How Helium.com Denied Me Over $300 in Cash, Content and Contest Winnings - How to Avoid Getting Banned or Scammed

This is the story of how I lost $300, almost 300 articles and hundreds of hours of my time to Helium.com. Additionally, Helium has kept the revenue-generating content I submitted to their site, but refuses to reimburse me for my contributions. Once you read this you should either (1) be convinced that Helium.com is a scam site and not worth investing your time and potential into or (2) know how to avoid losing what you do make on Helium. A potential participant should be immediately suspicious: one Helium.com-sponsored Google Adsense links claim you can "Write to Win $15,000." This is highly misleading. Even if someone took first place for every week of their Write to Win contest they would only win $1,800.

Nonetheless, I spent a long, hard week writing to win just one $300 prize. I was sitting at my computer at 6:30 AM (PST) on the last day of the contest, finishing off what I thought was my last submission (of between 100 and 200 articles for the contest alone). With two and a half hours to go, I was positioned somewhat securely in first place, poised to win the $300 first prize. I knew the person in second place might overtake me, but was willing to accept the $200 prize if it came to that. Suddenly, looking at the contestant positions on the site, I noticed someone I hadn't seen all week on the roster - and they were quickly climbing up the ranks!

I jumped to attention, tired though I was, and started watching their profile. Sure enough, they had written and saved the vast majority of their articles offline and were submitting them rapid-fire to the site in the final hours of the contest. I look at their name again and realized: this was the person who had taken first place the last two weeks in a row of the Write To Win contest. I was stunned and confused. Being new to Helium (but a seasoned writer) I had asked a great many questions of Helium veterans and administrators concerning the contest. Everyone had advised me to write articles early, often and well. Even the official contest rules advised this. Moreover, I checked some of the articles this person was submitting, and they appeared to be directly derived from articles other authors had uploaded much earlier in the week - including one that was a virtual copy of one of my own. What he was doing seemed quite clear: he was undermining the system and stealing the work of other writers.

Frustrated by these new revelations, but determined to take a stand, I began posting short and articles to the contest - much worse than what I had written up to that point. Mind you: I did not engage in plagiarism for a single one of these posts, nor did I use vulgar language or include adult content. I simply tried to 'keep up' with this sudden challenger who was clearly abusing the system, but who I knew had been doing this for weeks without being reprimanded. I also went to the forums and pointed out that this person was (1) acting against the spirit and advice of the contest by not writing early, often and well and (2) seemed to be drawing much of his content from other articles. Having done my due diligence, and having made my point (or so I thought) I headed to bed for some much-needed sleep. I woke in the morning to find my account suspended, my name retracted from the contest and my earnings from Helium revoked.

Now, why did this happen? According to Helium I had violated their Terms of Service by "spamming" the contest to improve my rankings. Here is an example of an article of mine which they flagged as spam: category: Beginners Guide to Bluetooth Headsets - article: "The basic concept is pretty simple: plug it in, pop it on, it's wireless!" Now, While I will readily admit that my submission was far from Shakespearean, I couldn't (and still can't) understand how it constituted spam - it was at least on-topic and not plagiarized. Moreover, Helium's general policy is that "inaccurate" content couldn't be flagged for removal! Instead, Helium argues that bad articles "sink" naturally via the user rating system, while the good articles "float" - hence the title of the website. This is, of course, a clever way of keeping more content on the site that in turn allows them to rank higher for searches, even if the content is inaccurate. Due to this policy, my articles with inaccurate content shouldn't have been flagged and removed - I should have never gotten in trouble.

Worse yet, I had seen many articles over the course of the week that exhibited a scandalous degree of plagiarism. In at least one case, I found a high-ranked article (that helped someone win prize money) in which 80% of the text was copied word-for-word from a copyrighted third-party source - without so much as a quote or a footnote. I had flagged this article multiple times and via three different methods: (1) talking on the Helium forums to administrators, (2) emailing Helium's help team and (3) using a built-in flag tool designed specifically (supposedly) to alert Helium to plagiarists. I sent Helium the URLs of both the offending content and the original. I even highlighted excerpts (up to more than 30 sequential words in some cases) that were copied from the other site and then simply pasted to Helium by the plagiarist. Helium did not remove this plagiarized content until I wrote to them and informed them I was writing the article you are currently reading - at which point the copied article was deleted within minutes, after remaining untouched (and despite multiple complaints) for over a week.

So why did they flag and ban me, and then leave the clearly plagiarized article up until I told them I was going to go public? My suspicion is that, on the one hand, they did not feel motivated to remove a high-ranked plagiarized article that was bringing in revenue. On the other hand, a person who complains to them and in the forums about plagiarism and foul play forces them to remove content that is earning them money and gives a negative impression of the site to users on the forums. As usual, it all comes down to the bottom line: what earns them money stays if at all possible. People who threaten the status quo could cost them significantly, by raising awareness among other members of dubious aspects of the site's rules, regulations and modes of operation.

I suppose I was naïve to think that Helium was an actual community of writers. Still, I have learned my lesson, and now you have to, hopefully, through me (and without having to lose out on over $300 in the process). So, fellow writers and other people seeking to earn money on the internet: beware of Helium.com. If you do decide to write for Helium, recognize that rocking the boat can result in your rapid expulsion from their site! You can view my blog for the full story and tips on how to earn money from Helium by beating them at their own game rather than being scammed out of your submitted content.

Please note that this article includes speculation and opinion. This is, in part, because most of my communication with Helium has been one-way: from me to them. Due to this fact, I have had to guess at their motives and attitudes in some cases. As such, do not take anything I have written as a given or a statement of absolute fact! I would, however, be happy to provide links to plagiarized posts to people who contact me and request them (if you are, for example, skeptical of my claims concerning Helium allowing plagiarism). I did not include these directly because each link to a plagiarized article, even as an example, earns money for the plagiarist!