the blog highlighting the unfair business model that is www.helium.com
This proves that the staff at Helium don’t even read what’s going on at their own website. They wouldn’t remove my work from their site, so I changed my membership name to Helium Sucks, then they barred me.
Then this came in the email today!
What a laugh…
I was accused of plagiarism on two recent articles and of course I challenged them [helium.com] on their accusations. I asked them to show me where the allegations came from. Not only did they not respond, but they’ve now shut down my access to their data base and refuse to respond to my e-mails.
This makes me really mad because I was due for another $25 payment for the month. Not only will I not be paid for my new articles, but won’t receive residual payments on the 119 articles currently under their copyright.
I won’t go so far as to say Helium is a scam, but they are operating under extremely unethical business practices. I am deleting all links to articles they will be paid for and now have to start all over again.
Read more here
Helium is a SCAM. Oh yes, I did get some bucks there.. because the marketplace PAID me. I’ve written Barbara Whitlock something like : “Look, you can keep the money…as long as I get my articles back“. To this day, however, they’re still in Helium’s secret “vault” – wherever that may be.
The truth about Helium is that it’s something like a “cult”. It’s utterly mysterious and I hate mystery.
Read more here
Two days ago I posted a short essay, also published on Helium.com. For those not familiar with Helium, it is a website for writers and provides many categories to publish everything from short stories to essays and book excerpts. Also, if an author’s submission’s are ranked high enough, they are paid by Helium via a PayPal account. So far, so good.
Stories are rated by other members of Helium. Two stories in the same category appear side by side without displaying the author’s name. The reader rates which story is better and by how much. When you first submit, your story goes to the middle of the pack and then moves up or down from there.
I began to suspect problems when I looked at the stories ranked highest in the categories I’d submitted in. I wanted to learn what readers liked and thought maybe the highest ranked stories would have something to teach me. I was appalled at what I found. Not only did these stories exhibit a lack of even basic grammar on the author’s part, but the arguments and story lines were both inept and juvenile on many occasions. There were some very good stories admittedly, but not nearly enough.
So I Googled Helium to try to see if others noticed any problems. It seems that this is a severe and ongoing problem with Helium.
Read more here
Helium.com publishes articles by writers. About three-and-a-half years ago, I wrote an article which I’d now like removed. At the time I wrote the article, I was in an episode of severe mania, and was not in my right mind. I was subsequently diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and have been completely stable since Nov 06. But the article, as it stood, was out of context, and I now wanted it removed since it could damage my reputation as a writer. (I’m having a book published next year.)
With a few emails back and forth, they made it clear that the user agreement gave them the right to keep the article online. You’re not allowed to even edit it. Your only option is to write a replacement article, and hope that it gets rated more highly than the original, at which point the original will be deleted.
I wrote a replacement article on Sat, Dec 5th, and in the article, I detailed what had happened with Helium, and criticized them for their lack of compassion, and rigid adherence to rules. Not to mention the unfairness of their Terms of Service. (Yes, I agreed to them, but not when I was in my right mind. I even told them I could furnish them with medical certificates etc.)
This morning, I received an email from them, saying: “Further attempts to access helium.com or any Helium computer systems will be considered malicious and reported to local and state law enforcement, the Internet Crimes division of the FBI and your internet service provider. Your account has been disabled and the original article restored to the title.”
This is the story of how I lost $300, almost 300 articles and hundreds of hours of my time to Helium.com. Additionally, Helium has kept the revenue-generating content I submitted to their site, but refuses to reimburse me for my contributions. Once you read this you should either (1) be convinced that Helium.com is a scam site and not worth investing your time and potential into or (2) know how to avoid losing what you do make on Helium. A potential participant should be immediately suspicious: one Helium.com-sponsored Google
Adsense links claim you can “Write to Win $15,000.” This is highly misleading. Even if someone took first place for every week of their Write to Win contest they would only win $1,800.
Read more here
Helium.com owed me money and never paid. They also are a bogus company buying “publishing” websites to make them look legitimate. The marketplace where publishers choose an article is completely bogus. Their rating system, customer service, ethics, and honesty are the worst in the business. They offered the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and this is bogus too. They make these things sound legitimate by enticing young high schoolers into their program thinking it is the real Pulitzer Prize. It is not!
They use gimmicks to steal work and money from those that work so hard giving them content. They will never allow you to take your work off of the site and let partners and other sister companies make money off of your hard work and time.
In addition, they expose your personal information in the flagging process they have and those people know your email and other personal information. There are several people complaining about being stalked, harassed, and abused by other helium members when they got the other members private information. The site claims to protect the users, but it does not. There are criminals on that site and Helium doesn’t care as long as they get your to give them free work and give them money.
Please do not write or give your work away to this site, and do not let a friend, family member, or anyone else to participate on this site!
Read more here
There are some great people trapped on this [Helium.com] site who are afraid to speak up about the problems because they have hundreds if not thousands of articles on here they could lose. It is a type of extortion by Helium, holding the writers articles hostage in case they decide to speak out about the corruption on the site. These are bad people running this site with no sense of loyalty to their writers. Stay away from this site.
Read more here
Complaint about censorship, intellectual theft and intimidation at Helium.com
Big Brother is alive and well, and, apparently, flourishing at Helium.com, online marketplace for writers, “where knowledge rules”. (Their slogan now strikes me as particularly ironic.)
Before I delve into my own complaint, do a quick Google search on Helium complaints, and it’s a gold mine. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a major article in a newspaper or magazine, given the extent of the complaints against them.
Helium is a website where writers can post articles, have them rated, and, perhaps even earn a few cents. Since the substance of my complaint is in the correspondence below, I’ll not detail it here, except to summarize it. About a week ago, I asked them politely to remove an article I’d written, three years ago, which was now damaging to my reputation. After much back and forth, they not only locked me out while keeping all my articles online, but censored another article I’d written which was critical of their behavior, and then, threatened to report me to the FBI!
Read more here
By Craig Kohler
Helium.com has been actively removing questions and answers that address valid issues pertaining to the website or are otherwise relevant to Helium.com content or contributors, all without warning or explanation. This systematic deletion has taken place despite the fact that Helium is a user-driven site for writers that claims to celebrate multiple viewpoints. The site supposedly defers to its users except in cases of plagiarism or offensive material, and largely relies on its writers to rate its content. Helium.com also claims that all articles are of value to the site and can earn people money indefinitely. Apparently, these claims do not always apply to articles that point out negative or problematic aspects of Helium.com. This article provides key examples of censored questions and answers to illustrate this remarkable phenomenon as well as speculation as to the motives of Helium.com administrators who have made a practice of censoring writers on their site. A list of censored questions is followed by a list of censored answers below, with a fully quoted question and answer pair (written by this article’s author) and further references and sources (provided at the conclusion of this article).
Censored Questions: Even seemingly innocuous questions that could negatively impact Helium’s image have been removed entirely in some cases. In other cases…
Read more here
Please find below a short email exchange between me and Mark Ranalli.
Dear Mark,
It occurs to me that if a company – such as Helium.com – locks a user out of the system, refuses them access to their account, and keeps the writers’ work on the site – where it continues to earn money for the firm – then isn’t it theft?
Hasn’t the writer not only lost their work to Helium.com, but also lost access to withdraw any earnings (as small as they may be).
The money may be accruing, but the writer is denied access to it.
Strange but true – for this is what Helium.com does to some of its writers. Me in particular.
To resolve this matter I request that my earnings to date be given to the charity of your choice and all my work be removed and deleted from your servers.
I look forward to your reply.
Steve
Mark Ranalli replies:
Steve:
I am sorry to learn that you disagree with Helium’s terms of service. We work very hard to welcome a large community of writers to our site. We promote our members work, help build their reputation and create an economic incentive for their participation. In return, we expect our members to abide by our terms of service. Your account was closed due to your inappropriate behavior.
Regards,
Mark
NOTE to readers: My account was closed at my request. But I did change my byline (user name) to ‘Helium sucks and should be closed down’.
I reply to Mark
Hello Mark and thank you for replying.
I am a regular, thoughtful person who works as a professional writer and designer. I get along with people and act in a business-like manner. I am, after all, in business as a self-employed freelancer.
But when someone steals from me – for that is what I feel Helium has done to me – then I do get angry and may do things I would not normally do. So any ‘inappropriate behaviour’ on my part was as a result of your firm’s inappropriate behaviour and a reflection of my total frustration in communicating with your staff who in my opinion couldn’t care less about how members such as I feel.
Mark, you must agree that if a lot of people react badly to a firm’s T&C then something must be wrong. No professional writer would give away their work in the hope of earning a few dollars that they can’t get access too.
Yes, you may have the occasional star performer who earns a decent sum after working very hard and diligently on your site for a year or more. But the vast majority of your members are writers who expect a fair reward for two or three days research/interviewing, writing, double checking, revising and proofing. However, they are routinely disappointed.
But it is the copyright issue that is by far my biggest concern. And it is something I will not let go Mark. It is grossly unfair that you refuse members the option to remove their work from Helium.com.
Like I have said in my blog – you take people’s copyright in all but name. And it can’t be just or right and I don’t accept it.
If you remove that part of your contract then professional writers, who will really lift the quality of the copy on your site, will come out of the woodwork. Right now you attract amateurs and much of the copy on Helium reflects that. They post it because they know they haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance of selling it to a bona fide publisher.
Right now my stories are shown on your site with the writer byline ‘Name Withheld 9’. So not only do you keep my work against my will, you lock me out of the system – thus denying me any ability I may have to withdraw earnings – but you now take away any connection I may have with MY work on YOUR site.
Mark, if you just stood back for a moment and put yourself in the shoes of freelance writers – people who ONLY get paid when they sell their work (we do not get a paycheck at the end of every week) – then you might start to appreciate the situation more realistically.
I urge you to reconsider your contract.
Regards,
Steve Hart
I am now waiting for Mark to reply…
The Helium.com user agreement includes the following wording. It means that if you are locked out of your Helium account, ask to close it down or find yourself barred then you not only lose your work to Helium – unable to have it deleted – but you are not entitled to be paid any money your work earns. This is what it says:
“…you will agree to forfeit all rights you may have to your Account and to any then accrued or future earnings from the Site or by Helium with respect to any material you previously submitted.”
Read the whole disgusting contract here.
Former helium.com writer Migel writes:
I knew there were many internet scams out there but I never expected to encounter one of this type.
At first glance it seemed to on the up and up with many helpful people encouraging others to write their butts off and also to rate as much as possible. I soon realized that things weren’t what they seemed.
I found out some stewards (who were touted as mere members volunteering to do free work for Helium) were paid to push any new rules changes which Helium came up with.
If anyone complained the paid cheerleaders would naysay any complaints and talk up the new changes. Some of the paid volunteers are downright arrogant and rude to members calling them malcontents and other names. This was to quell any dissent from members and it works well on some…
See the full post here
So you’ve been caught out by Helium.com’s dreadful contracts that takes writers’ copyright in all but name. Ouch! And now you realise what their current user agreement says, you want your work removed – but they refuse (join the club).
But maybe you don’t quite remember what you clicked YES to when you signed up to this dreadful company. It’s a hard thing to check – perhaps (you wonder) Helium.com has altered its user agreement over time. You’d be right. But how can you check?
For example, look at this excerpt from its user agreement of November 2006.
“You grant Helium, and its affiliates, a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, transferable, non-exclusive right and license to use, copy, modify, delete in its entirety, adapt, publish…”
You see that word there? Delete. You give Helium.com, the right to delete your work. So, why won’t they delete your work when you ask them too.
That’s because that phrase was removed in later contracts – certainly it had gone by 2008 if not earlier.
And how did I know all this. Easy, there’s a brilliant website that routinely catalogues millions of web pages every week at www.archive.org. Simply go to this website, look for a search field under a title called WayBack Machine, enter the domain you want to search and the history of that site will appear.
Archive.org doesn’t have every variation of a domain, but there be will plenty to keep you busy.
So take a trip back in time and check to see what you agreed to when you signed up with helium.con. Knowledge, as they say, rules.
You could try this link for the web history of Helium.com if you wish.
Harlan Ellison here on why writers need to be paid. WARNING – offensive content.
Accepting free publicity or getting your name in print is no compensation for hard work. If you work, you must expect to be paid in money – that’s the way the world goes around. Otherwise you end up poor, you can’t pay your bills and you stop writing to work at Walmart. Then the publisher turns to another sucker to replace you.
Never write for free. Ever.
A deal between Hearst and Helium means writers will write on spec and hope to have their work selected by someone at Hearst for publication in one or more of its newspapers. Trouble is, writers will earn about a tenth of the going freelance rate and – more importantly – anyone who submits work to Helium.com in the hope of being published by Hearst will give up the copyright of their work in all but name forever more.
In my view, this deal with Hearst is not worth the time or energy if you are a professional freelance writer trying to earn a serious living from your writing. If you have a great story to tell, approach publishers and editors directly and don’t have anything to do with Helium.com. Certainly, never write on spec – only write when commissioned to do so.
See this
It occurs to me that if a company – such as Helium.com – locks a user out of the system, refuses them access to their account, and keeps the writers’ work on the site – where it continues to earn money for the firm – then isn’t it theft?
Hasn’t the writer not only lost their work to Helium.com, but also lost access to withdraw any earnings (as small as they may be).
The money may be accruing, but the writer is denied access to it.
Strange but true – for this is what Helium.com does to some of its writers.
Disaffected Helium.com writer David Arthur Walters has set up a new blog where he shares his thoughts and information about helium.com.
Well worth a read and contributing to. See it here.
One of the boards Helim.com’s CEO Mark Ranalli sits on is OpenSecrets.
Mark Ranalli, Helium’s founder and chief executive officer, counters that his site is not out to undermine established journalists or copywriters.Instead he expects to expand the ranks of paid writers to include part-time talent that otherwise would be sitting fallow.
Read more here
