We here at Life in a House believe in giving everyone a second chance – and sometimes a third and fourth chance too. We try our best to practice forgiveness, kindness, and understanding at all times because that’s just how our parents and grandparents raised us to be.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world does not always operate on the same principles. There are others out there who will lie, cheat, and steal to get what they want. When that happens, we will list them here to warn our fellow blogging friends about their unscrupulous behavior and to let them know that these individuals do not honor their word.
I hate that there is even a need for a Black List of people not to do business with, but if you live in the real world you realize that not everyone holds themselves accountable for their actions and dealings with others as you may. The individuals listed below have not honored their word with Life in a House after repeated contact and chances to make the situation right or have been so outspoken with regards to their hatred towards another race, religion, sexual orientation, or nationality that we felt the need to warn others.
Detailed information on each individual below can be provided upon request.
stephanie@greenfootenergysolutions.ca
Added 2/2024. Stephanie requested a link placement on February 21, 2024. I sent her our fee information and she responded she wanted to move forward and sent the details. I provided her with the invoice indicating payment was due upon receipt and setting forth all requirements and late fees if not paid within the time frame specified along with an email stating same. No response. On February 23, 2024, I sent another email informing her that her payment was due by 11:00 a.m. or there would be a late fee applied. She responded two minutes later wanting to know why she would be charged a late fee if the link placement was not live. I informed her because of the people here on this list – our terms were payment in advance upon receipt of the invoice. No response. So when her invoice was not paid, we applied the late fee. Two days later, she responded and said to “cancel the invoice as we won’t be paying late fees for a link not even inserted/live yet.” Do you go to a store and just walk out with what you want without paying? Can you go make groceries and not pay for them till after you’ve cooked dinner? No. The same principle applies here. Bloggers are not here to cater to your every whim. You want a service, then you pay for that service. It is that simple.
Sam – outreach.linkbuildingteam@gmail.com
Added 7/2022. Sam at outreach.linkbuildingteam@gmail.com reached out to me on May 20, 2022, with a backlink purchase inquiry. I gave him a quote, we haggled back and forth, and on June 19, 2022, he agreed to the price we had set.
I sent him an invoice, informed him our policy is payment prior to publication and provided a draft of the article and how it would appear with his link placement. I followed up again on June 23 and informed him I needed his payment or a response to the emails I had sent. Nothing.
I emailed him again on June 26, June 27, June 29, and June 30. He finally replies on July 10, 2022, 3 weeks after he requested the link placement, and says “pardon me for the lack of response. We’ve decided not to progress with this post. Sorry for wasting your time.” Effing douchebag! This right here – people like this – is why I absolutely refuse to publish ANYTHING before I receive payment.
Elisha Maria – elishamaria962@gmail.com
Added 8/2021. Provided an article for publication and I sent her the invoice. She informed me that her client (https://vloneclothing.net) would not pay until the article was live. So I made the article live on 8/3 and informed her that payment needed to be made within 48 hours or there would be a $50 late fee. She didn’t pay so the late fee was applied 8/5. She stated in another email the payment would process on 8/9. Still has not made payment and the article was removed. Contacted the official Vlone website and they informed me that https://vloneclothing.net is NOT an official merchandiser, that their products are not authentic, and asked me to report them – which I have done. Funny how in the past 24 hours her email address appears to have been deleted and is no longer in use. I also found her email address listed on an IP address reporting site as being 100% scam related.
Khazen Ali – khazenfartists.net@gmail.com
Added 8/2021. Agreed to provide 3 articles every month for a 50% discount June 2021. Sent 1 article. Sent him reminders a few weeks before his deadline date. He failed to provide the required articles so he lost his discounted rate – which he knew would result in being charged the full rate for any subsequent articles. He agreed to the terms, and we had done business previously in the past -so he knew our policies and rates. He submitted another article in 8/2021 and I informed him it would be billed at the current rate on our Blog Services page. He claimed we had an agreement for a ridiculously low amount and I called his bluff. He refused payment and was added to the list and his article was trashed.
Alison Lurie – alisonlurie6@gmail.com
Added 2/2021. Refused to respond to emails regarding payment for an article she wanted to be published on Life in a House. After several emails and invoice reminders via PayPal with no response, she was added to this list.
Felix Kamly – felix.kamly@gmail.com
Added 1/2021. This individual has been permanently banned from our social media as well as contacting us. He consistently orders work to be done and then refuses to pay for it. His email address is felix.kamly@gmail.com. He’s ghosted on two invoices in the past 6 months.
CashOne – info@cashone.com
Added 5/2020. Received an email on 4/22/2020 requesting the publication of a great article with small business ideas for women entrepreneurs. I prepared the article for publication, created graphics and images to accompany it, and sent them the invoice. They ghosted me, sent several follow-up emails with no response and no payment.
Christine Conru – christine12conru@gmail.com
Added 11/2018. She sent an article for publication at the beginning of the month regarding a Hindu festival. I published the article (I found it very interesting) but when she did not pay her invoice I removed the article until payment was made. She never paid. I know she received the emails and opened them because I used a paid service that tracks every email I send and notifies me when they have been opened and read.
Gary Wilson – gary@toptierstyle.com
Added 9/2018. Sent article for publication 7/2018. Submitted invoice to him for payment, with a discounted rate. A month went by and he refused payment. No blogger should ever be required to wait over 2 months for payment of an article that someone wants to be published. His client refused payment (info@jumponline.uk) as did Gary Wilson himself (gary@toptierstyle.com) so I would suggest caution if dealing with this individual and this company.
Mia Clarke – userful@canwetalk.co
Added 7/2018. Mia contacted me in mid-June 2018 and requested an article for publication and agreed to remit payment when provided an invoice. I sent her the invoice the same day. A month went by and she refused payment and refused to respond to emails. I reached out to the company she works for and they refused to respond to our emails.
Trudy Seeger – trudyseeger@gmail.com
Added 4/2017. Trudy appears to be able to change race from one social media profile to the next. He also does not work for the construction company he claimed to work for. They never hired him to do marketing for their company and his bio that read he was a “professional journalist” for more than 5 years gave no results as to where he worked as a journalist or for what organizations. I was able to find him on Facebook, and his Facebook profile photo changed from one race to another in his timeline. He has since removed all public posts that showed the changes in his profile photo.
Andrea Simon – ashfordsimon99@gmail.com
Added 3/2017. The article was published as requested and over a month later she still refused payment. The article was deleted and she was added to this list.
Colin Brice – colinbrice161@gmail.com
Added 2/2017. Colin contacted me in December 2016. Red flags should have gone up when I read his email because it was almost exactly the same email message that I received from Victoria Young. Being the holiday season and all; however, I just overlooked it and didn’t pay attention to those warning bells going off in my head. After a bit of back and forth on the emails and the pricing, his articles were published on January 31, 2017. Reminders and emails were sent the entire month of February and payment has still not been received.
Victoria Young – victoria.young1234@hotmail.com
Added 11/2016. This individual originally contacted me in October 2016 literally begging me to publish posts for her. She had four of them that she wanted to be published, and they were pretty good. So I gave her my prices and she agreed to pay them. I published the posts on October 22, 2016, and sent her the invoice. I sent numerous reminders, emails, submitted the invoices to her again via PayPal – nothing. She responded back “you will be paid soon.” Wench still hasn’t paid her invoice.
Teri Hardy Hatland
This should go without saying if you’ve read An Alert for the Blogging Community, Update on Teri Hardy Fraudulent Blogger, or Tracking Teri Hardy Hatland: Continuing Coverage. Being the vindictive individual that she is, she had us locked out of Facebook several times for reporting our post that mentioned the news coverage about her fraud and criminal background. She recently filed for bankruptcy and you can view the latest news story regarding how that went in this news article from Keloland.com.
How to Protect Yourself
Due to the issues that we have faced and learned from on a first-hand basis, we’ve come up with a system of checks and balances to protect ourselves that we would like to share with you. Hopefully it will thwart those individuals who look to take advantage of bloggers for their own personal gain.
Get the Information
I’ve said it before and I will say it again – know whom you are dealing with. Anyone can create an email account and claim to be something that they are not. If they claim to work for a company, get the company name, address, and URL to reach them. Get a phone number, a business email, any other alternative means to contact them.
Get Your Payment In Advance
If you are asking for payment for services rendered, require payment in advance or, at a minimum, a 50% deposit on the final amount due before you begin working on the assignment.
Watch the Email Language
I have learned the hard way that a lot of these individuals all work for the same “hub” of writers that use the same form email when contacting bloggers asking them to publish articles or to do a review of their products. If you continue to see the same emails sent from different email addresses – be sure to cover your bases and make sure you get contact information for them that goes further than just an email address if you decide to do business with them.
Not Everyone Is Out to Scam You
While it may feel that way sometimes, we have had the pleasure of working with some really fantastic contributors over the years who have always honored their word and made payment when due or provided the required amount of posts each month for a discounted rate. To them, we tip our hats and we say THANK YOU for being honorable, professional, and for keeping your word.
Hopefully, there will not be a need to update this page often, but when we do update it with new information we will share it on our social media channels to alert you to new additions.
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