Taking action against an online scam
Recently I had been out of work in desperate need of any little bit of money I could scrape up. I had been searching high and low to find something when I happened upon Scriptlance.com
I was so excited to find a website like this that appeared to be legitimate and user friendly. After about 30 minutes from the time I signed up I found a job that I placed a bid for $75.00 on. I think it was a day later I was awarded the bid on it and my work commenced. I completed the project in an extremely short amount of time and the Webmaster who needed this work done was so impressed that he even threw in a $25 tip so he paid me a total of $100. Not to bad. Or so I thought. So here it is over a week later and I still have not seen payment from scriptlance who is holding my payment.
When I tried to make a withdrawal the website told me that I would have to wait 7 days since I have a new account. For what purpose is really beyond me except for this one thing. They want to hold your money as long as possible since for every day it is in their account and not yours it is interest in their pockets at your expense. I contacted Scriptlance and 3 days later I finally get a response asking me what method of payment I would like to use. That’s it. Nothing else so it is as if they did not even really read the email I sent them but rather just browsed it and saw oh “payment issue” and didn’t read anything else. So I sent a reply telling them to please use paypal.
It has been a few days since then and I have yet to hear back from them. I dropped them another message in their support ticket area yesterday and have not received a response from that yet either. I have noticed that the website now says that payments made via paypal take 3 days to process. I personally use paypal as a payment gateway and I have never seen such a thing in all the payments I have sent and received. After all this I decided I had better go back and take a very close look at their TOS to find out what the deal is. So what do I find in the Terms of Service? Something altogether different from everything else the website has told me.
The TOS states “New members cannot withdraw funds within 30 days of their first project payment.” If I had been aware of this in the signup process I would not have even bothered with signing up. After dealing with Scriptlance over the past few weeks now I have to say that my review of them would be that the website looks inviting but it appears to be a one man show and the one man just can not handle the workflow that running a website such as this requires. They appear understaffed and their professionalism when it comes to expediently processing support requests or anything else for that matter seems to just be non-existent. I would not recommend using the services provided by this site and furthermore the webmaster that I had done the work for and myself will never use this website again after this.
October 27th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
I thought I would include some bits from my correspondence with this scriptlance website.
This is the last opened ticket I placed after being very frustrated by the website.
Request Details
Call ID 75054
Status HOLD
Logged 10/22/2007 11:07
Priority 1
Elapsed Time 5 days
Since Last Action 1 day
Payment Holding!!!
I am just letting you know that I will not be doing any more work through this website due to the hold that you put on money I earned. That is a joke and just a way for you to yet get more money out of my hard work. Total BS. You already charged both the webmaster and myself and I see no further reason to hold my money. Totally unbelievable. Anyway just thought I would let you know why I took the one bid and have not made any further bids.
Staff Response – 10/23/2007 22:50
What method do you wish to use to do withdrawal ?
————————————-
For a faster Response, Please do not
create new tickets while sending
replies for the same issue.
You can re-open this ticket if needed.
Come, Join The ScriptLance Forum!
Omitted days of response by me only with no reply. More or less started out as you can use Paypal to pay me.
10/26/2007 15:26 – Still no payment nor any response from Scriptlance. Very unprofessional. Are you understaffed possibly?
At this point I am trying to make excuses for them as to why they have not responded.
Now it is 10/27/2007 – No response still, I think it is about time to contact a lawyer.
October 27th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Another thing about this site I would like to point out is this. They have what they call certified members which show a nifty little award graphic next to their name and this is supposed to mean that they are the best programmers to pick because they are qualified by the website and so on. Well what this means in reality is this member has paid 10 bucks and then 25 bucks a month to get that little graphic.
Does that mean they are a better programmer? Not even close. What this means is they have money to pay for bogus stats. Certified would imply that there was a certification test and process and there is none here. I have been informed directly from webmasters that have used this site that they have had the so called certified members do work for them that has in turn been less than desirable.
My only point is this. Just because a user pays a fee does not make them a better programmer and it is rather more plausible that the programmer needs to pay money to get the rating because they are not a good enough programmer to get work on any other basis.
October 28th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Just an update. It is now monday afternoon, I have given them all day long to contact me and do you think they did? Not a chance. Still they hold my money from me. The lawyer says that for the amount owed it will cost me more in legal fees to collect it than it is worth but he did tell me something that I found of interest. For every effort I make to remedy this I can add to the total and bill them for. After enough time passes and I have exhausted every means to try to collect it could be an amount worth suing for:/
He said what I should do is attempt to find another means of contact for them and so I performed a whois on the domain. I find a contact number for the admin in Canada, I call it, Oh BTW I am in the US so that will be billed. Anyway the damn thing is a fax number. Thats it! I then go to their website and I see “We are experience technical difficulties and are hard at work to fix our software. Please check back later. Sorry for the inconvenience.” One would hope that they fix or do something for a change”
Well you know what I hope the heck that turns into a night are for them because that is just what my experience with them has been. Just the same I fired off that phone call to the fax machine, I am also going to submit a bill via certified mail. Thats like 3 bucks per mail and I will be sending one per week that in turn goes onto the balance due. Tally it up.
Anyway I would like to start a boycot, Please help us support our cause by not useing this service. Punish them for their un-professionalism by taking your services elsewhere. There are plenty of freelance sites out there so pick another.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Well it is yet another day and still no word from Scriptlance. This company is a serious joke but it is unfortunate that the joke is on us. Well not any more.
Today I filed claim against them with the Better Business Bureau of Canada so hopefully that will help out but we will see I guess. I will keep everyone informed and up to date on this as it happens.
October 30th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
So folks here is the final word from scriptlance who I finally was able to get in contact with. This is the log from the conversation.
asylumet says:
hello scriptlance support, are you around by any chance?
asylumet says:
ok so now I have to ask, are you guys(scriptlance) purposly avoiding my requests or what?
asylumet says:
I can understand being busy, we all are
asylumet says:
but 8 days on a response
ScriptLance Support says:
Hello
ScriptLance Support says:
how may i help you
asylumet says:
woa
asylumet says:
hello
asylumet says:
sorry, got to thinking I was just talking to space
asylumet says:
anyway
asylumet says:
I have an account with scriptlance
asylumet says:
I requested a payout back some time now
ScriptLance Support says:
username ?
asylumet says:
asylumet
asylumet says:
I heard from I think you once about a week ago
asylumet says:
youasked me what payment method, dropped you an email and never heard back
ScriptLance Support says:
paypal would be ok
asylumet says:
yep
asylumet says:
paypals all I use
ScriptLance Support says:
we need a small verification done
asylumet says:
sure
ScriptLance Support says:
i’ve responded on the ticket
ScriptLance Support says:
let me know once done
asylumet says:
ok
ScriptLance Support says:
and then i’ll request a withdrawal on your behalf to your paypal
asylumet says:
hmm the ticket disapeared
ScriptLance Support says:
your other ticket claims about a complain to BBB, you did it yet ?
asylumet says:
I will be contacting them as soon as we are done here to cancel the claim yes, I dont say I am going to do something unless I am
asylumet says:
sorry for that but man
asylumet says:
uhm or woman heh I know not
asylumet says:
I seriously thought I came into a deadbeat site with noone on the other end
ScriptLance Support says:
we wont be able to provide you services in the given circumstances, the ticket was created on 29th and due to some backend issues on sunday migration, the previous ticket got overlooked somehow
ScriptLance Support says:
so there was no reason to go to BBB
asylumet says:
well making me aware of that would have aided in that case
asylumet says:
I can understand though you guys must have thousands of users to deal with
ScriptLance Support says:
its 30th and within 24 hours, it has been answered now, so we thank you for trying our services, i’ve closed your account now.
asylumet says:
ok so, the account is closed? as I requested. Thank you. Sorry has to be that way but I cant work under those conditions, as for pay now. If I understand correct that will post within 24 hours?
ScriptLance Support says:
the funds would be reversed back to the buyer in question, we dont keep them with us , we are no thives here but providing legitimate services
asylumet says:
uhm I provided a service and now I am not going to be paid for it?
ScriptLance Support says:
should have thought before taking things your way, is’nt it ? If you accept there are thousands of others working here, why would we hold on your 99$
ScriptLance Support says:
thanks again
ScriptLance Support says:
the funds would be reversed in next few minutes
asylumet says:
nice
asylumet says:
you guys are seriously a joke
asylumet says:
you will be hearing from my lawyer then
asylumet says:
thanks
October 31st, 2007 at 7:47 pm
I have contacted the webmaster that hired my services through scriptlance and made him aware of their behavior. He was not very impressed at all with the fact that he paid them money to pay me and they did not. He has not seen this so called refund they allege that they gave him either. He did tell me that even if they do not refund him he will pay me himself and then take it up with his lawyer and the scriptlance himself and I must say that is most commendable.
So not after scriptlance has suspended my account get this. They wont stop sending me emails for new projects. I went to edit the profile for my account and guess what. Even though they continue to send these email that I now view as spam I can not disable the feature in the account. So what I did was opened another ticket with them which oddly enough I was able to do not that it will matter since they only seem to check them whenever the heck they feel like it.
This is what I sent them in the message.
If you guys are going to suspend my account due to you deciding to not pay me for work that I completed in good faith and then you have gone and refunded my pay to the person I did the work for I want to stop receiving your notices in my email and would appreciate rather than you suspending my account you remove it all together.
I do not want any affiliation with your site since you guys are obviously running a shady operation. Sanjay stated that you guys would have no reason to want to hold my money and so on. Well if that was the case then why did you refuse payment to me and why have you zeroed my balance without making payment to me. This is exactly the reason I have reported you to the Better Business Bureau.
Furthermore why is it that you are now requesting for me to send you my passport and license? After ripping me off do you seriously think I would send you that information? Not likely.
The only message I ever expect to see from you at most is an apology for such unprofessional actions and/or notice that payment has been made in full for services rendered. Outside of that please NO further email messages.
Also I just want to make it clear that suspending my account is something that would be done if I violated your TOS. Just what term is it that I violated? I have very carefully read your TOS and clearly your lack of payment to me does not merit my account being suspended. Nonetheless after this there is no chance whatsoever that I would do further biding here anyway so suspension is not necessary since I have no intent of ever coming back here as soon as I receive the debt owed to me and you stop sending the emails to me.
Thank you.
That was 10/31/2007 12:49 when I sent that to them. As you now may expect I have yet to hear a response or see any action. I also decided to take a look at what I found in google if I typed in scriptlance scam into the search and OH My it looks like we have found ourselves a mess of information related to this Sanjay person outright stealing money from more people than I can count so if any of them see this please contact me in regards to forming a class action suit against scriptlance. You may use the contact form on this site.
On that note in a few days I will also have some email correspondence or well maybe I should say lack of but anyway from the webmaster to scriptlance that I will post here as well. Steer very clear from this website and any that may be affiliated with them because if the affiliates were any different even they would not stand for this. I only wish I knew who the actual owner was so I could contact them and alert them to the insanely poor service and injustice this Sanjay is doing to us all and bring it to their attention that he is running their website into the ground for what appears to be personal gain would be my guess.
I also found it very interesting that scriptlance is in violation of the Paypal TOS but yet they still have an account in good standing with them but I guess that is another story altogether.
November 1st, 2007 at 1:32 am
Here is a log from yet another conversation between myself and the Scriptlance support. I thought I would attempt giving them another chance.
asylumet says:
so what are the chances you are going to make things right and pay up? Then I can make this whole thing go away? Well at least as far as I go anyway. The other users that have gone unpaid I cant do anything about but just the same
ScriptLance Support says:
the chances of getting things straight were 101% before you would have put up that complaint, and now that you’ve did and seriously doubt our services, do you think it would be rational on our part to still provide services considering that we do reserve the right to do so.
asylumet says:
uhm well I think it would be in your best interests to pay me for services I did complete
asylumet says:
as for anything further no not at all and you would not have to worry because I have no intent of coming back
ScriptLance Support says:
we’ve already done whats inour best interests, our liability is limited to paying the fees we charge you and with the project already cancelled, it has been refunded. Please look up our terms if you have’nt already done so
asylumet says:
I think the fact that I made a complaint due to you denying me pay because I grew leary of you after no response for over a week is totaly justified
asylumet says:
oh I have
asylumet says:
and the money has not been refunded
asylumet says:
I contacted the webmaster
asylumet says:
he has not seen a refund
asylumet says:
let me ask you this, what would you do if you did work for or through me and then I just never responded to you and disregarded your pay?
asylumet says:
chances are you would be less than happy about it and surely you would do everything in your power to get your pay
ScriptLance Support says:
withdrawals are restricted for the 1st week for everyone to prevent misuse of our services, so there was nothing exceptional being done with your account, its just that your 1st ticket got overlooked somehow due to technical error and i did respond to you here on MSN and so on the other ticket you created….so if no response for 24+ hours except that incase of a technical issue with your …..
ScriptLance Support says:
…previous ticket made you go so paranoid that you went ahead to a 3rd party, i really dont know what would happen if it were a bigger amount
asylumet says:
you responded here on msn after my second attempt which was what almost 2 weeks later
asylumet says:
the one week thing to stop abuse ok got that, that works
asylumet says:
so now I wonder do you have any idea why I got so paranoid as you put it
asylumet says:
take a look at your reviews
asylumet says:
every one goes on about how you specifically have ripped them off
asylumet says:
that is why I got a bit worried
asylumet says:
they all describe the same exact events
asylumet says:
if you would like I can show you links to these
asylumet says:
serious enough Sanjay I am not trying to be difficult, I just need to eat if you know what I mean
asylumet says:
I like you do not work for free
asylumet says:
and as for the complaint I submitted I do not have any issue with contacting them and informing them that it was all due to a technical glitch if this is remedied
ScriptLance Support says:
but we dont have assurances that should your services be resumed you wont go your way again in future, do we ?
asylumet says:
well I can give you my word wich I am sure probably doesnt mean much to you but my word is my bond, aside from that I dont know how else I could assure you
asylumet says:
when I say I am going to do something it is set in stone
asylumet says:
been wronged by to many people to be any other way since I know what that end of the stick is like
asylumet says:
all I want is to be paid for work I have completed and did a darn good job at
ScriptLance Support says:
brb….
asylumet says:
ok
That was the end of it. Have not heard from him since that although he had signed back in for a moment then went offline.
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:37 pm
I received an email response from the Better Business Bureau stating that they have received my complaint and contacted the company who seems to be registered under r3n3 dot com. I have also heard back from the webmaster. His account at scriptlance has now been suspended as well and his account has still not seen a refund as we had been told by scriptlance had been made.
The webmaster contacted PayPal to file a dispute and after having done so found that since it was not an actual physical product that we are talking about there is nothing that PayPal can do. The webmaster had asked the support person if it would be safe to say they have a large number of complaints about this company. Seemingly they have.
Quoting the webmaster to PayPal’s phone support in the claims department:
You mean to tell me that this company is using your legitimate company to facilitate thievery and there is nothing you want to do about it?The support person at this time gave the webmaster a very useful piece of information that he passed along to me and I am passing along to everyone out there who has suffered financial damages as a cause of doing work or paying for work through scriptlance or any other online company.
Go to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and file a complaint with them. The IC3 is a partnership between the FBI and the NW3C working together to provide internet users with a simple way of reporting websites in violation of federal, state, local and or international law.
The more people that file complaints the quicker we can all see some resolution and start seeing a more friendly internet. Making the Internet a safe place to do business is an absolute MUST. We all have a responsibility in this. We contacted the IC3 regarding this and at this time we are just awaiting a response.
November 6th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Update: I am the webmaster that awarded asylumet the job. He completed it to my satisfaction and scriptlance did not pay him. So what they did was took my $20 featured listing fee and sent the money back to my webmaster account. From there I requested that they take the funds from my account and send them back to my paypal account so i can pay asylumet what i owe him.
That was on Oct 31st! They do not respond to my trouble ticket requests and they delete my emails. They basically just stole the money! when ever they decide to make good i will post new results. But as for now. They have just stolen money with no communication or time frame in which they intend to pay it back.
July 30th, 2008 at 2:51 am
Almost a year later now, I had been browsing the internet and found a website relative to this post about scriptlance. It is a very good compilation of people who have been wronged by scriptlance in one way or another. After reading all the posts and comments on the site regarding scriptlance. You should really check this out if you are still thinking about using scriptlance after reading my rants and records. thenthdoctor.
As for scriptlance, I would never use them again. The webmaster paid me out of his own pocket and scriptlance held out on him for some time before finally refunding him. They deleted both of our accounts and any record of the events that took place. Useless website. Intentionally ignorant staff with extremely deep pockets is all I guess. Maybe you could try out something like ODesk. I have not had a chance to do any work through them yet but I have taken a few of their tests and the process is a tried and proven one. Certifications via testing so you know what you are getting rather than some bogus payment vacillated stats.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Thanks for the backlink! And I totally agree about oDesk they are a much much more professional operation. You can tell right from the beginning. They have lots of free qualification testing and that makes a big difference. All pay is hourly based so no getting screwed by changes once the deal is done. I also have not used it really but I gave it a serious demo and set up a profile before deciding I was just moving past that whole circuit. But it’s awesome for beginners, I wish I had spent my first freelancing years at oDesk instead of Scriptlance.