Helium's Unsavory Attitude - Has Helium Turned Scam?

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

I joined Helium several months back; it could be more than a year, but I am not sure. I was too busy with on-demand writing to bother with revenue-sharing sites. However, I recently wrote an article on Helium, which got sold for $5. The sale excited me, and I decided to spend more time on Helium.

Recently, I tried logging in, but got the following funny message.

"Readers from all over the world are welcome to enjoy Helium's articles. However, we regret we are not currently set up to provide an optimal experience for writers in every country. We are hoping to offer different versions of helium that will attract and best suit all writers sometime in future."


As far as I know, Helium has never been a US-only site. It has accepted tons of articles from foreign writers, and it has generated revenue from all those articles. And now, Helium has successfully blocked a majority of those foriegn writers. Please note the following points:

  • Helium did not show the basic courtesy of informing these writers that they would be denied access.
  • Helium has nothing to say about the money these writers have earned.
  • Helium will probably generate revenue from the content created by these writers, and the writers won't get their share.
Now, I don't care if Helium wants to cater to the requirements UK/US/Canadian/Australian writers only. What bothers me is the rudeness and insensitivity of Helium. Naturally, I wanted to know if a bug in the system was denying me access to my Helium account and wrote the following email to Helium.

Hello,


I have been trying to log into helium since yesterday without success. I keep getting the following message.


"Readers from all over the world are welcome to enjoy Helium's articles. However, we regret we are not currently set up to provide an optimal experience for writers in every country. We are hoping to offer different versions of helium that will attract and best suit all writers sometime in future."

Now, why am I getting that message? Why am I not able to log in? Is this a bug? My handle is "positiveminded1977"

Hope you help me out with this issue at the earliest possible.

Thanks and warm regards

Sonia

Helium sent the following response to my mail:


Greetings Sonia DCosta,


Thanks for your ongoing interest in the Helium site. Unfortunately, Helium.com is not set up to provide an optimal experience for writers from every country. At present, our audience is predominantly US-focused. To prevent frustrations from all writers and to limit staff time spent trying to accommodate, we are not accepting submissions from some locations at this time. Readers from around the world are welcome to enjoy Helium’s articles. In the future, we are hoping to offer different versions of Helium that will attract and best suit all writers. We are currently evaluating the impact this has on a few existing members, and we will settle with them on an individual basis in the coming weeks. Regarding any upcoming sites I have no specific information on that at this time.


All the best,

Jim Logan

Helium Help | Technical Support

W: 978.474.5074 x 230

help@helium.com

Helium. Where Knowledge Rules.

www.helium.com


I am sorry, but this makes no sense to me! When I joined Helium, it was not US-focused.


"Readers from around the world are welcome to enjoy Helium’s articles."


Now, why should they when Helium treats writers from other countries like dirt?


"In the future, we are hoping to offer different versions of Helium that will attract and best suit all writers."


Now, that's great! But, why on earth didn't Helium send us an email telling us about it before blocking our accounts?

"We are currently evaluating the impact this has on a few existing members..."

Hey, I still exist, and you can see the impact it has on me!!


"Regarding any upcoming sites I have no specific information on that at this time."


You see that? Jim Logan has no specific information!!


I smell rats all round, and I tell you, this stinks!!


This is SCAM!!


What about those $5, Helium? I am still waiting for a response to my email about those $5. Once I get it, I will update this post!

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