Shannon L.

I used freelancer.com to bid on several different projects and thought I had really begun something promising when Merschen Cord reached out to me and offered the virtual art assistant job, an ongoing project. The initial emails were his offering the project, telling of the way the pay would be ($300 per week paid on each Friday), the work days and times, and working out the instructions for my first task (setting up a website at six.com to showcase his products). I worked for one week to get this website to his approval, then set up merchant accounts (linked to my personal bank account) through square up.com and approval.com. Other than the email contact, I set up an yahoo messenger account that Merschen used to communicate with me on a regular basis. Every now and then he would text my cell phone, telling me he needed me online (outside set work hours) to run a sake through.

By the end of the second week, I continually checked my PayPal account to see if he had transferred my salary, which was the agreement when I began working on his project. However, my pay never came through, in fact no attempt to pay me was ever made. By the third week, I was getting angry and anxious about not getting paid as we had agreed. So, on the third week, I did NO work, but still gave him the opportunity to pay me the salary he owed me ($600.00 by that time), and I allowed him to change the terms of my pay and how I would get paid for the first few months. By my fifth week doing tasks for Merschen Cord, he was telling me a check was being sent to pay me the $900.00 he owed me, this check was supposed to be sent the Wednesday of my fourth work week, then on Monday of my fifth work week, then I was informed I would recieve a check on Wednesday and again on Friday of the same week (work week five). On Monday of the sixth week, I asked if the check had been mailed and again I received a response of "not yet".

I resigned from my position with Merschen Cord and informed him that I was closing any and all merchant accounts I had created for him, and I was shut the operating website down. I don't make idle threats, so I shut everything I had created for his business down. I also informed him of his outstanding debt of $900.00 for my time, which was for three weeks of salary due. I have been resigned from Merschen Cord's virtual art assistant for three weeks now and still have not been compensated for the work I did, nor the agreed upon salary.

WARNING TO ANY AND ALL FREELANCE CONTRACTORS BEING OFFERED WORK FROM MERSCHEN CORD ARTISTRY WORLD OR MERSCHEN CORD: GET A SIGNED, LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT FROM THIS PERSON BEFORE YOU DO OR AGREE TO DO ANY WORK FOR HIM. MERSCHEN CORD WILL NOT PAY YOU THE AGREED UPON COMPENSATION AND WILL CONTINUE TO LIE TO KEEP YOU WORKING FOR HIM.

I LEARNED THIS LESSON THE HARD WAY!

I shop QVC regularly when I find a clearance item I like or want.

I shop Walmart.com regularly when I can't get to the local Walmart store.

I like looking for one in a million deals.