Mahalo Cries for Writers

Every now and then I get an email that is so entertaining, I just have to share it with the world. This one just happened to come from Mahalo. In what I can only assume to be a mass cry for help, Mahalo sent more than a few of its former writers an email with a request for "writers" to apply as "guides". I almost spit out my coffee because I laughed so hard. That is a prime example of audacity. I had to wonder if they had forgotten the cry of outrage from writers who were making quite a decent living before Mahalo got really ignorant.

Mahalo needs writers. I'm sure they do. The layout of the site has a high potential for success and expansion. Now all they need is content and people to keep the content fresh. The problem is, they ran out of people willing to do that for pennies on the dollar and no right to their own work. Did they think the writers forgot what happened? Some writers went from making thousands of dollars a month to being offered somewhere around $7 an hour. If you were willing to give up rights to yoru work, could churn out lengthy articles with videos and references included, you could have the priviledge of being a guide for Mahalo at a rate less than minimum wage in America.

While I imagine some writers stayed because they had already put so much into the site, plenty of writers simply walked away in fury, carrying a hope that they could potentially even get their current earnings from Mahalo. Some writers actually got paid, others were forced to order from the Mahalo store and came pretty close to having to stalk Mahalo in order to get their products and yet others (like me), simply donated their funds to other writers and walked away feeling the need to cleanse. All in all, it was a pretty depressing process that had an enormous impact on some of the more dedicated writers as they watched their financial world fall apart and couldn't stop it.

One writer got completely fed up and took an enitrely new route. She sought legal action. Michelle Devon has opened the doors to a potential class action lawsuit against Mahalo. Apparently, while I was busy cleaning coffee off of my keyboard after my laughing spurt over the request for writers, Michelle Devon, fondly known as "Michy", was busy clearing the smoke from the air after it came rolling out of her ears. See, while most of us will look out for ourselves, our family and our friends, Michy has a special devotion to writers. I suspect Mahalo just got under her skin one time to many as she learned of more and more writers being taken advantage of.

Michy has retained a lawyer in an effort to point out a few of the "business" (and I use that word loosely) practices that aren't quite what they were supposed to be. At the moment, Michy is trying to spread the word to writers about the class action lawsuit potential. The more writers that stand up and offer their information, the better chance the lawyers have of putting all of the pieces together. Personally, I encourage writers to take a look at the details Michy offers on her blog about the possibility of a class action law suit against Mahalo. This company, and most especially its CEO which I will not even dignify by putting his name in print need to be taken to task and forced to face responsibilities.

In fact, it's not just about Mahalo. It's about freelance writers online and the fact that online companies need to know the power of the pen. They need writers and we need to be treated well. Sometimes in an effort to get the needs of each individual met, we have to come together as a group. So, even if you weren't part of the Mahalo scam, you still might want to take a peek at what Michy has to say. It's incidences like these in the present that set the tone for the future.