Not that this has come as much of a surprise, but Blog Advertising Store aka Paying Post, the company that allowed me to take $109 worth of work and now refuses to pay me for it (and additionally has blocked my home IP address from their website and is blocking emails from my x@jenn.nu email account), has sent no responses to the dozens of emails I have sent their way over the past few weeks.

What’s said is that I’m not in the minority here. Dozens if not hundreds of bloggers have been scammed by Blog Advertising Store aka Paying Post. A simple Google search turns up dozens of results and details of their scamming, deceptive ways.

Read the full details of what happened to me: Blog Advertising Store aka Paying Post is a scam.

Spread the word. The blogging community has the power to put these scamming assholes out of business by 1) refusing to do any work for them and b) spreading the word about the bloggers they have ripped off.

I was able to use an alternative wireless network connection to login to my Blog Advertising Store account, take more screenshots of the opps I have taken and have been approved for. I also copied down the URL of every advertiser that is currently working with Blog Advertising Store. I am going to contact them tomorrow to inform them of the shady business they are dealing with, since in the end scammed, pissed off bloggers will yank down their written posts, which will ultimately hurt the advertisers themselves.

Jenn

Well over a year ago I signed up for Blog Advertising Store, though at that time they were calling themselves Paying Post. Between then and this past February I have written $109.00 worth of opportunities for article directories, weight loss websites, personalized baby toys. I followed the instructions on each opportunity, included the required links, wrote relevant, high quality content, and submitted each opportunity on time. Every opportunity that I did was approved, and as of April 2010 I was eligible to receive payment, as my balance had rolled over $100 (that is Blog Advertising Store’s / Paying Post’s minimum payout amount).

Only… I didn’t receive a payment in April. I didn’t receive one in May, either, despite Blog Advertising Store’s / Paying Post’s dashboard stating that I would be paid $109 on May 1st, 2010.

Screenshot of Blog Advertising Store’s / Paying Post’s Account page

Screenshot of Blog Advertising Store’s / Paying Post’s My Posts page

On May 6th, 2010, I sent the following email to support@blogadvertisingstore.com and support@payingpost.com:

To whom it may concern:

As of May 1st, 2010 I was due for a payout of $109.00 to my PayPal account x@jenn.nu. It is now May 6th, 2010 and I have not received anything.

I have been a bit wary completing posts for your company, as in the past I have read some unsavory things about your business practices and the handling of payouts. Please ease my anxieties and compensate me with the money I am rightfully owed. Again, the balance due is $109.00, and my PayPal account is x@jenn.nu.

Thank you very much.

I forwarded the email to them on May 8th, 2010, and again on May 9th, 2010.

As of May 11th, 2010, I still had not received any kind of response, so I sent the following email:

I will continue to email every day until I receive payment. I will continue blogging on multiple blogs about this issue. I will post on Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter. I will contact the Better Business Bureau. I am also going to contact all of the companies that bloggers have written posts on behalf of in order to let them know that while they are paying you, you are not doing your part in paying your bloggers.

Please, prove to me that you are not the scamming, fraudulent company that the majority of bloggers who have worked with you claim you are. Pay me what is rightfully owed. The balance is $109.00, and my PayPal address is x@jenn.nu.

I forwarded the May 11th email to them on May 12th, May 13th, May 14th, May 15th, May 16th, and May 17th.

Last night I sent the following email:

If I do not receive a payment of $109.00 to x@jenn.nu by 5pm EST tomorrow afternoon, I will be blogging about your company and its scamming practices on the following blogs:

http://www.blogging-girl.com

http://www.heytechgirl.com

http://www.in-my-bag.com

http://www.jenn.nu

http://www.kitty.nu

http://www.mamahood.org

http://www.thatfatchick.com

Additionally, I will be posting about your company on the following forums/public groups:

http://www.payu2blog.com

http://www.lavish.nu

http://www.ning.com (every single product review/paid blogging/mommy blogging community I can find)

Finally, I will be spreading the word on at least a dozen social networks, including:
Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Twitter

Please, take the professional route and pay the money that is RIGHTFULLY OWED TO ME.

I sent yet another email this morning:

I will also be contacting every single company that I have written a post on behalf for through your company, as well as every company I find listed in the open opportunities list.

It is now after 5:00pm EST on May 17th, 2010 — over two months past the date I should have been paid $109 for the opportunities I wrote and had approved by Blog Advertising Store and Paying Post. Interestingly, I suddenly am unable to access blogadvertisingstore.com or payingpost.com, though the few people I asked on AIM reported being able to access it with no problem.

Summary

Blog Advertising Store aka Paying Post is a scam. Do NOT take any of their opportunities, as you will not be paid for the work that you do. Essentially, Blog Advertising Store aka Paying Post and the advertisers that they work with will be getting free advertisement on your blog(s).

Unless I am paid the $109 that Blog Advertising Store aka Paying Post owes me, I will stand firm in my belief that the company is a SCAM. They collect money from advertisers and turn around and provide opportunities to bloggers, only they do NOT hold up their end of the bargain and pay the bloggers for their work.

Spread the word

Spread the word about the SCAMMING COMPANY that Blog Advertising Store aka Paying Post is! Please don’t let them continue to get away with this behavior! We can effectively shut them down by refusing to work for them. With no bloggers to blog about their company and the companies and products of the advertisers they work with, Blog Advertising Store aka Paying Post will eventually go out of business.

If you have a Twitter account, please spread the word by tweeting about this post:
Blog Advertising Store AKA Paying Post is a scam! http://bit.ly/basppscam #paidblogging #scam

That’s a damn good question, one I’m going to do my best to make sure that I’m eventually able to answer with, “Yes”. You see, Blog Advertising Store aka Paying Post is pretty notorious in a few blogging circles for being late with payments, not making them unless hounded into doing so, or not doing so at all. Yet in others reports of them paying, albeit a little late, are abound. I wasn’t sure what to think when I initially signed up, so I go ahead and took the chance.

As you can see from the screenshot, I’m owed $109, a balance that was due to be paid out on May 1st, 2010. I emailed support@blogadvertisingstore.com on Thursday night with a payment requested (high importance), and I forwarded the email to them on Friday morning, and again yesterday morning. I plan on doing this up until next Friday, at which point I’m going to double the emails I send to them every day, as well as blog publicly about them being a scam. From the experiences of other bloggers, hounding them and publicly calling them on their BS seems to be pretty effective in getting money that’s owed.

Of course, I hope I won’t have to take this route. I’m going to give Blog Advertising Store aka Paying Post the benefit of the doubt!

When it comes to writing paid blog entries, there are generally two choices of disclosure available: per-post (or in-post) disclosure, or site-wide disclosure.

With per-post disclosure, you include a blurb somewhere within the actual blog entry (sometimes at the beginning, but more commonly at the end) that discloses the fact that the blog entry has been sponsored, or that you have been compensated for the post.

With site-wide disclosure, you have a static page that outlines the fact that you are compensated in some manner for certain posts.

There are also some advertisers and third party paid blogging companies that request or even require that there be no disclosure whatsoever. With a complete lack of disclosure, visitors may not know if you are linking to black diamonds because you like them, or because you have been paid to do so. The same could be said for links to other blogs, such as thesocalledme.net, or links to message boards, such as Lavish.nu.
Personally, I feel that this is rather misleading, and that my visitors deserve to know that I do publish sponsored content. I think that it is important for my visitors to understand that in some instances, I am presenting information to them that I do not necessarily endorse or personally recommend. I simply put it “out there”, and it is up to my visitors to decide to explore that content.

Site-wide disclosure is easy because it’s not something that you have to think about all of the time. But per-post disclosure seems to be more acceptable in blog society. I personally prefer to use per-post disclosure wherever possible, particularly if I am devoting a lengthy blog entry to a specific subject.

PayingPost is the newest paid blogging company on the block. It has an uncanny resemblance to PayPerPost, right down to the layout of the opportunities page. PayingPost also functions a lot like PayPerPost does.

So, how does PayingPost work? Once your blog is approved (you first submit your blog, install a tracking code for PayingPost to verify blog ownership with, and then the blog is put up for manual review and approval), you’ll be presented with a list of opportunities that you are eligible for. Each opportunity listing will briefly detail the product or service (examples: Verizon cell phones, bankruptcy, Blackberry plants, vehicles, etc.) you’ll be writing about, links and/or images you should include, and the minimum word requirement. The payout for the opportunity (I’m unsure of the minimum, but I’m going to guess $5-$10) will also be listed.

Once you reserve an opportunity with PayingPost, you will have six hours to complete it.

Unlike other paid blogging companies, PayingPost does not have a set pay period (monthly, weekly, bi-weekly, etc.). Instead, you must wait until your account balance reaches $25 or more, and then you will be able to cash out.

So far I have taken just one opportunity for PayingPost (you can read it here). I’ll let you know how payout goes as I do more opportunities!

The nice thing about paid blogging is that there is almost always an opportunity to earn some extra money. I do paid blogging through several companies, so starting in September I began figuring out future paychecks and payouts from the various companies I work for. PayU2Blog pays on a bi-weekly basis, so I don’t have to plan too far in advance for them. Plus, since they assign me the work, all I have to do is login and check my inbox every few days. But PayPerPost pays out only monthly, and I have to check and snap up available opportunities through their online interface, so I really have to put some work and a bit of time into making sure I’ll have money coming in every day, thirty days ahead.

Another nice thing about paid blogging is that it’s relatively easy. Depending on the company you work for, simply inserting a link like Asgi shoes somewhere in the body of your blog entry is enough to earn a few bucks.

Do you plan on doing paid blogging as a way to subsidize your holiday spending?

Someone told me about Snapbomb and their blog marketing opportunities back in June, so I decided to join and check it out. Joining consists of creating an account, filling out your profile and adding blogs that you would like to write Snapbomb opportunities on. Once your blog has been approved, you can view available opportunities for it (and any other blogs you might have).

Opportunities are listed in two categories: available (qualified) and non-matched (unqualified). Available opportunities will pay you for a written post; non-matched posts are available for you to take, but only for brownie points/potential advertiser ratings, and not for money.

Opportunity payouts are based on the value of your blog. Your blog’s value is determined by several things, including Google PR, Alexa ranking and traffic.

Each opportunity listing gives a brief description of what the opportunity is about (what you should write about), the page you need to link to, and how much you’ll be paid for it Again, opportunity payouts are based on the value of your blog, so if you have multiple blogs in the system, you may see differing payout amounts for each blog.
Upon clicking the link to view the opportunity’s individual page and how to accept it, you’ll see a full description, keyword suggestions, and what link and anchor text to use. You’ll also see the minimum words required (typically 150).

Best of all, Snapbomb strongly encourages full disclosure. Straight from their bloggers FAQ:

We recommend that all bloggers clearly disclose that they are writing a sponsored post.

Payment is done sixty days after an opportunity is submitted and approved. Yes, this is a long time, but it’s nice to build up a balance simply by doing a sponsored opportunity here and there.

And yes, Snapbomb does pay!

(New to paid blogging? Check out What is paid blogging?)

PayU2Blog is a company that pays bloggers to write sponsored posts for third party advertisers. Like other paid blogging companies, PayU2Blog compensates bloggers with a specific dollar amount in exchange for that blogger writing a sponsored post.

However, there are a few key differences with how PayU2Blog works. For starters, you don’t have to worry about getting first-come, first-serve assignments. Assignments are signed to you. This can be a distadvantage to bloggers who want to pick and choose their own assignments. PayU2Blog refer to this as “cherry picking”, and they do not allow it. In essence, you are to write about what you are assigned. Skipping over assignments can result in the permanent banning of your account.

PayU2Blog doesn’t want to overwhelm its bloggers, so there are options to limit the number of assignments you would like to receive in a month, or go on a hiatus (known as a black-out date).

Each typical writing assignment pays $5.00, unless it requires more words, links, and/or images or a video. More important, the average PayU2Blog assignment is freeform. This means you can write about whatever you want, so long as the required link is included somewhere in the blog entry. The word requirement is sixty words.

A blog is considered to be eligible if:

• the blog is at least thirty days old
• the blog is written in English
• the blog has original content
• the blog has only one author
• existing advertisements must not obscure the blog
• the owner of the blog must be at least eighteen years of age

There are a few other requirements, and a blog’s acceptance is ultimately up to PayU2Blog.

Payouts on assignments are done every other Friday, via PayPal.

IZEA has finally launched SocialSpark in its alpha mode. So far, around fifty or so members of PayPerPost have been selected to receive alpha login keys. The key enables a selected member to create a blogger profile on SocialSpark, explore the site, try out any live opportunities that may be present, and give lots and lots of feedback on using the site, what works and what doesn’t work, what would look good, what should be changed, etc.

Suffice to say, yours truly was given one of those highly coveted keys, and I have been having a blast exploring SocialSpark. I’d love to share more details, and even post screenshots, but alas, I have been sworn to secrecy. But I promise, when SocialSpark does finally launch for everyone, you’ll love it!

(New to paid blogging? Check out What is paid blogging?)

PayPerPost is the granddaddy of paid blogging. While they may not be the first paid blogging company, they are surely the first to make paid blogging mainstream. PayperPost and paid blogging go hand in hand.

PayPerPost, who is also often referred to as PPP, was established in the summer of 2006, and currently operates several other companies under its parent company, IZEA.

PayPerPost has the following basic requirements for an eligible blog:

• the blog must be at least thirty days old
• the blog must be written in English
• the blog must have original content
• the blog must have only one author
• existing advertisements must not obscure the blog
• the owner of the blog must be at least eighteen years of age

PayPerPost’s paid blogging assignments are referred to as opportunities, or opps. Each opp outlines everything that you need to know in order to successfully write an accurate post. This includes what advertiser, product, service, event, website, etc., you are writing about, the tone the post should have (neutral, opinion, positive, buzz), what link(s)s and anchor keyword(s) you must include, what images, if any, you must include, and the minimum number of words the post should have (50, 100, 200 or 300).

Most opps will also have a transparent tracking image that you will be required to insert somewhere in your post. Some opps may also have a press release or other information that must be copied and pasted into your blog entry.

When you are ready to submit your completed post, you will be required to select the blog the post is on (only necessary if you have multiple blogs listed in the PayPerPost system), and specify the title and permalink URL to the post. Upon submission of a completed opportunity, the post may or may not be automatically approved. It then goes for manual approval, and another manual review right before the blogger receives their compensation.

A blogger is paid exactly thirty (30) calendar days from the date of their submitted blog post. All payments are made via PayPal.