Comments on: How Can You Tell if Your Content Has Been Ripped Off?

By: Shadra Bruce

Shadra Bruce — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 17:54:19 +0000

I apologize for anything I said while under contract with LCP. I, too, am one of the many “fools” who worked diligently for this company under the assumption that we were creating something fabulous. At this point, not only have I not been paid, but I have received threats from Roger Owens/Quincy Carr that I will be sued by his “company” for telling people the truth on the blogs–that I never received payment and that I discourage anyone from working for this company without full knowledge of the risk they take. The company owes me at least $7000 that I know I will never see — but I am sorry I didn’t catch on sooner and help more people. Most of us have filed complaints with the FBI and I encourage any of you to do the same. An email address has been set up as well, victimsoflcp@gmail.com, where you can send copies of your contracts and other information to be provided to the authorities. At this point, I am still trying to get an attorney to follow up on behalf of all of us…but since there’s likely no money to be recovered, most attorneys are not willing to help. My words to the writers remain true — LCP DID exercise right of first refusal by sending you that letter, and you can seek publication elsewhere and you DO maintain copyright of your work…I have been able to get two of my features published elsewhere, and I am confident (having edited for six of the magazines) that most of this work is publishable. Should any writer want a copy of their edited article, and wrote for Centerstage, Certified, Urban Wedding, Urban Bride, Urban Flair, or Popular Travel, I will gladly provide you with a free copy of your edited work, which may give you an edge to getting published. I can be reached at desertchild71@yahoo.com.

By: Beth

Beth — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 23:02:14 +0000

oy, vey, I got duped by Hope Hunt and LCP, as well. Better Business Bureau has “LCP Productions” listed as a business in So. California that offers data entry and transcription services. BBB has little info, but notes one unanswered complaint. Wish I’d been smart enough to go to BBB before I worked for LCP — they owe me $250.

Anyway, just for fun, I answered Hope’s email to me with the “not gon’na pay” form letter that we all received. Here is the answer Shadra Bruce sent me:

LCP used right of first refusal to return all rights to all articles to the writers in light of the delay in launching the publications. If you are still interested, please submit the work and I will see that it gets to the assigned editor.

Yeah, right, fool me once…

By: John

John — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:03:11 +0000

how sad this entire LCP-Hope Hunt and all others involved in this apparent twisted scam, how shameful a deceit this has become. within days and even before, the now infamous letter of denial was received and circulated, there were already intenet boards and blogs filling up with heated debates surrounding this. what a disgrace to all this has become. all we can do, is protect our personal information from getting into the wrong hands. check check and recheck those we may be interested in working with. SEARCH THE BOARDS AND FORUMS; thanks to some great ones, we know better now and will serve to help others

By: John

John — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 15:54:47 +0000

just want to say ‘thank you’ for being one of the best resources for freelance writers everywhere.

By: John

John — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:20:09 +0000

interiew PROFESSIONAL sports figures????? singers, record company execs??? with what kind of writers and their experience did this LCP, and HOPE think were being dealt with??? they had NO clue whatsoever of our abilities to take on such HEAVY handed work.. if we could, we surely would NOT be doing it for 50 bucks a pop!! to interview REAL stars of screen and music and stage??? and get …huh… $50.00 when in the real world, that work would get the lucky ones thousands!!! gimme a break.. that should have been the RED FLAG OF ALL RED FLAGS. you cant get out from that one o ‘defenders of hope and such’. because it would be insane to even try and explain it!

By: John

John — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:46:43 +0000

The last few posts here make incredible sense now that i look back. i, without ever having to give any samples or supply a resume was asked to interview STARS in the film and music industy as if i was an insider?!?!? that did, as i look back on conversations with my wife who was also ripped off by them, we would wonder ‘how can they ask for these kind of article, to just pick the ones you want, as if we work for like, entertainment tonite or the like…’ that should have been the BELL that rang off. There were other signs as well. Always saying how much they were LOVING our work…’keep it coming’, etc. never any edits, at least from us. just the word count mattered. we love to write and have been freelancing for some time, but we usually, as most others do, will get something back asking for or showing how, an article needs to be, or could be, changed to meet specific requirements and such. NEVER… gave you a bit of ‘wow, i must really be good’ type of feeling. But if you look back further, this happened as shown on other sites, back in March of ‘07. same thing, same people. Now i ask, what can THEY gain from US? Our written work? I say not exactly; because the work i did was time related to release dates of dvds, movies, etc. to use them at some later point would be ‘old news’… so then, the question came up, ‘what did or could they have gained from us’? how about any and all personal information that we were asked to give? the selling of names, addresses, phone numbers, ss numbers and more, has long been a lucrative black market worldwide… in other words, are our identities being stolen and sold ?? will our credit reports start showing weird things? will we start being bombarded with senseless emails and snail mail?? if not, then what was the point of what was done? in hindsight, it was really foolish of us to have believed this nice, calm speaking, ‘c’mon gang we need more’, type of confidence person… we fell for it hook line and sinker…. 30 PLUS REAL magazines… and some very odd titles ta boot…well. going to be watching how this plays out. I think there may be some real bad stuff going on here. you do not have to hide behind anonymity as those involved have said elsewhere, due to fear of persecution, refusing to give REAL contact information and not replying to simple email requests.. UNLESS you have and are doing wrong.

By: Julie-Ann

Julie-Ann — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:39:47 +0000

We completed a large number of articles for Hope Hunt and LCP. Today Hope sent me an email apparently stating LCP is not paying for anything because of the following rather unbelievable reason – because their own contract didn’t say what they wanted it to?

This company appears to be totally and utterly unethical, although I will of course retract my words if this turns out to be unfounded.

Dear Writer,
On behalf of the Laray Carr Company, I would like to thank you for the article(s) you
have submitted to be published in our magazine publication(s).
Unfortunately, we will not be using your work in our publication(s) because of the
misunderstandings that arose in the current writers’ contract, and the contract’s
inability to express the clear operating terms for usage of articles submitted by
freelance or contributing writers.
To verify our working procedures, we abide by industry standards when working with
writers who submit article(s) for review to be published in any of our magazine
publications. I would like to clarify our policies and procedures for writers who choose
to submit articles to our company

By: Micah

Micah — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 05:49:09 +0000

Hey everyone,
I just read a long comment on http://www.writerbeware.com . I don’t how to link it but it’s under the LCP article, just click on comments to see the latest post.

It is quite informative.

It may appear our worries are for good reason.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 12:27:18 +0000

I know it, and I’m not going to. I’ve got other work to get on with anyways. to be honest, whats really annoying is that if this turns out to be a scam, I’ve been using the fact that I thought I was gonna get published as a reference on my CV.

By: Katharine Swan

Katharine Swan — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:45:57 +0000

More articles?

The benefit of the doubt is all fine and good, but I would still not do any more work until you are paid for what you’ve already done.