I Was Scammed by LCP
This is really embarrassing to write about, but I do want to get the word out there, so this will be going up on both At Home Mom and Expat Mom.
If you see ads looking for freelance writers, saying they will pay $50 an article, be very, very careful. LCP Publishing is also known as Laray Carr Publishers and there are several contacts, with the most prominent being Hope Hunt.
I wrote 18 articles for this supposed company, which meant I would be paid $900. Not only has that money not been sent, but they have stopped responding to my emails. And I´m not the only one. You can read more about this scam on Deborah Ng´s blog or on Writer Beware. While it is not absolutely 100% conclusive that this is a scam, I feel that there is enough evidence to point to it being one and would definitely recommend that you stay far, far away from this “opportunity”.
The internet is full of scams and sometimes it is really difficult to figure out what is real and what is not. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what was real, but evidently I didn´t. So, I would just like to reiterate . . . be careful when picking up jobs online. In this case, I lost a month´s work, others lost more. The good thing is that no one paid fees, so we are not out of pocket. But it really stings to have worked hard on something and then not get paid your dues.
So, once again, avoid anything to do with Hope Hunt, Laray Carr, or LCP. And do a search on any job that you think might possibly be non-legit, Google is a wonderful tool in this instance!
UPDATE: This company has sent letters out to many, if not all writers, telling them that they will no longer be publishing their work. However, the saga continues. They appear to be continuing, but have changed contact names. Shadra Bruce, Executive Director of Editorial & Publication Development is now the person you need to watch out for. Also, if the names David Person, Quincy Carr or Hope Hunt appear on any writing job, run far, far away! 
UPDATE Oct. 23, 2007: Shadra Bruce has contacted me to let me know that she is not with the company anymore, as they did not pay her either.
turns out it is a scam, or at least a sketchy company. i also wrote articles for LCP and just today received a PDF “letter” from them saying no articles written prior to this date (September 25, 2007) will be published or paid for due to a “misunderstanding” with their writer’s contract. nice, hey?
Carla, I got the same letter. It looks like they just had way too many people figuring out that they were not legit. However, I´m worried that they are planning to continue with the charade and this worries me, for other writers.
Laray Carr/LC Publications/LCP Media signed a contract with myself for TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS to develop all of there websites… when asked for deposits they said “our CEO has been ripped off in the past by freelancers so doesnt like to pay deposits, so we did a deal that we would send over initial concepts then we would recieve the deposit that we asked for…. we sent over the concepts which in there own words “LOVED” did we ever recieve the deposit?! NO! Did we ever have any more contact from them? NO! When we hired a private investigator and they couldnt find any information on the company (at the time) nor the owners (there names didnt bring up ANY information) alarm bells started ringing… we sent an email stating that we’d had a private investigator look into them and was puzzled that they just seemed to be non existant they replied “we decided to have our in house team to do the design work instead, your more than willing to come and meet us at our offices, meet our investors to prove we are real” when we replied to say we would love to fly over from EUROPE to meet them and would gladly pay for the flights ourselves and not bill them, we didnt recieve anymore responces….. are they a real company?! Do they have any money?! Do they have a rich investor?! in my opinon…. HELL NO!
While this one may be a scam don’t give up on writing. I think $50 is a bit much to expect for writing an article online. Right now the going rate is anywhere from $4 to $15 per 400-500 word article.
The pricing depends on your English understanding and how well you can write.
You could also write ebooks or blog posts for other people. To find these just use Elance.com.
Sorry you got scammed I hope it all works out in the end.