Friday, February 25, 2011

Giving a Bad Review

For those of you who have been with me, I'm sure you have read that I put up instructional videos for bead embroidery on a website called Videojug.  They have been up for a few months and I think have been pretty popular.  I actually get a lot of views...in the hundreds...each month.  (To me, that's a lot.)

It all started when I got an email from them about how much they loved my blog and my beadwork.  They said they would really like me to contribute articles and videos to their website and earn money in the process.  I wasn't sure at first and really tried to check them out as best I could.  I read other user reviews, looked at many pages others had done, etc. etc.  They said you could easily make more money on their site than on similar sites.  I'm all for making money...gotta pad that bead fund, you know?  So I finally decided I would give it a try and signed up.  I enlisted the help of my daughter to be the videographer and spent quite a lot of time writing and taping for the site.

Guess what.  Never made a penny.  I couldn't understand how I could never make any money when they said it was so easy and I got so many views to my pages.  I know my pages were pretty good because at one point they ran a contest to see who could post the most judge-approved pages and 11 of my 13 pages had been given the thumbs up.  One thing I couldn't understand about that site on the contest either was that here the name of the site is VIDEOjug and touts instructional and informational pages and the grand prize winner of the contest with the most pages did not have one single video nor were they instructional.  One page, for example, was a 3 paragraph essay about how ad execs never get a lunch.  WHAT???

Anyways, back to making not a penny.  Turns out you have to have ONE THOUSAND views a month to make a few cents.  And even if you got 999, come the first of the month you were back down to ZERO.  I have to tell you that I felt I was incredibly misled, and I feel that my knowledge bank was raided.  You know what?  I would give anyone help who asked me for not a single penny with a happy heart.  But it makes me angry when I feel that I'm taken advantage of.

I'm not one for writing bad reviews, but I have to tell you that I will never go back to this site, and I have taken all my pages down.  And I have "unliked" them on Facebook.  So there.  *sticking out tongue*

3 comments:

Abracadebra Designs said...

Hi Lisa, Wow I am really feeling for you here. At least you got some exposure, maybe. Still what a terrible thing to do misleading people like that. As far as giving bad reviews, thin of it as a public service announcement. You may have saved someone else from the same bad experience.
-Debbie

Carol- Beads and Birds said...

there are people out there that will look for a way to scam anyone.
guess you live and learn, huh. but your tuts are good! so take it in stride and move on to a better place.
xx, Carol

Craftymoose Crafts said...

I guess people can get away with basically anything they want. I am sorry that this happened to you--at least all you lost was your time. For whatever it is worth, I enjoyed watching the videos & took away some nice tips, so I thank you!