In February 2012 I was hired by Caraccessories.com to write content for their website. I was referred to them by a website developer I had worked with several times. I interviewed Elena, the principle person in the company and wrote the copy, which was followed by a revision. It was then posted on their Home Page and repeated on the About Us page. I submitted an invoice for $130.00.

Elena said it was higher than she expected, but that she would pay it and asked me to give her time to do so. I said okay. But as time passed, she continued to put me off with the excuse that business was bad until I finally decided this was simply a ploy. I confirmed this when I contacted the website developer and learned that Caraccessories.com still owed him money too.

It was now June 2012. Four months later and she couldn’t afford $130.00? So I sent her the letter below.

To: ask@caraccessories.com

Elena,

The content I wrote for car accessories has been posted on your site since February and I’ve contacted you about this several times. I’m referring specifically to the content on your Home Page http://www.caraccessories.com/ and your About Us page http://www.caraccessories.com/about.

It’s now June 20!

I can survive without the $130 I invoiced you for the writing. But it is completely unacceptable for you to publish my content on http://www.caraccessories.com without paying for it. Since you haven’t paid for it, you don’t legally own it. I do.

Therefore, you have until Thursday, June 28, 2012 to either pay for the content or remove it from your site. If you decide to remove it, then you owe me $80 for 4 months rent. I’ve already sent you an invoice with my address on it and also sent it in a previous e-mail. Or you can pay through PayPal. My account is associated with this e-mail address.

If on Friday morning, June 29 you have not paid and the content is still on your site, I will immediately report the matter to http://www.writersweekly.com.

Ctudor

After this e-mail, Elena agreed to pay me $25.00 a week through PayPal until the debt was paid. She asked me to send her a PayPal invoice for $25.00 which I did on June 21. But she never paid it. I sent her a reminder invoice and received no response. I sent a second PayPal invoice the next week and again, no response.

She finally contacted me July 20 and again said business was bad and she didn’t have the money to pay. But her site is still online and my content is still on it.
So she has somehow managed to stay in business for nearly 6 months, but she doesn’t have the money to pay me? But she is sourcing money from somewhere and paying someone or she wouldn’t still be in business, right? So I no longer believer what she says. Would you?

Along with the e-mail above, I have a complete history of e-mail documentation that demonstrates my working relationship with caraccessories.com. It’s now July 23 and Caraccessories.com has not paid anything, but still has my content posted on their site.

I can live without the $130.00. But it is completely unacceptable to me that caraccessories.com continues to illegally publish my content on their website. I would like others to know about the unethical behavior of caraccessories.com. I don’t recommend anyone doing business with them.

I recently submitted an official complaint about www.caraccessories.com to the U.S. Department of Justice website. I was contacted by a law enforcement officer and interviewed. I submitted multiple e-mails between myself and www.caraccessories.com to demonstrate the working relationship.

The officer then contacted www.caraccessories.com and informed them they needed to pay for the content they published on their site. They still haven't paid!

I am amazed they are so determined to get away with illegal behavior and even defy a law enforcement officer! That's pretty smug.

Perhaps if other writers will post on this thread, it will gain seo traction. And when someone types "car accessories" into a Google search, up pops this thread? I've seen it happen before.

My conversation with the law enforcement officer took place in December 2012, shortly before Christmas. Since I heard nothing after that, I followed up the first week of January 2013. I explained to the officer that www.Caraccessories.com had not responded in anyway. The officer said there was nothing else she could do and that it was a civil manner. So here I am, back at the beginning. And www.caraccessories.com continues to operate its business with my content published openly on the About Page of www.caraccessories.com. It's really not about the money for me and I don't think it is for www.caraccessories.com either. It's knowing they can cheat someone openly on the Internet and get away with it.

Caraccessories.com is publishing stolen content on the About Page of their website. They hired me to write it, published it on their site, but never paid me for the work. It’s been over a year now and they still haven’t paid. So any pretense about lacking money to pay is a flat out lie.

Caraccessories.com sells after market automobile accessories like automobile floor mats, seat covers, dash mats, cargo liners, and side window deflectors.

There are many other online car accessories dealers that are honest and trustworthy. Caraccessories.com isn’t one of them. I highly recommend that you buy your car accessories from someone else.

Even when a law enforcement officer contacted caraccessories.com and told them they needed to pay me for the content posted on the caraccessories.com About Page, they still refused to do so. Not only is that dishonest, it’s smug.

Help pass the word.