There are still things that any respectable company would give you.. and yet, you have to get your own business cards (and you can order it through them.. which many will probably do because they’re lazy). And you’re also suppose to have a different line that is dedicated to USA voice and you’re suppose to mention USA voice in the voicemail and when you answer the phone. Plus, there’s some press pass you’re suppose to print out or something like that… which I’m sure people will just laugh at when they see you try and talk to them with it. Honestly, all this stuff are things that company would just give you.

Anyway, I just went to the site.. wow there are actually people posting up stories. When I read the stories, however, it’s like I’m reading my high school newspaper all over again. You have got to be kidding me. No one is going to take a newspaper seriously if it still sounds like a 16-year-old or 10-year-old wrote it.

assume the website is usavoice.org

assume one of the backers of that website, or the brains behind that website also owns a termite company

assume the article is entitled
\”obtaining a piece of the american dream\”

assume the termite company does a lot of advertising on a bunch of their web sites

every advertisement warns about termites and how their damage to a person\’s home can rob them of \”obtaining a piece of the american dream\”

naturally, everyone who reads the sensational article on the sensational web site is going to tell their friends – they might not remember the name of the website but they WILL remember the title or part of it.

they will go searching for the title or a piece of it.

they will find:

• … a usavoice article with that title
• … pages of ads for the termite company
• they may find the controlling force of both to be a man in florida who owns both usavoice and the termite company
• … that man may have said in an interview something like there are still web suckers out there and i am going to find them and take their money

another example was a couple guys who went around the country selling a get rich on the internet package.

for $500 bucks (sale price) you could attend the seminar and get a software disk that would guide you through to your riches.

mind you, most of the people in that seminar are people whose IT skills add up to the ability to maybe write a short webpage in html with help.

the software package is gobbledegook. you would have to be a genius with years in the biz to install it to find it did nothing. they cannot reach support (there is none) and they give up.

but all through the \”documentation\” the esteemed seminar instructors who have \”gotten rich\” with program tout the phrase \”most used keywords\”

you cannot make the software work but the phrase \”most used keywords\” is stuck in your brain. when you search the web for \”most used keywords\” you find many sites saying they will show you how to get a list of most used keywords. and they will sell you some other stuff while you are there

when you look closer at those web sites you will see they are all from the same template. they look exactly alike. they don\’t have independent urls/domains. they are domainname clones.

you have to follow the crumb trail all the way, from the chicken to the chicken feeder

caveat emptor, everybody emptor, wear your high boots.

if yo momma says she loves you, check it out!

To trust who? Him or her?
I am brought to think of all of those people who held Enron shares, some had 100% of their portfolio in Enron. Most of these were employed by enron, and had the view that the company had their best interest in mind. Never mind that they had been made rich many times over on this stock, and wanted more of the same. The writing was on the wall for all of them, and when it all came down they cried, and wanted blood. Damb those rascals to the low level. For argument, it was they, the share holders who allowed it all to happen. Few things can be counted on in life, but greed, and vanity are solids.
There appears to be no harm in jumping on this sham (usavoice.org} and letting it ride, but when it all comes down, it will be those who participated and should have known better that made it happen.

I think some of the hiring problems arise from dealing with the large number of applicants. They had a backlog of people to contact and apparently haved started speeding up things by having the Reporter’s Back Office available before the prospect completes the multi-step hiring process (group conference call, one-on-one phone interview with an editor and group training call). For the Back Office to function, an editor still has to hire a prospective reporter by pushing a button that transfers the name to a separate file. That has been my experience at least. No one is being forced to activate the office. Editors don’t get reimbursed by the number of people signed up as reporters but by the amount of traffic to the stories filed in their area. It is not to anyone’s advantage to hire someone who doesn’t write articles.

No one told me this venture would be easy or would have a huge financial reward. The people who interviewed me and led my conference calls were very up front that the job would involve building the site. In turn, each person I have spoken to about a reporter’s job knows that as well. It all comes down to expectations in the end. Personally I like being at the start of something with this much potential for changing how people get their news. I don’t think that is being naive. Until someone gives me a real reason to distrust him or her, I try to remain open.

As promised, I will let you know what I find out about the payments, etc., when payday rolls around. Thanks for being willing to share your thoughts with me.

I am a reporter. My editor already quit out of disgust. I am doing a bit of “wait and see” to see if they can get their act together, fix their messed-up website and actually pay people. Meanwhile, I am looking at my stories as a way to build a current portfolio to segue to something better.

I have made previous comments here, and some of my initial worries were unfounded. For example, they haven’t made me turn over my contact list or made any intrusions into my privacy. No one has called my phone to see if I am answering it “USA Voice” – which I am not! Actually, no one except the former editor has contacted me at all.

Here’s the issue – and it’s a BIG issue. This company is operation without transparency, and that in and of itself is making everyone skeptical, insecure, angry or all of the above. Who they are and why they are using porn star names seems to be a popular item for commentary, for one!

But let’s get specific. The site statistics tab in the back office is where we should see displayed the page views and/or click-through or however they are determining our alleged payment basis. It doesn’t. All it shows is how many stories we’ve posted. What a joke.

Second, the fact that no one seems to be fixing their website problems may mean that either they are incompetent, they haven’t paid their web developer, or that everyone has run for the hills! Come on. Do you know, when you try to put in a support ticket, you get an error message? You can’t delete anyone in your mailing list because the delete button doesn’t work. The automatic photo editing system is a disaster and every photo looks distorted. Etc.

Third, no one from their headquarters is contacting us – by e-mail, or back-office posting or whatever – no one is reassuring us that they are doing their job, working through their internal problems, fixing the website, preparing to make payroll, etc. If they wanted to build confidence and have a least some transparency, don’t you think we would be getting status reports? No, you see, they want to keep us in the dark, and that makes people like me very suspicious.

Clearly, they should have done a slower roll-out to get the bugs out of their system. The fact that they are trying to go global right out of the box is likely a function of under-capitalization and poor management. That’s my opinion, anyway.

I have never been asked to provide anything more than my name, phone, mailing address and email address. (The password to log in to the site is NOT the same as the one I use to access my personal email.) In my individual phone interviews with prospective reporters I have never requested any additional personal information; the purpose of the call is to ascertain interest areas and to explain about filing stories. I have spoken with about 25 people who will file reports for the metro area I supervise and most have journalism degrees or experience.

I edit the stories submitted by my reporters and then post them. (An option is to let reporters post directly online but I prefer to check for grammar, spelling, etc.) Copy submitted by my reporters must be factual with attribution and not merely copied from somewhere else. Columns and reviews can reflect the reporter’s personal opinion but must be clearly labeled as such. I agree that the site needs greater direction; it reads too much like a blog in this initial stage.

I have been told that paymentwill be by check on the 10th of the month for the previous calendar month – that means 10/10 will be my first “pay day.” I am hoping for the best for USAVoice because I really enjoy editing copy, making story suggestions, and working from home.

If you are interested in how very shammy USA Voice gets, check out the thread at sportsjournalism.com

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/index.php/topic,28181.0.html

Here you can read a truly lunatic and illuminating and sometimes ponderous tale of ridiculousness, summed up aptly:

Quote from: The Big Ragu on June 29, 2006, 07:19:01 PM
This thread is an early favorite for best of 2006. Who needs hallucinogenic drugs when you can brew a cup of herbal tea and watch Klaas, the media mogul who can’t construct intelligible sentences doing battle with his evil twin Klaas, the reviled internet scam artist? It’s like a modern-day Dickens novel as read through the eyes of a stoner.

RE: Actually, I’m reminded of the scrapyard scene in Superman III.
But that’s just me.

Interestingly enough, 2 of the editors did try to take my concerns up the ladder only to find out nothing and be totally frustrated with the company. So, they wrote back to tell me that they resigned and that they agreed that something is wrong with the USA Voice company

I thought that this email was the most professional text to come out of this process thusfar, however it clearly indicates that I’m not actually “hired” for anything. It basically says to submit to another interview, and to send in some writing for consideration. The email said “If hired, you’ll be able to submit articles right away” — so, now they care about my integrity as a writer… but they don’t sem to care about the kind of writing I was “acepted” in order to do.

The interview questerns:

1. What experience do you have in writing news / feature stories?
2. How long have you been writing? (years, months, days?)
3. What stories and ideas do you have an interest in covering/reporting? (federal topics?, state?, local? colleges? high schools? etc.) (politics? travel? business? sports? reviews? television?)
4. How will you get your news? (Do you have ideas or need direction?)
5. What areas (location) do you plan on covering? (BaltimoreCity, Towson, HarfordCounty? etc.)
6. How far are you willing to travel for a story?
7. How frequently do you plan on submitting articles?
8. Will you be able to provide pictures with your stories?
   (This will greatly help your story gain access to the front page of USAVoice; if that’s your goal.)
9. Have you organized a mailing list of people to read your stories?
10. Assuming that I’d like for you to cover a story about a fire at an apartment complex, who would you talk to in order to gather your information?
11. Is there anything you’d like to say that I didn’t ask?

I have noticed that my spam folder on Yahoo mail has increased 10-fold since signing up on usavoice.org.

Here is the latest email I received from USAVoice.org:

From: “Rick”
To: rick@usavoice.org
Subject: First USAVoice Communique!!
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2006 13:28:50 -0400
Good Morning USAVoice Editors!!!

I really had hoped for my first Editor E-Mail to have a fanfare type acceptance, but I can’t seem to get away from the technical problem corner of the world. Therefore this first piece of news (pun intended) is a quick update on some things that many of you have encountered while managing your team and the site.

Debbie Gerk is no longer employed by USAVoice. Her e-mail is not being monitored and will soon be deactivated. Future inquires should go to managingeditor@usavoice.org or directly to my e-mail address.

I have hired a replacement for the Managing Editor position and will have him start joining the conference calls sometime next week. I appreciate everyone’s offer to help and volunteer – I will definitely be leaning on you – so thank you again!

eMail accounts – I’ve got great news, and then some not so good news. L Our e-mail servers have been restored and everyone now should have access to creating, logging into, and using their email accounts. The bad news is that everyone will need to re-create their email addresses. Mind you, they’ll be the same address, but the need to be reset in the server. Our switch over will take place at 11pm EST tonight, so please re-set your accounts tomorrow morning. Please advise your reporters of the same. Tomorrow should be the first day with our email issues behind us J

Posted Stories – PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE emphasize to your reporters that all stories should have a photo attached and at minimum if they are expecting front page selection the story MUST have a photo. I had a story yesterday that I really wanted to move to the Front Page but it didn’t have a photo. I worked with the editor and reporter and provided a stock photo, but in the grand scheme of things, is something I can’t do for every story.

I’m certain that as soon as I hit “send” I’ll think of 100 other quick items I wanted to touch on, but these were the major issues I had to get out ASAP to help cut down on e-Mails to the help desk, and to make posting Front Page news easier.

We REALLY need business news… Get with your reporters and lets beef up this section. The ARTS page looks very nice. I’m pleased with how that’s progressing. And though very unorthodox, October Jones is getting a lot of visibility to her stories.

Many have asked why we did not feature more 9/11 Stories. This was a conscious decision on my part, which I would be happy to discuss with anyone should you have questions. I promise to keep those decisions at a minimum, but personally, found yesterday to be more personally reflective than take a propaganda approach. Enough said.

A special thanks to Vince, Liz, and Susan for their words of support as I manage 5 e-mail boxes with approximately 1,000 emails in each. J J

Until next time,
Rick
Editor in Chief
USAVoice.org

Later all-
Mike

USA Voice seems to be more a sham than a scam, per se, in my eyes. If they had just called it “Opinion Free-for-All”, waived this ridiculous dedicated phone line provision, abandoned this pretense of real “reporters” and “editors”, and told people they probably wouldn’t make a dime, but might make 1/10th of a cent for every 100 viewers as sort of a fun “bonus”, then maybe it would be OK. Everyone would know the score, have no expectations, and enjoy the idea of getting sort of a free blog for expressing themselves.

Without being an attorney, I feel that the difficulty stems from Truth in Advertising Laws. Have you seen the weight loss ads with the fine print below, “your results may vary” or “results not typical”? The inclusion of this fine print is required for Truth in Advertising. I believe that the initial e-mail solicitation I received was a form of advertising. As such, I believe the following should have been disclosed UPFRONT, e.g.:
USA VOICE is not a recognized journalistic entity and is not a subscriber to any wire services, nor does it have an internal news bureau or any bona fide journalists on its staff. Further, it has no journalistic code of ethics, other than being against plagiarism.
USA VOICE is a marketing company which solicits content from individuals who may or may not have adequate skills to write for the publication, and no guarantee is made that editorial content will be monitored for quality, integrity, proper attribution, or any journalistic standards known to the industry.
USA VOICE makes no representation that writers will make any money from their efforts, and all participants must sign a waiver that they understand there is risk involved, in terms of sweat equity.
Further, USA VOICE discloses that the requirement for a dedicated phone line to be answered “USA VOICE” will cost the writers approximately $25 per month, and that this cost should be construed as a monetary investment required of its participants.
Participants should understand that so-called “Editors” will be making an override on anything click-through revenue a writers’ story generates.
USA VOICE will require you to provide your private e-mail list and also to promote your stories on other forum websites. These are marketing activites and are not normally required of journalists.
Further, USA VOICE makes no representation that it will not sell or use your personal mailing list for its own purposes in the future, so participants must understand they may be indirectly exposing their own mailing list to spammers.

Just to be clear, the above notions are my personal OPINION on what USA VOICE COULD have disclosed if it wanted to be upfront and adhere to Truth in Advertising laws. It is not a legal opinion, just an example of what I feel they could have let everyone know upfront. They recruited me and I actually was stupid enough to think that someone actually gave a damn about my credentials.

1. You are unlikely to be paid for your work.
2. The management has been accused of fraud.
3. The paper has committed plagiarism in the past.

What are they getting out of this?

1. Advertising revenue.
2. Sellable information about the applicants.

Am I missing anything here?

So again, what did the developers of this nastiness tap into that provoked their desired response. Yes, they knew some things about a market that is competitive, and those who want to get in. But easy picking also suggests that those who wanted in were alluding to a desire to see a birth of this “product”. Call it an accidental survey that confirms the idea was a good one, (delivered by a vampire). Why does it warm my heart to think of some good thing coming out of this? One possibility is that no prosecutor or judge would be involved in that path to justice, but there is also the irony.

So Dylan, I trust the wheels are spinning. If I may suggest, and reiterate, there is a lack of humanity on the web, a lack of what Strand was after (not to suggest he ever found it). What we have is what is expected, and then some more of that. I may be failing to understand fully the revenue side of this, but I have some faith that most of humanity have similar views, but take what’s dished. So, yes I live in a wastland composed of petty, self indulgent, facsimilies of individuals, but there are those who break from this, we look at them and are inspired to break free ourselves, to continue to break free anyway. How to present?, don’t quite know. Just one thought.

good luck to all,
don

I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, as they are a start-up company, so I was willing to overlook the sign-up problems on their website. However, when I participated in the conference call, little “alarm bells” started to go off:
1. The slide show was woefully lacking in detail. The revenue share was not adequately explained. Was this revenue from upfront ad buys (which could be very lucrative) or revenue from what are called click-throughs? Maybe I would make only 14 cents a story!
2. In the Q&A period, the speaker started off by saying they were modeling this not on USA Today, but rather on the National Enquirer. That gave me pause right there.
3. The speaker stressed that they wanted people to express opinions. However, when a question was asked about whether such opinions should be stated as such by reporters in the context of the story, the guy had never thought of this, and it became clear to me that no journalistic standards whatsoever had been set for this publication.
4. A further question about whether reporters would have access to the wire services (AP or Reuters) for source information was met with an “I don’t know”. In short, the guy had no idea what wire services were. In short, this told me that this was not being run with real journalists, but rather strictly as an enterprise.
5. Next, it troubled me a bit that their primary concern was getting me to give them my mailing list for their “viral marketing” plan. It was as if they not only wanted us to provide content but also handle their circulation? Come on!
6. The dedicated phone line requirement really annoyed me, and I had been thinking of writing an anonymous letter to their legal department (assuming they have one) until I saw this site we are on now. First, it is stated that we are sub-contractors in the contract. We are not employees and they are not paying for the phones so how can they require us to answer our own phone “USA Voice”? In my opinion, it would be fraudulent to imply that a caller was actually reaching “USA Voice” when in fact they would be reaching my cell phone or whatever. Also, I believe it to be a violation of my First Amendment Rights to dictate how I answer my own phone. Lastly, the dedicated part of it meant they were expecting me to fork out $20 a month for an extra line I don’t need.
7. The last interesting little item that came out in the conference call was that while they were saying how great it would be that we could be assigned to cover a convention by one of their editors, a follow-up question revealed that they were not going to reimburse any expenses for such assignments!

I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt because I love to write and I was getting quite excited about a column I wanted to write. What disturbs me the most is that with the proper journalistic integrity, sufficient start-up capital and a proper revenue-sharing business model, the whole concept could have been great. It is a crying shame that the founders, whoever they may be, clearly don’t give a damn. And now, neither do I.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=07156865aa3a4bfae2fa8a7100a80fd0&topic=28181.msg731359

I did some background checking on klaas and found this as an interesting source, however this article is all I could find on klaas jr since I don’t know dutch or whatever language half the pages google turned up were written in. anyhow, the one source I found is:

http://easybackgroundchecked.com/klaasdevriesjr.htm

the original article at the bottom of above link can be found here, it was copied exactly :

http://express-press-release.com/17/Les%20Henderson%20and%20Klaas%20DeVries%20Jr.%20the%20biggest%20internet%20scam%20artists%20today.php

Anyhow, just thought I would share my research with you people. I will let you draw your own conclusions.

A recent article in The New Yorker addresses some of these questions, with regard to the wikipedia. The wikipedia is an open publication, with a sort of anarchy as an editorial policy, yet they’ve managed to create a worthwhile “publication”.

I think a news publication online, with a setup like the one USA Voice proposed, would have to navigate a similar passage, finding a comprimise between open participation and good editing. I’m working on a post for early this week about this sort of thing. Meanwhile, take a look online at “The National Gazette”.

You guys are writers, photographers, and editors, what do you think? Should we try again, to participate in something like that?

how droll life must be for some. Yes there were those who were stupid, taken in, and lead by who knows what to entertain this sordid scam, so what. I spend most of my time being stupid, I find it very relaxing. The point is that this road side table on the www is very entertaining. Go ahead and glue a quarter on the floor and spend your afternoon watching people try to pry it up into their greedy little hands. Rather uncivil, low brow stuff, and your morals wouldn\’t allow it, but there are times when this is what we need in life, or so, shallow self-indulgent people like myself do. The previous example was a metaphor by the way. But, I will pray tonight that whatever else I may become, or whatever delusions I may succumb to, that I will never bloviate in such a way as the passage above; all due respect.

People here continue to ponder how people can do what they do, be how they are, lick their wounds in the company of the wounded. Forget it. This is good stuff. It\’s humanity.

Should the perps be put up on the block, publicly spanked, made to give a five thousand word apology? Someone should do it, but I wouldn\’t waste my time. usavoice.org is doing its thing, preying on hope and dreams, and perhaps, producing better writers, in an incremental way. The lesson here will not produce positive results for all, but this is not dreamland, and peace will more than likely have to wait for another day.

I was recently offered an Editor position for the Twin Cities. Silly me! I did the conference call and listened. It all sounded easy and appealing. I waited for the email to follow-up after the call. Never did get the 1-on-1 I was told would happened afterward.
Anyway, I too fell victim to the scam but and now choosing to be the victor and turn as many people off to this as possible.

Notice, there is not contact info on the site. Even the “passwordhelp@…” email has been returned to me serveral times, stating it’s not a valid address.

It’s too bad as I’ve always wanted to work in journalism.

Sincerely,

Amy

And just because we did so, doesn’t make anybody stupid or uneducated; we made a mistake. And again, as I stated before, I am thankful to those who posted to let me know what USA Voice was up to before I went any further with them.

Peace

So what would a legitimate usavoice.org have looked like I wonder still, and more importantly, who would read this? What the world needs now is another web-zine, like I need a hole in my head, (credit to Cracker). People signing out with “peace”, or people writing in stream of conscience, while driving nude down the Dan Ryan after a long lost wk.end would be the best we could hope for. Could we really expect people with “Excellent Writing skills
Innate ability to find the truth
Ability to be objective and leave personal biases behind” to bring in the readers, and revenues needed to make this mighty task happen? I would suggest that those who have written here have been much more interesting than what the reality of usavoice.org would have been. This is accidentalism at its best, and why I love the web so much.
Thanks to all, and I do mean that

this conversation wouldn\’t be possible without two conditions. The first is that the \”scam\” was convincing enough to fool people, initially at least. The second is that, of course, the evidence is out there to adequately imply the fraudulant activity. Your question, then, is how can these two things co-exist? That\’s a good question.

Anyone? What made you \”fall for it\”? Don\’t be afraid to look stupid. I think we all, at least for a second, considered the possibility that this might be the real thing — or else how could we have determined that it wasn\’t?

I \”fell for it\” becvause I was out-of-work, and I applied for absolutely everything that came down the line. On the internet, this is easy to do. (You know \”shoot everything that moves\” — and USA Voice was moving to the tune of thousands of employment ads.) Generally, an approach like that gets results out of only a small percentage of the overall attempts, thus the large number of attempts. In my haste, I got sloppy, and some critical details evaded me.

Another one of those highfallutin university lessons to be unlearned — do a lot of work at once, and let the chips fall where they may.

I agree that this is just one of life’s lessons. As I live, they will not be unavoidable. This surely wasn’t the first and will not be the last. It even wasn’t one of the worst.

However, I wasn’t looking for an ego boost. If that is what I wanted, I have people around me for that. I don’t need it from strangers.

Like most of those who wrote, I was looking for employment. A job. A career. It is what puts a roof over my family’s heads, clothes on my family’s asses, and food in my family’s mouths. Provisions for them is not going to fall from the sky. That for damn sure. There is nothing self-serving or egotistical about that. I wasn’t looking to turn one dollar into a million in the blink of an eye.

As for the scam, it didn’t work. That’s the whole point of this webpage. People have enough sense to question instead of accepting something at face value. My point (as I stated before) is that I don’t have time to waste on the okey-doke. I posted my resume online for employment positions, not to be used for some bull. If you want to play, go to Toy-r-Us or Chucky Cheese. I don’t have the time nor the energy. There was no personal reward in telling me you have an employment opportunity for me when you know damn well you don’t.

My “fine” university taught me book sense. My family taught me common sense. Anybody with any sense will know the different between the two.

I do.

Peace

The larger point here is that it has worked so well. How do college educated citizens of the most advanced society heretofore fall for this? I dare suggest that we really don’t mind being scammed, if there is a percentage chance we get some reward, call it roulette of the ego. I’m sure the planners of this e-zine understand this as they perpetrated their devious deeds.

Most of those who wrote above should consider this experience a valuable one, perhaps equal to a semester at the fine univerities that failed to teach that the world can be a dastardly place.

Good luck to all, and please, don’t take any wooden nickels.
don

Do a web search for “Alec Defrawy” to learn all you need to know.

I too got the flattering letter, but thought nothing of it because I was very extensive in giving my news background and felt that I was a good fit for the company. I signed up for and even listened to the conference call.

It was at the call that I became concerned. The 2 things that really stuck out were that a conference call that was said to last from 90 minutes to 2 hours lasted only about 10. I understand having a large question and answer period, but 80 minutes and only 10 minutes of presentation? Seemed strange.

The second and more important point came when a potential reporter asked who was behind USA Voice. A very resonable question. Who was going to be signing our checks and who were we going to work for?

The answer stunned me. The speaker told us the “company behind USA Voice wished to remain anonymous.” What?!?!?! So, you’re telling me that this “company” wants to launch the “biggest” news organization in the world, but doesn’t want to tell anybody who they are? Plus, we as employees are supposed to blindly put faith in this company that their checks and their word will be good without knowing who they are? I mean seriously, we’re Journalists for Christ’s sake. Journalists are the most skeptical and curious people out there do they think we won’t find out?

Also news like many other public forums is an ego business and if it were I who had started USA Voice I’d be talking to everybody about it.

That’s when it dawned on me the thing that was nagging at me from day 1 that I ignored: Where were the reports and articles on USA Voice? I mean a new news source claiming to be the biggest in the world, claiming to be for online news what CNN once was for cable news IS news in itself. Surely some reporter somewhere would have written or talked about how great/awful this new “news outlet” would be. So, I started my search. And so far I have found…..nothing. That’s right nothing. Not one news clipping, not one news commentary, not one headline or rant or even mention of USA Voice at all. It seems the only people taloking about USA Voice … is USA voice or web bloggers. And those web bloggers have nothing good to say. In fact many of them have done a good job of making links to the whole thing being a scam. Someone on here noted the plagerism of CNN and BBC and another site has connected USA Voice to a man who’s got a rap sheet longer than my arm (including child abuse, idenity fraud, among many others) and more aliases than Jennifer Gardner’s TV character.

In conclusion I was contacted by USA Voice and asked to submit an article and to schedule an editor interview to finalize the process. I replied back questioning USA Voice’s validity and their dealings with this lifelong criminal. I also asked once again who is running USA Voice and for proof of their validity. I told them should I not hear back or should USA Voice not be able to answer these simple questions then I would warn others aginst dealing with them… As I type, I’ve heard nothing, but who knows, if these people are criminals maybe some guy will be waiting for me at my house to give me a “talking to”

I do hope I’m wrong, because I think something like USA Voice could really by fantastic, (hell somebody here should start a real “USA Voice”) Sadly, I feel I have to agree that this is a scam and that I’m a dope for falling for it.