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Ehow Complaints - redirecting members articles

Review all Ehow complaints

Ehow

Posted: 2009-04-29 by   budgy1124
redirecting members articles
Complaint Rating:  71 % with 7 votes
Company information:
ehow
Ohio
United States

I was a member of ehow from 10/2007 to 04/2009 I wrote and published article and was paid for views. I had about 100 articles published and some were making good money. On 04/01/2009 I tried to log into my account and received a message that said my account has been disabled. I sent them many emails asking why it was disabled, they finally emailed me back and said it was deleted for plagiarism on a article and that was all it said; didn't say which article was in question, or the chance to appeal it which is what they state in their terms of use.
They just delete the members entire account. Now the problem i have is, I am getting emails from other ehow members commenting on my articles that were supposedly deleted because they disabled my account.
When i click on the comment that was made by the ehow member about one of my articles, it redirects to an ehow editor's ehow account and my article is on their account but the words are changed a little and my images are gone. Isn't that plagiarism? and stealing!! They are taking and using other people's articles to steal the money that was earned by the person who wrote the article. If you visit ehow's forum there are many other's that this has happened to; I just read a bunch today. This is not right because we spent a lot of time writing these articles, watching them earn good money and then people who work for ehow steal them!! I hope you can help us, Thank you S. Logan
Comments United States Products & Services
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More Ehow complaints
Ehow - plagiarism


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 193 days ago by   NeverMind +1 Votes
eHow encourages plagiarism. I've contacted them a few times about content being copied from another website without consent. They ignore the emails.

I think eHow is a horrible website. I've heard nothing but complaints about it.

Go to "Rip-Off" and search for eHow complaints there.

There's a few!
 163 days ago by   EXeHow Writer +1 Votes
I had a similar situation happen. I was a member of eHow for about 6 months. One day I get an email saying that one of my articles was being investigated for plagiarism. I emailed them and admitted that I gained my information from another person's article on the web, but since the information was mainly factual, I couldn't change it up very easily. I went on to explain that I did re-organize and changed it up quite a bit just to make it work as a how to. I received an email back saying that my appeal was declined and that they would have to remove the article. The email closed, by asking me to continue writing for them. At that point my account still worked fine. About a day or 2 later, I try to log into my account and I get a message saying my account was disabled and it gave me an email address to contact them just in case there was some kind of error. Well, I emailed them and I got back a response stating that they considered plagiarism a serious thing and I was wished good luck. I emailed them back about 2 more times. I tried to explain that sometimes plagiarism isn't a black and white thing. Sometimes there is truly only one way to right factual data and my article was about factual stuff. I pointed out that most of the eHow people are not from a professional writing background and all they would have had to do was explain any issues with me one time. I also pleaded with them to consider that I spent months writing 114 very good articles. I never got anymore responses. It seemed to me as though they were blowing me off. I talked to a lawyer and he said that just because their terms of service state that they can cancel a person's account at anytime, that doesn't make it legal. I feel so emotionally let down over all this. I realize that plagiarism is a serious thing for them to be concerned with, but I think in my case they over reacted quite a bit. A little communication would have done both of us a lot better.
 96 days ago by   dimmu +1 Votes
This Just happened to me. Stay far far away from them I worked hard for four months to have what I had on their site.
 86 days ago by   jcalles +1 Votes
something is fishy about this ehow.com website and im pretty sure it has to do with money... if u are making money that they can potentially be making instead of you, the easiest thing for them to do is delete your account for a lame or made up reason and keep the article and make money themselves or if nothing else, trash the whole account so they dont have to pay you for your articles.. make sense??
 79 days ago by   JimShoe +1 Votes
My account hasn't been deleted but I'm making decent money. I keep wondering if it's too good to be true. My payment finally issued (well actually it's pending...money isn't in the bank account yet) but I noticed that the payment issue is actually 130$ less than my earnings. anyone else heard of this or know why it might happen?
 77 days ago by   Kelly122 -2 Votes
Let's be fair here.
A lot of these complaints just aren't true.
With all the problems that eHow does have there is no reason to make up stuff
unless you are actually the problem.

In truth
1. customer service is a joke
2. they create a false sense of community in the forums that doesn't exist
3. they don't steal articles but they also don't protect you if someone steals from you. it's up to you to protect yourself.
4. they have always paid very well and do respond quickly to payment problems
5. they have no tolerance for plagiarism, there is no Grey area!
6. they make up rules as they go and don't bother to inform their writers.
7. they delete articles sometimes for very minor offenses and don't always bother to let the author know.

In closing I have loved writing for eHow in past and all of these changes for the worst really make me sad. But I have seen no evidence that they really care, it is after all big business and writers can be replaced!
 43 days ago by   Pepita Ridgeway +1 Votes
I have made some OK money from eHow but I am suspicious of their activities. I have now had 12 of my most popular stories removed. They are mostly revolved around women's issues so I have used examples of my own experiences. eHow seem to hate this but I am talking 1000's of readers. I think they are stealing my popular subjects and getting in-house writers to write them.
I am never allowed to complain or ask questions about my removed stories. I am just sent one of those form letters every time.
We are not talking a lot of money but I would say they have docked about $20 a month from my earnings by taking away all my most popular articles about plastic surgery (I have had it so I showed my surgery pictures - they took that away), Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome, the mini pill, depo provera and such.
I am a professional working newspaper journalist so I am not going to waste my time gambling with them any more. It's unfortunate because I was a really active and positive eHow member. Now I will make sure I will complain at every opportunity.
 31 days ago by   MischelleG +1 Votes
They DO NOT respond to payment issues in a timely fashion. This site has horrible customer service, and the site managers do not respond to any emails in a timely way.
 29 days ago by   Dr. J. StuartRahrer +1 Votes
Dr. J.Stuart Rahrer responds:

Thank you for your outstanding article. I also appreciate the insightful input of several other gifted writers. I wrote 1 article for Ehow and have since deleted it due to the overwhelming amount of criticism by professional writers such as you.
I have written 18 books and I am currently working on the19th and 20th at the studio in my nursing home, if you want to call it that. You may see my book titles and descriptions at Google under J. Stuart Rahrer. I am not trying to sell books or toot my horn in this group. Any way, most of them are out of print. However, I am compelled to make 2 points.

1. I think I may stop writing articles unless anyone knows if there are reputable, honest organizations who recruit writers like you instead of people with titles that appeal to members of the Mickey Mouse Club. For example: “How to make your bosom bigger”. I am certain people read this article. However, the issue is in a statement by John Steinbeck below.

2. Years ago I attended a John Steinbeck lecture. I remember specifically that he said, ”All I have as a writer is a gift and my integrity to live with”.

Thanks to you for bringing that thought back.

Dr.J.Stuart Rahrer (johnrahrer@hotmail.com)
 12 days ago by   dawnella66 +1 Votes
This is extremely true about Ehow. I have written for them for over a year. In the terms of service, this company claims that if they delete your account, please read as it is taken from their posted terms of service: Under the section labeled TERMINATION OR CANCELLATION :

If your Account or access to the Site is terminated for any or no reason, you may no longer have access to the Content you posted on the Site. In such event, eHow may continue to exploit electronic or printed materials it has created, or developed specific plans to create, that contain such Content according to the terms contained in Section 5 with respect to removal or modification of Content previously posted on the Site.

As you see, they clearly state they will continue to EXPLOIT your content, thereby still making money from it.

Ehow also does not always notify any member of any problem. If they deem you did something against the rules, they will refuse you payment without any proof. You are not subject to any sort of "due process".
Their Terms of Service also says they are not obliged to offer customer support. This says enough in my opinion to make it not worthy of any consideration. Anytime a company plainly states that they can continue to use your content after they terminate your account, and are not obliged to offer customer support, it is a red flag you will not recieve fair, professional treatment. This is why I no longer write for them and why I moved on to Examiner.com instead.

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