After reading some of the comments posted to Mark Knowles’ excellent Hub, "Making Money Online," I thought that it might be instructive to take a look at advertising on "Craigslist.org" related to freelance opportunities for writers.

Some of those posted comments spoke of "scams," and Mark’s Hub had mentioned scams as well. Indeed, Mark had mentioned that if you respond to an offer for a potential writing assignment or job, that you should not supply a lot of personal information or writing samples in advance. That admonition made a lot of sense. Why set yourself up for identity theft or for the theft of your sample articles?

Anyway, I found an interesting ad for writers on Craigslist.org. What made it interesting was that it told writers that the advertiser needed 5 "high quality articles right away," each one to be from 400 to 600 words in length. They were to be centered around the keywords, "Ambit Energy", "Electricity Deregulation", and "Free Travel." The advertiser (anonymous) promised to pay $20 for each article "for top quality work." The writer was also to supply permission to the advertiser to use the articles – and to give the advertiser ownership of them as well. (No money up front and, Writer, kindly hope for the best, OK?)

Here is a copy of the ad:

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"Article Writers Needed - US Locations (Houston)

Date: 2009-09-07, 10:52AM CDT
Reply to:

(Reply to deleted from this Hub)

Greetings!

Thanks for taking a look at my post.

I am looking for top quality writers who can catch the readers eye and make them want to come and visit my website.

The writer should be able to create original content for the top online article directories and online ezines.

Therefore, I strongly prefer English speaking writers.

The subject will be electricity deregulation.

The target promotion will be Ambit Energy, which servers Texas, Illinois, New York and they will be approved for California within the next few months.

I will need five high quality articles to start. Each article should be about 400 to 600 words.

I must be able to claim all rights of ownership and have your promise not to resell the same articles to someone else.

My keywords are "Ambit Energy", "Electricity Deregulation", and "Free Travel".

Please visit my website at: ahbenergy ( dot ) com for more article writing ideas.

I apologize in advance, if I can not respond to each and every inquiry.

Thanks very much.

Location: Houston

• Compensation: $20 Per Article For Top Quality Work
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!

Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

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Readers of the ad were invited to visit the Web site, "ahbenergy.com "for more writing ideas."

I visited the Web site.

As it turned out, the site was a professionally designed Web site produced for its independent members by a deregulated energy provider company, Ambit Energy. This particular site was that of member, Robert Kiyosaki. According to what I found, such Web sites cost members $19.95 a month. (You can rent a 300 gigabyte [ ! ] sized Web site hosting for about 5 bucks a month ! ) The purpose of the site visited is for recruitment of new members. From the information provided from my search, the initial cost to become a member of this group is $399.00. The goal of members is two-fold. The likely biggest goal is to recruit new members. Another goal is for members to get customers willing to switch to Ambit Energy for purchases of their electricity and whatever other types of energy products that company sells. Although the advertisement in Craigslist.org and the Web site copy did not say so, I assumed that Robert Kiyosaki was pushing the recruiting envelope in a whole new way, and quite on his own.

My immediate thought was, "Will any writer ever get paid as much as $20?"

Being a glutton for punishment, I kept on looking at this whole situation.　

I came upon a really long article concerning the Ambit Energy deal plus several others of similar nature and intent. This one is on the Google search engine as "Electricity deregulation in Texas." Following the article are many, many reader comments. Most are extremely argumentative. Most discussed the pros and the cons of Ambit Energy type operations – that is, the company is organized as a classical multi-level marketing (MLM) sales company. Some of those who commented called the thing a pyramid scheme, sort of like Brother Maddox’s hoax or our national Social Security System. Others decried its opportunities to make big bucks as promised by most MLMs.

But nowhere in any of this vast amount of verbiage was there any hint of warning to writers that the advertisement in Craigslist.org was a scam or a rip-off. If a writer, interested in earning an extra dollar or so, followed up by only looking at that rep’s Web site, there is a possibility that they might have supplied the guy with 5 fine articles (which he could have used with their foolishly provided permission for zero pay).

Mark Knowles was exactly correct. I suggest that you read his fine Hub.

And, when you get done with that, read the rest of mine. ( ! )

;-)