Soap Box Time

Well, there is one thing that is very near and dear to my heart that I have yet to blog about. Shame on me for this!

The environment, mother nature, the green earth and the blue waters. We need to be taking care of these very precious commodities. While you may think that this blog is due to the big Earth concert this past weekend, it isn't. Those that know me, will laugh while they tell you that I do in fact hug trees and they have seen me do it. They think I am insane when I tell them to hug one as well. Hey, until you have done it, don't knock it. It is a truly energizing experience.

There are times that I have journeyed into the middle of the forest, just to sit and listen to the trees. As I pointed out to my husband the last time we walked through the woods, have you ever noticed that not all trees sway a breeze. Have you ever stopped to listen to them talk? You should, part of the problem with our society is that we are not intune with mother nature.

There are simple little things that you can do to "go green" and not totally change your way of life, so there goes that excuse.

For example, when you shower, brush your teeth during your shower. Try to keep that shower to three minutes. Do you realize that the water you use in a 3 minute shower is more water then a person in Africa uses for an entire day for all their needs. Stop and think about that.

What's her name, Tyra Banks, believes in only flushing when needed. Which I assume means after going number 2 or multiple times of number 1. Ok, sorry Tyra, that is just nasty. Because the smell that is created is toxic enough, please flush.

Use refillable water bottles. Even if you are recycling, refill them.

Check out and up and coming website all about the going green and the funny stories that go along with it. www.beturtle.com!

I highly recommend it, and who knows I may become a writer for them as well. I hope anyway.

Oh! Speaking of writing. I gave up the note book and went to the laptop. Even though I used recycled note book paper.... I still used to much of it. So now, Word is my friend and it all gets saved on the computer. Mistake = delete!

Be kind to mother nature!

Paypal Update

My paypal frustrations have come to an end. I now have access to my money.

I have been issued a warning though, that I better not use paypal in association with 6 x 6 million. Whatever! As I stated, I never did use them.

But the website that caused such a problem is disabled so they don't have to worry.

Frustration with Paypal Continues!

I have to tell you that I am still incredibly frustrated and very unhappy with paypal.

After finally getting a response on what to do to resolve the issues and have my funds released. Well... I have tried to go in and follow what they adivsed doing. Which was having the paypal information removed from the website that is causing the problem and I needed to accept the Acceptable User's agreement online.

Well, after your paypal account is set up initially and you accept all of thier terms, when you go back in to your account there isn't a way to re-accept the agreement. You can read it, but that is the extent of it. I have tried contacting them three times asking them how to accept the online agreement when it does not give me the option to accept it and they have not responded. Nor are they releasing my money to me.

Now, let me explain the website that caused this problem. Five months ago, I spent six dollars and got a 6x6miilion business. It was six dollars to see if it worked. They put up your website for you with payment information, paypal is one of the options a person has to make a payment.

Ok, you may be sitting there thinking why would I waste my money. Well, part of what I do for a living is investigate internet scams and report about them on one of my other blogs so that YOU don't have to waste the money to find out on your own. So that is why I did it. It was only six dollars, one of the cheapest sites I have investigated and no I have not made one penny from them. Which is pretty much what I expected.

If I was to post my paypal account, you would see that there has never been any money sent or recieved from that website. Never, not one. As I said the other day all my funds come from the clients that I write for.

Paypal doesn't care it seems. They state that the 6x6million website is a MLM. Using paypal then to send or recieve payments from such sites is considered a violation and they can then close your account and hold your funds for 180 days. Which is precisely what they are doing.

I have contacted the website designer and asked that not only my information be removed but that they deactivate my site. Which is one term to have my paypal account restored. The second of course is accpeting the Acceptable Use Agreement online. Which there is no option when you go in, to re-accept it.

Paypal though I have contacted them three times trying to understand how to accept and agreement that there is no option for, they seem to have better things to do then respond.

Seeing as how I can not live with out being able to get paid, I went into one of my other paypal accounts... I had to go through my paper work, I knew I had other accounts but couldn't remember the information for them, one had a zero balance and the other had a balance of .65. One of them I closed and the one with the .65 I went in and updated and gave that information to my clients.

So paypal wants to play games so though I said it was to big of a hassle to set up another account, it wasn't that big of a deal to up date an older account.

This would be my adivse to you. Always have atleast two paypal accounts. It simply requires you to have two email addresses. Yes you can only assign a bank account to one and only one paypal account, the way around this is to have your checking account on one paypal account and the savings account on the other. This is precisely what I did and I am now able to get paid while I wait for my funds from my other paypal account to be released from prison.

I suppose what makes me the most angry is that I never "used" my paypal account to send or recieve money from the 6x6million website. The money that they are holding was not generated from that site, and they know that. Therefore, if they want to limit my account or close, fine but there is no reason for them to hold my funds for 180 DAYS! Does holding money for that long make it come from somewhere else? I don't get it.

So if paypal decides to repsond and tell me how to accept thier agreement I will have to let you know. As it stands right now, they aren't. And I am going to go through thier agreement again and get out my legal books and challenge what it is they are saying.

Upset with Paypal

Did you read your paypal user agreement and guidelines.

Well I skimmed over them, I have been a paypal member for five years. I have never had a problem with them up unitl today. I get up this morning to get an email that states my account has "limited access" and I am advised to login to my paypal account and see what I can do to fix the situation.

I login only to find that my account has actually been closed and my funds are being held captive for 180 days. I am sure that you are wondering why in the world this would happen. I am going to tell you.

A number of months ago, I signed onto a website in an effort to supplement income that as far as paypal is concerned is an MLM site. This is a violation of paypal terms and usages. I would have to say in all fairness that this was five months ago. FIVE MONTHS AGO.

Even more astounding is that not once have I recieved money through the MLM website to my paypal account nor have I sent money in regards to the website through paypal. Not once. Not one penny. My account history will show that the only money I recieve is from my employer, where I am a staff writer for their company. Which is NOT an MLM. I also recieve money from a couple other clients that I write for. Paypal made all of our lives easier and allowed me access to my money quicker then waiting for a paper check. Also I have two clients that will only send your payment through paypal.

So while I can't not work, and jeopardize my position as a writer, I also am left with a nice chunk of change being help hostage by paypal and I will not be able to receive the payments that I have coming this week.

I know, you are thinking why not create another account. Well, that requires a new email and that I have to have a seperate bank account. Because did you also know that if your bank account is tied to another paypal account it will not let you use the same bank account for another paypal account.

It is a pain in the ass!

So I called paypal this morning trying to get things worked out. I was given an email address so that I could contact a different department that would actually be able to help me resolve this issue. No phone number for them. So I now sit and wait for them to respond in hopes that I will be able to get paid for my work, and get MY money that paypal is holding captive.

I am not very happy with paypal as you can see. There was no warning, even sent me a new debit card and then the next day closed my account. Lovely isn't it...

I could understand if I had actually used paypal against the rules. But I didn't.I t just so happens that there is a website where my information for payment includes paypal. Though no funds have ever entered or left my paypal account in regards to that website.

I will have to let you know how this is resolved. Meanwhile, I will figure out how to receive my money for writing.

Another Way to Find Me

Apparently if you do a search for Jennifer Shakeel, my writer resume will pop up.

Just thought I would add that for you as well. :)

My Professional Blog

I have been asked how someone can go and find my work on the web. My husband has been trying, which I think is great.

So this is how you will find me on the web. Do a search for jen shak. That is my pen name. If you do that the first three or four pages that will pop up are mine. Going to these sites you can then link to my other work.

My professional blog, where there are samples of articles that I have written for clients can be found at http://soitwillbe.blogdrive.com (my pen name on that site is WillowSpeaks)

My blog where I write my own articles for my self can be found at http://timeswellspent.blogspot.com.

There is also a link to all my blogs on this page.

I wanted to make sure everyone knew how to find me!

PLR for Content

I've been doing a lot of reading lately about Private Label Rights (PLR) content. I used to think that it was only for lazy people who didn't want to do their own writing. But as I learn more, I've come up with lots of great ways I can use PLR in my own business.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, PLR is content that you get from the original author along with their permission to use it as your own. So you can get a great report, put your name on it and have your own product to sell or give away!

The first couple of products I created using PLR only took me about half an hour. There have been a few sales so far from them so that was definitely time well spent.

When searching for PLR content to use, I found there were a lot of different types of sites available. Some offered monthly memberships and others offered just one time purchases. So be sure to look around before you decide where to buy.

The site I found that was by far the best was PLRWholesaler. Not only do they have an unbelievable amount of content, but it's completely FREE. Most sites charge an arm and a leg for the amount of content that this guy is giving away.

And although I haven't been through everything yet, what I have read is very good quality. It's stuff you would actually want to use as your own.

Since it's free, I highly recommend that you check out PLRWholesaler and see if they have anything that you can use in your business. There just may be an ebook or audio recording that you could quickly brand with your information and start selling to your list.


Check it out and let me know what you think...
http://plrwholesaler.com/download/clk.php?pid=2&a=7351

My Girlie Girl

My daughter has just returned from her very first cross country travels alone. She has come back a different person. Which is good and bad. She isn't the same little twelve year old I put on the plane, she came back a more grown up, and more of her own person. It is a beautiful thing to see, but also sad because she is my baby girl.

The point of this, is that she came back with a book idea and she really wants to write. That is a part of her that wants to take after me :), so I have set up another blog specifically for her.

It is called Book Train and you will be able to check it out for book reviews that she has written, as well as her own creations. She is a very talented artist and her writing has really improved. So I am proud to be able to help her get her writings out there.

Please view her blog!

Time Away for Doing What I Love

I must apologize for my time away. I have been very busy writing and making money at it.
It has been a very liberating experience to be able to do what I love and make money at it consistently.

There are plenty of places on the internet, that if you enjoy writing you can write and get paid for it. Granted you may not always being doing the most creative writing on the planet, half the time you are writing various forms of research articles but it pays.

I would recommend to anyone that wants to make a living at writing to check a couple freelance sites. Two of them that are really good, and free are online-writing-jobs.com and freelancer.com. Both of these sites post jobs daily for freelancers to bid on. Project range from data entry, transcribing, web page design and so on. Really it is worth you spending ten minutes to sign up and check out what they have to offer because you never know where it will lead.

That is actually how I ended up with both of my paying writing jobs that are consistent. There were two different projects posted asking for writers and if you were a good writer and reliable and could perform consistently it may lead to full time work. That was what I was looking for. I don't mind having to bid on jobs and wait for the job to close and the posting client decide what bid to accept and then you find out if you got. You can make more money that way, but it isn't consistent and it takes time. So I recommend finding the ones that offer steady work while you are bidding on the rest.

There are some sites that you can go to and apply to be a writer such as www.letterRep.com, www.suite101.com, www.PreschoolRock.com. I am in the process of checking these out now and I will update you on what I found.

You can check out Need-An-Article.com, they are very good, reliable and helpful. You have to submit a writing sample and follow thier guidelines and then they decide whether or not to put you on staff. They don't pay "big money" but they offer consistent money. You set what you make based on how much you write.

Check back tomorrow to see what I have to say about those three sites.