take a percentage of the amount won rather than charging upfront fees.

Anonymous said...

I recently left writing for her business. No surprise to know I also am owed money by her. On the other spectrum, I am now writing for a definable company and am enjoying the work (and the pay.) It is a shame that some people will take the fruits of others and not recompense for the work.

J C said...

I wrote for Cyndi occasionally for several weeks until it became apparent she was not going to offer a fair pay rate on anything written for her site. The woman runs a dubious business as far as I am concerned. I did not get paid for my last two articles I wrote. I'm just glad I left before it was several more articles like other writers victimized by her.

Anonymous said...

I too left her services in the last month. She claimed she was getting paid by the clients and that she had money in reserve if she didn't get paid so she could pay her writers, but when it came to paying the writers she couldn't because of some lame reason or another.

I know a ton of writers who didn't get paid, or if they did, it was less then 10% of what they were owed. And always, there was some reason Cyndi couldn't pay the whole amount.

JC Torpey said...

@ JC: There has only ever been one person with Cyndi using the name "JC," and I can assure you that I did not leave the above comment.

Why not use your real name instead of leaving comments using mine, or why don't you use the anonymous button? Why make trouble for me, what did I ever do to you?

You have the right to say what you have to say and be done with it, but you have no right to use a name that is not yours. In fact, that is called fraud, Identity Theft and it is a crime.

Kathy, I understand why you do not remove comments, but I would greatly appreciate it if you could change the "JC" name to anonymous because it that is obviously not their name as I can promise you there has never, even been another JC writing for Cyndi other than me.

Kathy Foust said...

JC Torpey,
I do understand what you're asking, but I don't modify comments. There are writers who use different names so there may have been a JC other than you and you just don't know it or that may be the name they use on Google. However, I think that your comment above is appropriate enough to convey the message.

**Btw, there have been many writers who have contacted me and though I won't offer up the names of thsoe who have, I can say for clarification that JC Torpey is not someone who has ever contacted me about this issue or any other.**

Also...for future reference, I am completely okay with anyone commenting on here and I'm not even saying that someone used another writer's name, but I AM saying that I have tried to be as open and honest as I could here and I would like it if my readers/commentors could do the same. One small comment can have an enormous impact on someone's life. Thanks much. ~Kathy

Kathy Foust said...

Btw...I just wanted to mention that as of today not only have I not been paid for work that was done, but because she published without payment, I had to contact some of her clients to have my work removed. If you haven't been paid for your work, then I suggest you contact the site it was posted on and ask them to remove it so you can sell it to a site that actually pays.

Marilisa Sachteleben said...

Thanks for the heads-up, Kathy. I've never done any writing for Cyndi. Interesting her comments on your post. Very telling.

Kathy Foust said...

Marilisa you're very welcome. It would go against everything I believe in to NOT warn my fellow writers about people like Cyndi who take advantage of other peoples' skills and hard work. Happy writing to you :)

Anonymous said...

Cindy also pockeded our money. She took $190 for a job and never delivered promised writeups.
Villa4vacation.com

Kathy Foust said...

I find it to be very sad that there are still people coming out to say how Cyndi is scamming writers as well as clients. It's like there is no end to this. What kind of a person is so saturated with greed that she feels compelled to do this?

Anonymous said...

Hi all. I am another writer cleaned out by the scammer Cyndi slick an her so called professional writing services. She will steal your articles and never pay you. Her email response is always full of sarcasm and rude tones. She definitely needs to be put of out business. I like that idea of contacting the hosting company she has her bogus websites hosting. Not only that, but the people who are unknowingly using my articles, and the advertisers who are advertising on the websites would probably be interested to know they are advertising with illegal articles. Most advertisers only approve of true honest writers.

Anonymous said...

Hi Kathy. I would just like to apologize to you. I am one of the writers that defended Cyndi when I first seen this post. You were right. The pay came at first, then it got late but still came with an excuse as to why it was late. This woman now owes me over $2,000.00. She cannot blame quality issues because I was just promoted as a senior writer prior to nonpayment. Despite the fact that I have received several promises to pay, she has yet to pay out anything, for months. This woman is a liar and a thief.

Kathy Foust said...

Thank you for the apology. We all have our perception and you were looking at it from yours. Your perception has changed. I'm sorry that it did because just from the people who have contacted me, I could have a house bought and paid for if I had all the money that writer's have told me is owed to them by her. Thousands and those are just the ones I know about.

Anonymous said...

Just an FYI for any readers that are looking for a new writing gig, Writing By Cyndi is now Freshly Worded. Just thought that I would put that out there.

Anonymous said...

Cyndi totally SCAMMED me! I used to write for her and she failed to pay! I no longer write for her and since then I've found more work and have been seeking freelancers and ironically she actually replied back to my ad with the following:

Hi There,

I came across your ad and see that you are in need of writing assistance. I would love to talk with you to see how I can help with all your writing needs.

I am a professional freelance writer with over 10 years of experience. I have worked with many clients ranging from large companies to the small and savvy business owner. When it comes writing, I am sure I can provide you with relevant and fresh content. As we know, Google loves content that is original and fresh and that is one thing you will always get from me.

I can cover many different styles of writing ranging from tech articles, to medical writing, to dating advice and just about anything in between. Over the last few years, I have gained a vast amount of knowledge in SEO as well. So when it comes to SEO, I can definitely provide the assistance you seek.

Instead of going on and on about my qualification and my writing skills, I have enclosed some links to where you can see my work.

www.writingbycyndi.com- my personal website.

Celebrity stuff: http://richcrib.com/author/sierra-st-john/
For health samples please visit my blog at : http://www.squidoo.com/the-daily-health-report
Health: http://writingbycyndi.hubpages.com/hub/Sorry-Guys-Size-really-does-matter
Pet samples: http://www.squidoo.com/workshop/what-to-do-when-the-tail-stops-wagging

I am open to negotiation on rates and can ensure professional and quality work with a very fast turn around.

I look forward to speaking with you soon.
--
Thanks,

Cyndi

www.writingbycyndi.com
Skype: Sierra.StJohn
Follow me on Twitter @writingbycyndi

**She has no idea that I used to beone of her "writers." Please DON'T trust Cyndi Slick anyone! She's such a liar who tries to be "slick" but it isn't working. She has a really bad reputation!

Anonymous said...

Kathy,

I'm another writer who was scammed by Cyndi.Did any other writers ever get back to you regarding a class action suit? I would most definitely want to be part of that.

Anonymous said...

Hi am a current client and I confirm what Kathy has said. I too have been ripoff by this company and will be taking legal action. Stay far away from this company.

Anonymous said...

Cyndi scammed me too under the social media company she is running at pushnudgeshove. Good thing I have every copy of every email sent. Nothing like legal action to set the record straight.

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