FreelanceHomeWriters and Freelance Work Exchange are BFFs

Several years after I wrote my first post on Freelance Work Exchange, this is still one of the most searched-for topics on my blog. It amazes me that I still get emails and comments, at least one or two a month, thanking me for the warning — or, more often, complaining that they, too, have fallen victim to this scam.

Toward the end of last year, another site popped up on my radar that seemed similar: FreelanceHomeWriters.com. They have practically the same trial membership deal, and they too are spamming Craigslist with fake freelance job ads. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago I responded to what I thought was a job ad, only to receive an email directing me to their stupid website.

Then on Wednesday of this week, WritersWeekly.com posted with a long list of complaints about FreelanceHomeWriters.com. It turns out I was right, and it's exactly the same scam as Freelance Work Exchange and GoFreelance: poor unsuspecting wannabe writer signs up for the trial membership, then attempts to cancel and can't, while FreelanceHomeWriters happily sucks $49.95 out of their bank accounts every month.

Although the owner of FreelanceHomeWriters.com is supposedly Charles Wellmore (sound made-up to you?) instead of Rob Palmer, I think this is rather too similar to be unrelated. I mean, the prices are exactly the same, right down to the $2.95 week-long trial membership, and of course the complaints are exactly the same too! I wouldn't be surprised at all if we were to discover that Rob Palmer and Charles Wellmore are actually the same person, trying the same scam under a different name now that so many people have wised up to Freelance Work Exchange.