Getting a remote job is harder than it sounds.

You apply for jobs on Indeed or other job sites, maybe attend a Zoom interview or phone call or two, then wait to hear back. There are thousands of applicants for many of these potential jobs. Sometimes, you get that request to complete a paid trial assignment so a potential employer can see if they want to sign you to an employment contract. It all seems relatively straight-forward on the surface.

But that’s not always what happens.

Sometimes, however, content based companies use online job boards like Indeed.com to get free and sort-of-useful work (albeit imperfect) from potential hires, then disappear without a trace or without paying the prospects. Asking questions gets you in trouble. Their mistakes and far-from-perfect business practices, such as payroll errors and the infamous “data team,” somehow get you into trouble.

And that’s how Lead Media works, or doesn’t work, if you want to be completely accurate. And even if you’re hired full time with them (as I later was), their gross incompetence will cost you, but don’t expect them to pay for it—or you—at all, on time, or in full.

How Lead/Rehab Media and CEO Sage Zaree Scam Their Writers and Advertisers

Sage Zaree, the CEO of Lead/Rehab Media, interviewed me over a year and a half ago, then signed me on to complete a paid trial. However, throughout the process, the editor in charge of my assignments, Nikki Seay, dropped off completely after requesting some edits, which I attempted to complete diligently, then sent me new assignments, and no one had told me how much and if I’d even get paid yet!

When I asked about pay again, Sage said, “Nikki is your day-to-day contact,” then would never name the dollar amount. CEO “Sage” eventually said he didn’t need my services and “we wish you the best of luck,” without paying me for the trial, not even 50% as he’d mentioned. He said my writing was “terrible” and they “no longer needed my services,” even calling my work “unreadable.”

And I never got paid for the 4 hours of work I did for them initially, either. Not even 50%, like Sage had suggested. Now then, I have no doubt the work I did could have been edited and used for their purposes. Writing intros for Rehab.com is not rocket science. There’s a basic formula with rules and you follow it, simple as that.

But they got some mostly complete work; and then they just forgot about me. And I forgot about the whole ordeal with Lead Media originally, though it reflects other scammy content networks, like “The Pen is Mightier LLC” in Austin, TX.

But before you think that maybe they just don’t like my writing, or I’m not a proficient wordsmith, this story takes a rather strange turn.

A Year and a Half Later, Lead Media Mistakenly Hired Me Full Time, But They Actually Loved My Work

Crazy thing is, they actually hired me a year and a half later, after all this, to a full-time job where my supervisors and editors said that my work was great and I was making a positive impact. Then on my 2nd paycheck, they underpaid me by 60%, but they expected me to keep working. This was happening simultaneously as they were mentioning they were going to give me a raise.

It was weird going to the Zoom interview in June 2024 and seeing Quentin Blount, the guy who interviewed me, show me the Rehab website. I saw the name “Nikki Seay,” and I thought, “Is this the same company that didn’t pay me for my initial trial assignment, and now they want to hire me?” The job market is so bad and everything is so low trust; the economy is tanked, so I decided to take the job and see if either 1) they remembered me and thought I was worthy of another tryout or 2) they didn’t remember me at all.

When I expressed concern over the nonpayment, plus all the miscommunications that happened afterward regarding work by one of the managers, they immediately fired me!

Lead Media is a toxic organization without a real leader, and it shows from all the interactions with the other supervisors, managers, and editors that “Sage” has kept around. Paying people late goes against the written contract you sign with Lead Media, but they expect you to continue adding on the work even though you haven’t been paid yet.

Punting your paycheck and jerking you around is not a bug of their operation; it’s a feature that enables them to not pay people at all, on time, or if they simply feel like stretching out your unpaid days while demanding you work 40 hours a week.

Quite simply, they are not ethical or forthright, and it is always done at your detriment and their benefit.

How Lead Media Scams Its Employees and New Hires

Lead Media benefits from a very long unpaid status for the people they employ as writers. This leads you to wonder if they’re just going to scam you out of a month or more of work, just as Sage Zaree demonstrated.

But it doesn’t stop there. My editor/supervisor, a woman in a wheelchair since the age of 14 named Terri Beth-Miller, had the audacity to demand I submit a photo for Rehab/Lead Media to use, and Sage Zaree doesn’t even show his face on his own LinkedIn. He probably knows better than to show his face honestly, so I’ll give him at least that much. While the photo demand was point blank and rude enough, she had the nerve to comment that the picture was not very windy since I was wearing a hat, and yes, I am bald. I don’t have an issue with my hairstyle, but my supervisor apparently does.

Imagine what would have happened if I made a quip about her being in a wheelchair and thus being unattractive to most men, myself included? I wouldn’t say such a thing, because I’m not unprofessional.

But it doesn’t stop there. You work as a 1099 employee with no benefits billed at an hourly rate. So if you’re underpaid by over half on your paycheck and you ask to step away for a while and they instantly terminate your contract, you were not asking to bill them for hours you wouldn’t be working, you were just requesting to have all accounts settled before you both move forward together, out of mutual respect and consideration.

No benefits. No W2 (making it harder to buy a house). No time away for accounting to settle a pay dispute.

Simply be their slave. That’s your only option working for them, which explains why they speak like sycophants about Sage himself. Terri Beth-Miller referred to him as “fearless leader” sarcastically, and Quentin himself once replied to a question, “That’s above my paygrade.”

It’s odd to find so many non-military and non-veterans talk like this. Have these minions embraced authoritarian rule without so much as enjoying the martial aspects of being in a strict top down work hierarchy?

Indeed.com Removed a Person’s Negative Review Recently About Lead Media. Why?

Sadly, it’s getting harder to find honest reviews about companies, since I’ve seen another person who left a bad review against Lead Media on Indeed express similar issues with the company. I read just a few months ago where another person didn’t get paid for everything they did and they were disappointed with their experience.

These days, many reviews that are negative are removed from websites, including Indeed and Google Places, because the owner complains or argues that something, some slight detail, was not completely correct, or the information was personal, or the websites themselves decide that it just looks better to remove the worst reviews, especially if they are really bad.

So, who’s to say if they removed the negative reviews on Indeed for Lead Media?

I shall let the proof speak for itself.

Here’s my final reply to Sage Zaree before one of his staff, Quentin Blount, hired me recently because I was indeed an experienced copywriter, and while it may seem random, roof inspector, in which they saw a lot of potential value.

To think that I said this to the CEO of Lead Media and was still hired a year later because they have no clue what’s going on. Read down past his initial message to see just why Lead Media is not competent enough to pay someone in full, on time, and to someone that they even promised a raise, or to prevent that person from gaining access to the organization and working there, only to be screwed over by their failure to read an invoice on Google Sheets.

Either that, or they like underpaying people because it earns them extra % in their company cash flow drawer in a safe investment vehicle that still beats inflation.

And to Quentin Blount and Terri Beth-Miller, whom I contacted and asked for my job back once the payment went through (finally), and they ignored my emails. You’re not far behind old “Sage” yourselves.

I just know this as a matter of pure logical fact: I can’t be both a terrible writer and a writer praised for his work volume and competence at the same time, and that excludes me, at least in spirit, from the elite ranks of Lead Media and Rehab Media.

Lead Media’s Lawyer Contacted Me Immediately After Publishing This

It would appear that Lead Media can be as responsive as it wants to be, want its own interests are at stake. However, all I did was try to use an email that I sent them as some type of proof that I have forgiven them for everything they’ve done, thus nullifying their previous actions.

I had to explain to their attorney how all it will take is for other people coming forward and commenting, sharing their story, and letting the world know their own experience to draw the attention of an ambitious Florida attorney that can see and argue their improprieties from a legal standpoint better than I could. And it would be a class action lawsuit at that.

At least that’s what happened with my ShiftSmart experience.

Expecting me to continue working in unpaid status or lose my job, when their documentation allowed for a writer to step away and take a break, amounts to quid pro quo harassment and wrongful termination. Failing to ask me for my PayPal address for the initial writing trial a year and a half ago and ghosting me was another example, committed by the CEO himself.

But one thanks for sure, you would never hire someone as a writer who wrote things that were “unreadable.”

Unless you were just completely incompetent.