IAPWE, Scam, or Legit? Find Out Here
IAPWE, Scam, or Legit? Find Out Here
If you have ever looked for writing jobs around the internet on places like Craigslist. Then you likely have seen ads for the IAPWE job board. You may have also found it through Google. The International Association of Professional Writers and Editors has been around for years. A quick look at the IAPWE website should make you question whether they’re a scam or not.
The Website
First, we should take a look at their about us page on their site. Here you will see a very brief description of what the IAPWE is and what it claims to offer. They have also included a small blurb about how other businesses do not pay what they pay. You will also notice the word free used. Not one time on this page does it mention a cost for help with finding jobs.
Going to the blog/news page you will see that there hasn’t been a new post or job listings since September 2019. That has been over a year now. Now take a look at the content management and “news” section. Almost everything posted here is more of your traditional blog post. While interesting, won’t work to get you a job.
Clicking the jobs board link at the top of the page will take you to a basic “password-protected” webpage. It isn’t a modern webpage where your username and password get you onto the full job board front page. Instead, you put in a generic password. Without that password, you can’t see what kind of jobs they offer. When a company that claims to have high paying jobs doesn’t have modern security, you should see a red flag right away.
Applying
Currently, joining IAPWE is not possible. As of now, only a waitlist for IAPWE membership is available. Yet, on the about page, they do mention they are looking for new administrators who can identify and verify job writing roles. They ask you to email a staffing email address for the website.
As of now, we cannot join the program. However, we still managed to find a lot of information from prior reviews of the company, which aren’t the best.
Most professional writers stumble upon IAPWE through the Craigslist ad. This ad takes you to a basic form that asks for a name and email. They also ask whether you want to be a IAPWE freelance writer or editor, and to provide one sample. They also use a five-digit pin that they email to you. At the top of the forum is also a copy of the Craigslist ad. This as mentions the pay is $10 per 100 words for professional writers and $3 per 100 words for editors.
Many of those who apply do not hear back with their codes for a month or so. For a simple process, this takes quite a long time.
After You Apply
Once you have completed the application process and received your pin code. You will then have the ability to access more of the website. What you don’t see until this point. Is the fact that you can’t access the writing jobs until you become a professional team member. And of course, professional membership isn’t free.
The membership fee is $40 every 30 days. Some members get the opportunity to only spend monthly fee of $5.95 for the first month.
What You Get With The Membership
Besides access to the site, what exactly does this professional membership cover? The membership gives you access to the list of writing available jobs. Unfortunatly, you will see that these jobs are not offered by the IAPWE.
What the IAPWE does is browse the internet to find forums and other companies that are offering writing gigs. The administrators/searchers look through them all. It is their job to make sure that they claim to pay at least what the IAPWE website advertises. While looking at the jobs/websites the administrators decide on whether the site is a scam or a legit organization or not.
What you find on the IAPWE website is a job listing that post jobs you can apply to. Supposedly that will make you money. They come from a wide variety of websites. There are apparently always several job options for all kinds of professional writers or editors.
So is IAPWE a Scam?
Everyone who has seen the ads for the IAPWE website wants to know if it is a scam. The website claims to have pretty good-paying writing gigs, it does seem a little too good to be true.
Taking a look at the site in its current state, most people should be quite wary of the platform. It does not look like the company put in much work on their interface. Even though they have been around for a while. This is a big warning for any company. Especially a business that doesn’t have a physical location that you can visit. The current listed location for the organization is an apartment building in New York State. Before, they used a UPS store for their address.
Before we come out with our decision we want to talk about what other people believe. Turning to Google you can find a lot of discussions around the internet about the IAPWE. One thread I found on Reddit discussing a person’s experience with the IAPWE. Instead of receiving what was needed for the job they only received marketing emails. Many blog posts state similar things.
If you take a look at some Reddit threads and blog posts about the IAPWE. Many have a few positive comments mixed in with a large number of negative ones. These comments seem suspiciously similar to each other. Some people believe that these comments are from “users” of IAPWE. They believe people are being encouraged to post positive comments around the internet.
Legit Places to Find Jobs as a Writer
The internet is full of people of shady business offers right now. With covid going on more people are looking for remote work than ever. Unfortunately, this means that people are also scamming people looking for work more than ever too.
My recommendation would be to start off on a site that works as a middle man. Sure this means you will be giving up some of your profits, but starting out it is worth the peace of mind. It also gives you a safe space to develop your skills as a professional writer first. When you are first starting out you may be tempted to take any job you can get. At least with a third party involved you will have someone there to moderate and oversee.
Fiverr.com is a great place to start for professional writers. It may be a little overcrowded and overwhelming at times. However, quality writers will quickly rise to the top. On Fiverr it is all about the reviews. This makes it a little tricky at first because how do you get reviews from people that only buy from well-reviewed IAPWE freelance writers?.
One trick is, you have to start by writing for a lot cheaper than you would expect or want. Take any work you can for whatever price you can and focus on returning quality content ten times better than what they paid for. Once you start to get a good reputation you can start raising your prices. I have seen many people than you can imagine going from charging 5$ an article to 100$ in a surprisingly short amount of time.
Upwork is another great option. I do not have much personal experience there so can not give much advice. However, a quality writer will also be quickly noticed here as well and receive lots of work. These are just the two most popular but there are many more others. Whatever one you choose, just make sure to do a little research on google first.
With all the great options and job opportunities like Fiverr out there, you have no reason to be wasting your time with companies like The International Association of Professional Writers Editors
Conclusion
The Better Business Bureau has a B- rating for the organization, a low rating for any business. They have many complaints about the registry and some negative reviews.
After doing some research into the International Association of Professional Writers and Editors. We were able to come up with a decision that we are quite confident in. We know now that the IAPWE website is likely a scam. All the facts and negative reviews appear to point the same direction that we have gone
If the registration ever reopens for the IAPWE website. It could come with changed business practices. We also can’t verify for sure that the IAPWE membership itself is a scam. Although, from what I have learned while researching this article, I will not be signing up anytime soon.
Don’t Let It Get You Down
Don’t let scams like the International Association of Professional Writers and Editors discourage you from trying to find writing jobs on the internet. Plenty of legitimate writing work is available around the internet. There are plenty of websites that can help to connect you with clients like Fiverr.com and Upwork.com. Before signing up for any website that claims to give you jobs. It is important to do your research, but of course, you already know that because you are reading this.
A good tip for those who are going to continue to look for work online. A legitimate site will not need you to pay upfront to get access to their listings. Also if you are looking for more ways to see if a company/site is legit or not. You can check out my review of a rip off shopping site. If you have any experience with IAPWE and would like to give fellow writers a fair warning, then please leave your review or comments below.
