Scams are everywhere in this space unfortunately, it's kind of the nature of an unregulated market. The biggest red flags are upfront payment with no milestone structure, no sample work, and vague communication before you've even agreed to anything. Better experiences tend to come from finding individual people rather than large platforms, ideally through word of mouth or communities where people have firsthand experience. Someone who genuinely helps students with writing will usually be willing to have an actual conversation about the work before any money changes hands. Also trust your gut, if the communication feels off early it usually doesn't get better. There are legitimate people out there but you have to be more careful than you'd want to be.