Is eHow a Scam?

Whether or not EHow is a scam is really immaterial—the KEY problem is that compensation for your hard work is totally reliant upon their good graces.  Worse, they have written a VERY one-sided self-serving agreement that allows them to unllaterally and arbitrarily change the rules of the game however and whever they please.

Even if there is no problem at present; that is NO guarantee against future difficulties—companies buy and sell each other; personnel change, etc.  In short, you are GAMBLING, and that is NOT an intelligent way to do business.

Attention: All Journalists and Content Writers On the Internet

RE: eHow Demand Studios (etc.)  Writers and Copy Editors,

Dear Colleagues,

It is now one year later and eHow has become Demand Studios with many thousands of writers and Copy Editors.  They had to go “Legit” because Google and the new idea of a QUALITY content-driven Internet have demanded that they do so. 

Previously, this was strictly a “links and any ol’ crappy content” scheme, which drove the Internet… an on-going Wild West period of discovery for the web, I suppose.  Now, better quality content gets better search engine rankings, more clicks, and more advertisers.

Demand Studios now pays $15 for articles and they also give approved writers the option to write to one’s own titles for Revenue Share.  I have busted my butt for a couple of weeks and have made about $255, which Demand Studios has very promptly paid to me via my PayPal account.

I now have three Revenue Share articles, which seem to make about $3 a week.  So, by investing my could-have-been $45 in Revenue Share, it will take 15 weeks to earn my $45 back.  All earnings after that will be above and beyond the $45 I would have made for writing three $15 articles. 

I hope that Demand Studios lasts well into the next century and that they do not ever exercise their Revenue Share Terms of Service contract option to change the rules whenever they want.

Writing for Demand Studios amounts to about $5 per page since each of my articles occupies about 3 to 4 pages in my word processor.  The faster one can produce these pages without going over about 700 words or requiring too much so-called “help” from Copy Editors, the greater one’s hourly rate is. 

My personal best so far is about 3 hours needed to write a well-referenced and documented 3-page article on a topic in which I have considerable expertise.  This amounts to about $5 per hour for this experienced writer and scientist.  If I could crank out 2 such articles in an hour, $30 per hour would be a pretty decent living for me.  Even $15 an hour would be okay the way things are these days, I suppose.

So far, my twenty published articles have enjoyed comments and suggestions from (only) a few good Copy Editors who have actually helped me to make my articles better as good copy-editing should do.  Behind every good writer is a good Copy Editor.  Right?

Several Copy Editors have ruined a few of my articles.  Their worst mistakes are anything they do to cut out potential links and clicks to the page.  This is very foolhardy and costs my prompt paying client (Demand Studios) thousands of links per day which ultimately translates to a lower bottom line.  This goes against the very definition and primary intention of Business…  Making Money!

Further, several Copy Editors have changed some of my most carefully selected words and have replaced them with misspellings and grammatical errors in addition to poor writing and… attention stockholders… lower bottom lines.

I can tell immediately whether a Copy Editor has a real handle on the job of getting quality writing and subsequent links and clicks onto these pages or if he or she is arbitrarily hacking at things to protect their own jobs and the $2.50 they get for each article they supposedly “edit”. 

Demand Studios asks that we write to readers who know nothing about the topic using an active tone of voice and in anticipation of some activity on the part of the reader.  I try to provide my readers with enough information to both understand and to actively carry out the activities about which I write. 

One Copy Editor told me that too much information (more than 700 words) would turn off the reader.  I have rather often suspected that nobody ever actually reads all the scientific and technical documents I have been paid to write all these years!

The next worst thing to the few lousy Copy Editors at Demand Studios is the list of titles.  I believe that these titles are proposed by a bunch of Sixth and Seventh Graders in the detention room at school.  Flatulence is a very popular topic.  How does one write to a title in which the basic premise contains errors?  Or, to a title, which has misspelled words in it?  (Please tell me that I am not really writing for a term paper broker!)

Over all, I would say that working for demand Studios is a very straightforward deal about which you are aware of the low-pay details up front.  Some of the Copy Editors are horrible hacks who cost my client, Demand Studios, earnings and profits.  Most Copy Editors have an eye for good writing and offer valid suggestions for concise writing and creating better articles.

You and I might be quite capable of writing priceless literary masterpieces, which ought to be stitched into leather bound volumes on gilded acid-free pages, but eHow and Demand Studios are not looking for talent like that.  They only want short, concise, accurate, and well-documented articles for which they pay only $15 and which are written for an audience of people who do not like to read.

Steven J. Wamback, StevenWamback, at eHow.com SJWamback@aol.com

these people responsible for every evil.

My spiritual advisor told me the evil people ran EHow. essentially, they’re taking your articles, writing their own rip offs of your and keeping the money and taking your insights.

I wrote 22 articles for ehow- had over 50,000 views and over 95% positive reviews. I was mostly writing about my expertise - circus arts, hula-hooping and fitness. Nothing offensive by any stretch. They deleted almost all of my articles and NEVER paid me th $1200+ they owed me. they email they provide as a contact for questions does not work. If you or someone you know has had trouble with eHow, let me know. I am collecting a rather long list. -Dizzy Hips

Well they finally pulled the plug.  Bye Bye Ehow.  http://www.innovativepassiveincome.com/what-do-i-do-with-deleted-ehow-articles/

EHOW OPERATES WITH CRIMINAL INTENT
Posted by THE PREACHER at 02:26 PM on March 21, 2010 Comments comments (0)

Yet once again a major scam has broken out at ehow and DS.  This time, the scam is over ehow and Ds pirating photos they have no rights to.  And this time, unlike the UK issues, which were complicated and hard to follow for many, thi issue of stolen photos and misuse of a persons copyrights is an issue most writers do understand.

Ehow and DS is operating with criminal intent, they have been and continue to remove photos from writers articles, without permission, and are submitting the photos to Google images.  Now if this was all they were doing, it would be bad enough, but like I said, they are operating with criminal intent.  They are not only removing photos they have no right to and submitting those removed photos to Google images, they are also attaching redirects to those photos, but redirects to where?

Well, as those writers doing the leg work have discovered, their photos, now showing up on google images, are mysteriously redirecting back to DS articles.  That is correct, you have read right, ehow writers photos, removed from their articles, are being redirected to Ds writers articles.  These photos we are talking about are not stock photos, we are talking about a much more serious issue here, that effects all writers at the ehow site.  We are talking about photos the writers themselves took with their cameras, for use on articles they wrote.  And ehow, seeing a quick buck is to be made, has swooped in and raped the writers articles, removing the photos, and doing with them as they see fit.

again, I will firmly state EHOW IS OPERATING WITH CRIMINAL INTENT - because it is knowing breaking the copyright laws of this country.

Even the ehow cheerleaders, who have fought the UK issues every step of the way, are coming on board on this, stating in posts that EHOW HAS NO RIGHT TO DO WHAT IT IS DOING.  Yes, finally, ehow and Ds may have gone too far, turning even its strongest supporters against them.  Ehjow has once again shown it is not above rolling up its sleeves and diving head first into yet another scandal.  Writers are once again becoming outraged, and once again, to all the questions being asked, ehow is showing it is the master of silence, chosing to ignore rather then answer the newest and most serious questions being asked of it.  EHOW IS A SCAM, and there is no question about it

http://ehowscams.webs.com/  feel free to follow my blog EHOW SCAMS AND DIRTY TRICKS and learn about the darker side of ehow.

Hello, I am know as THE PREACHER and I am educating people to all of eHOWs dirty games.  Let’s talk a bit about those famous eHOW sweeps, shall we. Ever wonder what is really behind the madness? Yes, some are articles that are out of eHOW’s guidelines. Yes, some are poorly written. But many of these that get deleted are top earning articles. That’s correct, they are top earning articles, that have been in place for several years in many cases, only to overnight no longer fall within eHOW’s guidelines. How to hell can that be? What is really going on here?
Glad you asked. There is gold in your deleted articles, pure gold – for eHOW. I know, how can there be gold for eHOW in deleted articles. First let’s look at just what your high earning articles have accomplished. They have matured and rank high on the search engines. They have developed a following, in as far as online articles can develop a following. They have built up comments and views. And then eHOW comes riding in on its white horse and deletes em. All that hard work and effort is gone, right?
Don’t bet the family farm on it. EHOW wins on several fronts, and here is the secret to their dirty little game of deleting high earning articles. First, even though your articles get deleted, they are not totally gone, something very important remains behind and in eHOWs control – your URL’s. And therein is the gold, because eHOW takes your articles URL’s and redirects them to pages full of links to DS (DEMAND STUDIOS) so all your hard work and effort are now going to serve eHOW’s cause, promoting their DS articles.
These redirects are eHOW’s free bread and butter. The DS articles are already paid for, so all traffic they redirected to those articles is extra money in eHOWs pocket. An added bonus, they are now making money off the DS article ads and not paying for your articles any longer. It’s win win all the way around. Another bonus, all your deleted articles comments. EHOW uses the strength of those comments to help drive the DS articles even higher in the search engines rankings.
This is why eHOW is never clear as to why your articles get deleted. In many cases, there is no reason they can clearly state and point to. Oh yeah, we deleted your top earning articles so we can make a pile of money off of them – nope, don’t expect them to answer truthfully on this one. But now you know, redirects of deleted articles spells gold for eHOW.

Here are the facts.  EHOW is one of the buggyest sites you will ever write on.  The publisher wizard they use is constantly breaking down, eating up half you articles steps, or freezing your articles in limbo so you can’t get at them and no one can read them.
Communication sucks.  Day in and day out writers are asking the same questions and getting no answers.  And when eHOW does respond, it is usually a warning threatening action against you and your account.  No PR skills what so ever. 
But as others have already stated on here, the UK site, eHOWs secret brain child, has split the community of writers right in half and has everyone going at one anothers necks.  Secret, yes, their secret UK site.  They secretly mirrored all U.S. writers articles onto both sites, without any of the writers permission to do so.  they then made money off those articles, thousands upon thousands of articles, and told no one.  When someone stumbled upon their secret site, it all came to a head. 
EHOW insisted their UK site had caused no one any harm, and for a lenghty time, refused to answer any of the writers questions.  Many writers took down their articles, many left the site.  Others threatened to leave, and finally ehow agreed to remove all articles of U.S. writers from the UK site.  In the meantime, many U.S. writers found their once thriving articles had stopped earning.  That’s right, eHOW, by mirroring the usa site over to the UK site, had messed up the url’s, so many LOST A LOT of money during this time.  Ehow then insisted all U.S. writers articles were no longer on the UK site, and that the profiles would be removed. 
As it turned out, many articles were removed, but many more were not.  Not only that, but all newly written articles here in the USA were still being cloned in the UK site.  So where are we today?  Well, the articles are finally removed, but ehOW still refuses to compensate U.S. writers for all the actually money they lost while their articles stopped earning.  EHOW instead came up with what they called a generous compensation, not for money lost from all this, but for what they deemed the value of each writers articles were during the months the entire UK thing unfolded.
Say what?  So many writers generous compensation came to under $10, many more recieved under $!.  But how could that possibly be?  We are talking about writers who had hundreda of articles and who lost hundreds of dollars?  Easy to explain, the valus of the U.S. writers articles were not worth spit during that time, because eHOW killed their article links when they mirrored the two sites together.  They continue to refuse to compensate U.S. writers for all that lost income, even though eHOE profitted from those articles.  Remember, U.S. writers were paid nothing for their articles while they were on the UK site, but eHOW had ads on those articles and pocketed all the earnings. 
The latest news is that outraged writers are demanding that their UK profiles, placed their from the U.S site without the writers permission, be removed.  EHOW has said NO.  U.S. writers are also demanding the right to edit those profiles, which contain their personal informat.  Again, eHOW today has said NO.  I would strongly recommend that no one sign up at that site.  They will steal your articles, and your earnings, and not give it a second thought.

I think this just happened to me. I’ve been on Ehow for almost a year, and have written over 150 articles. For a Wor at home mom with two kids, that is no small thing! So I can’t log in, and I’ve tried to get a new password but they won’t send it to me. The kicker is, I can still read all my articles on ehow. I didn’t do one thing to deserve this, I have never clicked on an ad. This also means that they are still making money off my articles, even though I am not, and now I can’t even publish them somewhere else like here!

I’ve questioned the very “vague” language in eHow.com’s terms for quite some time. Asked numerous questions, and never got straight answers. So, I switched to Bukisa and other sites to publish my work. I left the original 30 or so articles at eHow.com to sit and earn some income. Then came 2 sweeps and I was down to 24 articles.

BUT here’s the real kicker. Another writer recently discovered eHow.com had started a new UK eHow.com website. They used all the US articles at the UK website without the writers’ knowledge. They now admit they used them and when asked why we weren’t being compensated for the views at the UK website, eHow.com said they would remove the articles—though it will take several weeks to do so.  They have also stated they will NOT be compensating writers for those views in the future either.

They are in breach of their own terms and agreements by not paying the writers for ALL qualified views. It is still up in the air whether they are in breach of the agreement for posting the articles at the UK website. I didn’t even bother to go back and re-read the terms because I am done with eHow.com.

I believe they have cheated me on views since the beginning anyhow. I never understood how some articles with 100+ qualified views earned ZERO (this happens a lot) and then I have articles with the same amount of views earning different amounts, etc. etc.

eHow.com got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They used for free all those articles since the start of the UK website and are refusing to pay writers a penny. Think of all the advertisement revenue they earned and how they used those articles to kick off and promote the UK website. Writers at the US website also mention a drop in views—they believe the UK website was optimized to rank higher with Google, thus dropping the US website views as well. The whole thing stinks and eHow treats their writers (bread and butter) like total dirt.

Writers are very PO’d to say the least. They are repeatedly demanding compensation at the eHow.com writer’s forum, but getting no positive action from eHow.com to right their major blunder (scam?)....So…YES, in my humble opinion EHOW IS A SCAM!

Every time I asked a question on the Ehow forum one of my articles was deleted. One person complained her spiritual article had been deleted and the reason given was that it was an opinion not based on fact. I commented that no religious belief was fact. 10 minutes later, 5 of my articles was deleted.
Recently when my views decreased by 259, and I didn’t get paid for October, I asked why? when? Suddenly I got an email stating I had committed click fraud and would not be paid for Oct. Today I got an email stating I had more click fraud and my account was closed.
I have not once clicked on ads. I was told I would not be paid. What a scam. I am writing to the FTC and Google to investigate

I have been with ehow for over a year, and up until now have never had a problem with them. However, they have refused to pay me for the month of September, and I have received no email notification of any problem. I messaged the managers, total waste of time, customer service only responds with a generic form letter, and my last ditch effort is demand media, which owns ehow. Noone can give me a reason for why I can’t be paid and Im going to delete all of my articles because I don’t trust this site anymore. Thank you for writing this great article! Ehow is a scam as far as I’m concerned.

My ehow account wasnt closed however I did get accused of click fraud of which I never committed. This frivolous accusation cost me over $700! I strongly believe that ehow scams many of their users…........

I agree. If you have an account on ehow, check out the profile of Dianna Bocco. She is a ‘phantom writer’ on ehow— a Novice writer with 0 points - AFTER WRITING well over 600 articles listed on her account!!  She was a “Member since Mar 2 09” AND she was “last seen on Mar 2 -09”. I ran across others as well, having written hundred of articles, yet with no points, no friends, no recommendations, no stars, and almost no comments. There are others - maybe many - maybe making money off your deleted articles?
I wrote for ehow for 5-6 months - I am a published author and content writer and I paid no attention to blogs where people said they wrote for ehow and had problems, or people who said they suddenly had some of their articles deleted.  I knew I was a decent writer and it wouldn’t happen to my stuff.
You’re right - many have poor spelling and are not well punctuated. I just thought it was a great place that accepted anyone who tried hard to write. I liked them for that. I found good ideas not well-expressed, but I and many others looked past the typos and were touched by them. SO I assumed that those who had articles deleted or accounts suddenly closed were because Ehow was upgrading the standards they expected of their writers. I figured that was their prerogative—until it happened to me, with no explanation. I got an email saying they were purging articles and several of my articles - several of my better paying ones too - were deleted. There was nothing wrong with them - reason given waas something “Legacy rejection”. One wasn’t deleted - and when I clicked on it, it to me to to Dianna Bocco’s account to a similar article page.  My friends and following were coming to read and comment on my articles because I read and commented on theirs. But when they clicked on my page, they were linked to Diana’s profile. When they clicked on my article, they were linked to her article. And since she doesn’t exist, who is earning the money? 
Either the ehow programmers are the sloppiest ones going, or there is something fishy going on at ehow.  When I emailed them, I got a reply saying they had a ‘broken connection’ and they were working on it.  It’s been weeks and I’ve heard nothing further.
Pay attention to this article - it’s a common sense caution about the ehow web site. It’s disappointing, because I was comparing my earnings with several other content sites, and for the same number of articles I wrote, they paid the best - but I won’t be writing for them again.  Beware of ehow and if you do write for them, be sure to save your drafts and photos.

You got 5 stars from me on this one. This just happened to me. I will be removing any posts that have to do with them on my blog and i will be personally emailing everyone of my friends through another account to let them know what happened. I just wish I found your article sooner rather than wasting my time and losing 4 months worth of the work.