Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Scam warning

See also: Operation Orangemoody

The scam may work as follows:

• A paid editing ring might file for an article's deletion, decline a draft proposed at Articles for Creation (AfC), or wait until the draft has been declined by an actual AfC reviewer.
• A paid editor will then contact the author of the article and propose that they can recreate the article for a one-time fee and protect it from deletion for a monthly fee, or approve the draft and ensure its "safety" in the article space.
• If the article is again deleted or declined, as is often the case, the original author will likely not be able to get a refund.
• Some of the scammers falsely claimed to be Wikipedia administrators or employees of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF).

Legitimate reviewers at AfC are all volunteers and will never ask for payment to get a draft into article space, improve a draft, or restore a deleted article. If someone contacts you with such an offer, it is a scam. To report it, send a copy of the email, including headers, to paid-en-wpwikipedia.org.

What you should expect

See also: Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § Solicitations by paid editors

Paid editors are

• not employed by the Wikimedia Foundation or by the Wikipedia community. They have no authority beyond that of any volunteer editor.
• required to follow Wikipedia's conflict of interest process of disclosure and peer review.
• required to disclose their employer, client, and related affiliations if they are paid or expect to be paid for editing; there is no confidentiality for the client.

Some paid editors create "sockpuppets" for each client they work with and try to hide their paid editing. Edits by sockpuppets can be deleted without discussion.

No editor can guarantee any outcome in Wikipedia – not that an article will be kept or deleted, nor that any content will remain or be deleted, nor that any tags will remain or be removed.

Edits by paid editors should be reviewed to ensure compliance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines before being submitted, and their edits will be reviewed afterwards through the course of normal editing by the Wikipedia community.

If you receive a solicitation for paid editing services that contradicts any of the above, the paid editor is misleading you. Before employing a paid editor, you should read WP:Paid editing disclosure and WP:Conflicts of interest and ensure that they are following these rules. Make sure that you have the paid editor's contact information, in case of a business dispute or complaint.

The Wikipedia community are mostly volunteers. As much as we would like to assure you that we will catch any scammers and get your money returned, that may be impossible. Your report of scams will however help us minimize the effects of future scams.

In serious cases, consider making a report to the police or other authorities.