ChaCha Pay Lies and Scams: Working for Free and Deactivations
Table of Contents:
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I. Introduction
II. Press Releases and Articles
III. New ChaCha Front Page “Enhancements” Scam
IV. Pay Me Now Fees Scam
V. Working for Free and Deactivations
VI. ChaCha Archives
When you get paid to work by the hour, and are punched in, the duties you are asked to do aren’t for free. At ChaCha you don’t get paid by the hour, but only when you are actually in a Live Search with an infoseeker. So if you are not in a search with an actual infoseeker you will not be getting paid.
Adding to the previous point from the article ChaCha New Front Page “Enhancements” Scam I want to give you an idea of what I am talking about here. The guide application is set up so that the results you display to infoseekers must be categorized so that they can be put into the search database. Whether or not this categorization is accurate or not is really of little importance to this discussion, and that can be argued by those that actually want to debate how good ChaCha is as a place to search for answers.
Now recently live guides have been asked to do a bit of overtime. It isn’t required, but certainly encouraged. When a session with an infoseeker ends, guides are asked to optimize the results that they have given to the infoseeker. This means that they can go in and re-categorize and make sure that they have the best results possible for the ChaCha database. Now the concept is great actually for ChaCha and ultimately the database. Of course guides don’t actually get paid to do this. This is just extra work they can do out of the kindness of their hearts. Since I mentioned int he last section that the consensus is that guides may be phased out eventually to a much smaller role this is something else that most would argue contributes to that. Not only are guides working for free, but they are also adding to a database that is trying to become its own stand alone search database that will work with out live guides.
Besides this request, how many of you guides have been in a search, and subsequently found the application locking up and then taking your pay away? This happened to me all the time. A few pennies here and a few pennies there adds up when you only make pennies doing this low-end money maker. ChaCha says they will pay you if you take the time to pull all th info related to the search, time, etc. and submit it to them. Seriously this is for about 20 cents in most cases so not many are going to do it. Then you would have to wait for weeks to even get a response on it if you did.
I never really checked this from search to search when I did it because I just assumed that their software worked reasonably well enough to keep track of it. Looking at your earnings page after every search shouldn’t be something you had to do. So one day I decided to look at my hours and do the math. What I came to find out is that almost 1/3 of my time was free. This wasn’t going over the time limit time either. At that time the time limit was 20 minutes so it never occurred, but maybe once in a blue moon. I contacted ChaCha with my question on why my pay was not being credited. They had the nerve to ask me to go through my entire earnings history and track down every single instance of when I may or may not have been paid when they would likely have access to much more detailed reports on my account. Can you believe this? At this point I would have had hundreds of pages to go through between trainings and real searches to find all these instances. I responded by telling them that I did not have time to go through such a scavenger hunt and that my stats clearly showed I did the work. All they had to do was look at it and see themselves. Suffice to say I never got a response after 3 more inquiries and never got paid either.
ChaCha Guide Deactivations
There are quite a few stories going around about ChaCha Guide Deactivations. Most are deserved and the guides will not argue the fact in these cases. What they do argue is that they were not compensated for any of the money left in their accounts after they were terminated even though they performed the work. This is why the ChaCha’s Pay Me Now Scam is such an issue. Guides are afraid to keep their earnings in their accounts for fear of a possible deactivation with out warning. They pull their earnings more often than they would want to, and therefore incurring a $2 fee that goes to ChaCha every time they do.
Just the story of guides not being paid when deactivated being out there forces many to use that Pay Me Now button more than they would like. They don’t trust ChaCha. Many fear they will be deactivated for silly reasons, and frankly there are those that have been. They may get locked out and have to go through a process of e-mailing, or even talking to the HQ to get the situation taken care of. This could take days and even weeks.
Then when guides are deactivated they are looking to get the money that was in their accounts. Most of the time the guide was deactivated for one instance. One search where they got flippy with an infoseeker, or just were having a bad day and got reported by a prankster. This may have been 20 cents they earned in that search, but ChaCha may be holding a couple hundred dollars they earned previously and only if you contact them and complain will you ever get that money back.
Take a look at this story from a guide who was deactivated and owed $441.80 that he had left in his account here.
Interesting read on his struggles with the deactivation as well as the timeline for him ever getting his money that he was owed.
ChaCha’s “Guide Agreement” is so vague that anyone who reads it should understand that it is so lopsided to favor the rights of ChaCha that you may think you are reading a work of fiction. They do nothing to make anyone think they will not be gouged out of their account money anywhere if they happen to be deactivated so they again have that nice little scam going for them to help add to that Pay Me Now Fees Scam. Everywhere you look with ChaCha they are looking to squeeze the guides out of some cash using fear tactics, and just plain lying.
What a great company. You RahRahs should be ashamed of yourselves for coming here and trying to justify how this company is run. Beta my ass. This is something that sounds better served for the Indiana Labor Board than talking about how “It’s still in Beta”.
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Filed under: ChaCha, Computers and Internet by JMH
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- ChaCha Pay Lies and Scams: New Front Page | JMH Techtronics
- ChaCha Pay Lies and Scams: Pay Me Now Fees Scam | JMH Techtronics
- ChaCha Pay Lies and Scams: Press Releases and Articles | JMH Techtronics
- ChaCha Guide Pay Lies and Scams | JMH Techtronics
Thanks for the info. I don’t want to waste my time on things that don’t work.
This is really interesting. I have never even heard about ChaCha until now. I am going to have to do some more research on this. Thanks for the post.
I had almost 5000 searches with Chacha since I had started last Oct. I did make a lot of money to, at this point since last oct over $4000. But the other day I was suspended for 7 days accused of enteraining a prankster. Now in the begining of the search I have no idea I was being pranked I was trying to help find emergency first aid for an animal. I spent over 7 minutes trying to help this person, it wasnt untill the end of the search I realized he was a prankster and i ended the search. but i was posting links and trying to be helpful. Now I feel like a fool, I cant work the rest of the week, and at this point I dont think i want to any more. it isnt worth my time to sit in front of my computer for over 8 hours and only make a couple of dollars.
Chacha was good when it started, now it doesnt suck enough, and i feel so screwed.
Thanks much for this article, I was acctually half way through the trainig process while reading this. I can see what a horrid waste of time this chacha thing is.
No problem. Reason I wrote it so people wouldn’t waste their time on it. I know some people still do it, and think it is great, but I found it a huge waste of time too.
I’m leaving ChaCha because they recently decreased pay for all guides by half! I was earning $.20 per search, now it will be half unless I do a minimum of 300 searches per week with a high performance level. However, ChaCha provides no way for guides to know what their performance level is. Here’s what they say–
Each week, a Guide’s performance is tallied against the Top Guide requirements. Guides who achieve Top Guide status will be paid at $0.20 per answer for the following week (Sunday-Saturday). The balance of Guides will continue to be paid at $0.10 per answer, until the following week when performance is evaluated again.
ChaCha has recently started having serious “trouble” with their Payment plans. Many guides are simply not getting their funds when they clicked on their “Pay Me Now” button or not getting their money from the Pay Me Monthly option.
ChaCha seems to not care about immediately fixing this problem despite guides waiting over a month. There needs to be serious legal action taken against these cheaters.
Yes, ChaCha is a waste of time-that’s why I have made 3,000 in 3 months as a ChaCha guide. BTW, you can use pay me monthly to bypass the $2.00 fee. Works like a charm!
This is insanity. ChaCha is not a scam. I have been a Guide since early November, 2008 and I have made well over $200, and I have gotten PAID, as in, I have used the money to buy things. You get paid by how many questions you answer, there is no set time or schedule, and you can do it whenever you feel like it. There is a $2 fee for the Pay me Now option because it’s pure convenience, in what regular job can you tell the boss “Okay, give me my money RIGHT NOW!”. If you check the ChaCha forums, you will see that basically nobody cares about the fee, if you make a bunch of money $2.00 is nothing. I couldn’t care less where that $2.00 goes to. And there is no fee for the Pay me monthly option. I love ChaCha, and so do all it’s workers. Become educated before you write a bullcrap article on something you know nothing about.
I have been having real issues with working at ChaCha and feel like I am scammed. I work as an expeditor and it is starting to feel like this job is not worth the lame pay. I worked for 2 hours. It was busy I didn’t have down time and I made $3. That is not worth my time at all. I haven’t logged in for over a month and probably won’t again. ChaCha is a scam and as they keep changing things they will eventually get rid of the guide role all together and have nothing but form answers. Those who say they have made good money only have done so as a guide and soon their job will be wiped out, so don’t listen to them. ChaCha is a scam – they keep adding to the job duties of certain positions and paying less. ChaCha is not worth your time if you want to make money.
The people who make up the ChaCha guide community are there by choice! We, and I say this as someone who’s been a guide for 2 1/2 years, get to choose when we work and when we get paid.
ChaCha contracts to pay the price of their choosing for each questions you complete. They are offering a price and it’s up to the guide if they want to work for that price. Like any business they are looking for the lowest price that meets their needs. In the current economy that means they can, and have, lower the average price they pay per answer. NO different that the UAW auto worker who are taking wage cuts to keep their jobs.
ChaCha has paid every dime that was legitimately earned by a guide. If you got caught gaming the system (cheating) you were deactivated, (fired). If someone disagreed with that action the guide agreement give them the right to have it arbitrated, by a neutral party, under the BBB Arbitration Program.