Is College Aftermath - legit or not?
College Aftermath is a website that is offering to pay people for writing various types of articles for them. They are often recruiting people from linkedin or other social media platforms.
At the first glance the business looks legit as they have a very organized method of doing this. If the content writers agree to work for them they will send them a contract to write about 40K words per month for them for a salary of $150.
Low pay for more work!
Many people have left negative reviews about the company, with some saying the company is a scam. It seems that this website could be a scam, as there are many negative reviews about it online. It is best to research further and be cautious if you are considering working for them.
The real problems start with the approval of articles
I thought to myself that yes they are paying a very low amount but they have a policy where they can actually pay your via upwork or fiverr. So I thought to myself this will help boost my upwork profile so I can just write the articles for them. Now they require various articles of about 800 to 1000 words and check them using quetext.com which is a website that checks for plagiarism.
I submitted various articles for them which I would say were really good. I checked them using QueText as well and submitted them with under 4% plagiarism. In some cases the plagiarism was even 0%. They take 2 to 3 days to review an article and submitted a report on a badly made google excel sheet that you can't even filter out. This sheet has all the writers along with their reviews and the titles they have written. So there is no customized report for one writer.
I had to filter out my articles after copying that sheet onto an excel sheet on my PC. Correct the formatting on the excel sheet first then filter out my own articles and their stats. Most reviews would come back that articles has 13% plagiarism or 22% plagiarism and needs to be below 12%. When I am already submitting articles with 4% plagiarism.
If I resubmit the article it would come back as 0% plagiarism.
I am not the only one with this problem
I started to see that there were other writers on that excel sheet with similar issues and some even worse. Some had written really good articles and their plagiarism came back as 50%. The company's response is that they thoroughly check the articles.
Only get paid for approved articles
So when they mention at first that you have to write 40K words they don't really mention that the articles need to be approved. But I realized after writing 8 or so articles that they are going to take too long to approve them and then after 30 days add another target onto you for next month. Ask you to complete both the targets so that you can your money. Why? Because they send you a contract that says you are on a probation of some kind for 3 months.
Even if they are to pay you for one month I am guessing you will end up writing 90K words for them after all the article revisions and late approval system to get your 40K words approved.
Funny reviews! Seem to be done by non professionals
In some of the articles I would get funny comments like remove this heading, do not use I, he or she. First person should not be used. So I am guessing the people who are reviewing these articles and giving us these weird comments are not professionals.
I removed the heading, did not use I, he or she but first person and used we as they asked me to do. The next review would come back saying that this article is not like the others. It has a different style. So now I was confused.
When you apply for the job they will ask you to write a sample article for them and tell you that you will get paid for this. Once that article is approved at first they say okay we will not be able to pay you for this now but will add this into the 40K target for you so that you can complete the rest of the words and then get paid!
Response to general complaints
They use whatsapp groups to communicate with all the writers. They have divided the groups country wise. The group admins hardly ever reply to complains like the ones I have mentioned above. Promise that they will pay you when you complete your target. When I complained that the review system is taking so long they said they are hiring more people to review. After 3 or 4 days I start getting all my articles rejected for the above reasons I posted.
Then later the same article that was rejected is approved after I start complaining that I wrote the whole thing properly and there were no edits required. These approved articles have 0% plagiarism.
I am not the only one with this problem
No one in my whatsapp group was paid even once
Now the group that they had placed me in was for new comers. So everybody kept on pouring in the articles as you have to notify the admins that you submitted another article using their google forms system. I suppose this is a technique to make you write more.
But the point is no one in my group was ever paid not even once. Because everybody was new and due to the low approval rate some people would just leave and others would stop writing article for them. So basically they are getting most of the articles for free like that and only might pay a few just to keep everybody happy.
Conclusion
Overall I think they are not worth it and its better to spend your time somewhere better . If you want to work for them then be prepared to write a lot more than they are asking and not get paid most of the time.
I think that this company is not worth working for. They make you write a lot more than they are asking, and you don't get paid most of the time. Additionally, the review system is really bad.
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