You’re always going to run into deadbeats, no matter what you do, and one way we generate revenue around here (and thus attract the potential for more of them) is by publishing sponsored content for a small fee. A post about something with backlinks which the agency or freelancer pays GraniteGrok to publish.
If you have a website and want to do this, it’s a relatively easy way to make a few bucks, but you need a decent page and domain authority (over 40), and the marketplace is full of individuals who don’t pay their bills. The linked website gets some juice from your better ranking, and it’s a big business. Lots of professional agencies match creators and publishers. They pay more, and they always pay. Outside that environment, you may have to chase them, then pull their content down, having wasted time arranging terms, publishing, chasing, and removing.
Cloud mining content is the worst: they pay a lot, but a large percentage of them are fraudsters, and the links suck and hurt your ranking. We stopped accepting them this year. But they are not the only deadbeats.
I admit that I’ve gotten better at prefiltering them, but you still run across these losers just looking to waste your time. Some of them even reach out again, six months or years later, to publish something new, having forgotten they never paid you in the first place. Sending them the overdue invoice tends to run them off again, and having likely already written it off, it is more of a game than an actual effort at collections.
We’re talking 20-30$ per incident, typically, and what amounts to a few minutes of my time, but it adds up. It’s also dishonest. The content gets removed and with it the backlinks, so I’m not clear why they would bother, but I figured what the heck, if some of them are still using these email addresses to contact website owners, why not let people know who they are
We’ll start from the most recent and go back in time.
Wiingy Research. Wiingy is a totally legit tutoring thing, so what’s this all about?
I deal with several very professional agencies (as noted above) that pay a little more and on time, so Wingy looked like one of them, but they never paid their invoice. They have multiple people fishing for publishers, all of whom keep trying to get me to take another bite at their rotten apple. They get the same email from me every time. As soon as you pay this overdue invoice (link included), we can talk about another sponsored post. The deadbeat with was Shifa Ali – shifa@wiingyresearch.com.
So-called resellers typically use Gmail addresses, and while most are folks looking to work a legitimate side gig, Gmail addresses are always a red flag. Be cautious. Back in February, someone named Levon reached out, we came to terms, I published his content, and he ghosted me. My new policy requires payment within 7 days; after that, if we haven’t heard from you, we’ll pull your content and redirect the link. Levon –levonneesham@gmail.com
To which, over the past seventeen months, we can add this list of deadbeats.
- Breek Hickson breekhickson231@gmail.com.
- Stephen Robert stephenrobert202401@gmail.com.
- Luna Dara info.lunadara@gmail.com.
- Efebo Ratha efeboratha@gmail.com.
- Seirra Mamy sierramamyseo@gmail.com.
- David Silva davidsilvadigitalmarketing@gmail.com.
- Jeff Bullas bullasonlinemarketing@gmail.com.
- Crystal Doria seo.crystaldoria@gmail.com.
- Darnell Nichols darnellnicholsoutreach@gmail.com.
- Dan Allen danallen391@gmail.com.
- Calista Elvina calitsaelvina@gmail.com.
- Misbah Moni misbahmoni.seo@gmail.com.
- Koa koa.networkagency@gmail.com.
- Kayklee Jean contact.kayleejean@gmail.com.
- Shilo Sabacks shilosabacks@gmail.com.
- Allison Grace marketing.allisongrace@gmail.com.
That’s out of over 200 published pieces of content, most of which were legit, paid their invoice on time, and some of whom are repeat customers.
Ending the practice of sharing sponsored posts for a few bucks is not financially prudent at this time, so I’ll keep at it for now.
I’ve tightened up the process and significantly reduced the number of instances, and removing the content and redirecting is not exactly a hardship. More of a distraction.
It’s May, and I’ve only had two deadbeats this year, and I get a handful of these requests every day. Most lowball the price by so much that I just delete their emails and never reply. Don’t waste your time haggling; they are the least likely to pay you if you do agree on a price because they don’t want to pay at all.
Anyway, if you do this sort of thing, make note of the list above and just say no. And do to tell them I warned you off their loser, antics.
And yes, most of these are probably throwaway emails never to be used again, but you’d be surprised. As I said, I’ve had them come back after stiffing me, and I’m sure they were surprised I remembered and annoyed I didn’t forget.
We do (by the way) still do sidebar ads if you want to place one to help pay the bills. We sell the ad space for peanuts, and almost everyone pays after we run them. Almost everyone, right, Keith?
