Chat is not always good... I had chat in vWorker, and it was awful! How do you know you are top 50 most active? (haha to see my position)
Stay away from freelancer.com
- Thread starter solidsnake
- Start date
Chat is not always good... I had chat in vWorker, and it was awful! How do you know you are top 50 most active? (haha to see my position)
szhang
Junior Member
- Jan 21, 2009
- 191
- 31
You can check your rank under freelancer rewards. You can check your rank by looking at the overview. They started rewards towards the last quarter of 2012. Having a chat would cut down on the amount of time it takes to hire. This way I don't have to skype them.
Freelancer should force them to explain better the project. That's the problem in my opinion, not the chat. The wizard to create a project is oriented to get it posted the quickly as possible, and to be able to ask for the incomplete things, you need to bid, and then they may award you and you may loss fees, so I think everything is related. The deadline is not precise, the amount of money is not precise due an imprecise description.
I am telling you by experience, bundled chat is a PITA if is not implemented flawlessly like facebook chat. You end losing clients because lost messages, more stress asking every guy what he want...
yoyo33
Regular Member
- Jan 29, 2011
- 268
- 49
Amazing thread... I was just thinking to try freelancer.com and I just spent ~40 minutes to read all pages.
I work as a freelancer for ~4 years and I always like to read more about a website first. It's very annoying and a little depressing what I read here from other members. I tend to believe what others said because I also was happy with vWorker before was bought.
Two things caught my attention, things said by freelancer.com support (according to BHW members):
Auch! These are the last things I would like to hear from a freelance support website!
"we just provide the portal where employers and freelancers meet" is wrong in a world where http://mashable.com/2012/03/04/freelancing-infographic/
"Read tos and leave us alone" are good taglines in gambling, casinos and poker websites. It's like saying "The house never loses".
Since I started to work online I encountered problems with clients in about 3% of many projects. About the disputes:
Freelancer.com is an intermediation business, so they shouldn't act like they have no responsibilities. They are not a forum or an email service. I expect more help from a freelancing website and a different attitude - this is why I pay ~20% - 25% from my profits.
I only pay fees on freelancing websites because:
For the moment I decided not to use freelancer.com
mattbarrie & freelancer.com: Take this as a constructive criticism and ask yourselves: If you have no responsibilities, why would people want to work with you?
I work as a freelancer for ~4 years and I always like to read more about a website first. It's very annoying and a little depressing what I read here from other members. I tend to believe what others said because I also was happy with vWorker before was bought.
Two things caught my attention, things said by freelancer.com support (according to BHW members):
Code:
...[I]We suggest that you continue contacting your employer to resolve this issue... [B]
basically we just provide the portal where employers and freelancers meet to do projects and subsequent payments[/B]
and whatever is the outcome of the project will rely solely on the hands of the employer and freelancer and [B]
we will not be able to intervene[/B] on it in any way possible.[/I]
Code:
It happened to me also, I contacted them and they said you should have read freelance TOS upon taking different services.Auch! These are the last things I would like to hear from a freelance support website!
"we just provide the portal where employers and freelancers meet" is wrong in a world where http://mashable.com/2012/03/04/freelancing-infographic/
"Read tos and leave us alone" are good taglines in gambling, casinos and poker websites. It's like saying "The house never loses".
Since I started to work online I encountered problems with clients in about 3% of many projects. About the disputes:
- I received a response from support in a few hours most of the time, maximum 24h
- Disputes were solved in maximum 2-4 days (not in 2 months like on freelancer.com according to users from BHW)
- I never heard "suggest that you continue contacting your employer to resolve this issue". The "worst" was something like "let's wait 1 more day for the employer to answer"
Freelancer.com is an intermediation business, so they shouldn't act like they have no responsibilities. They are not a forum or an email service. I expect more help from a freelancing website and a different attitude - this is why I pay ~20% - 25% from my profits.
I only pay fees on freelancing websites because:
- I want to have a good night sleep, without worrying I will not get paid
- I don't want to read TOS & legal contracts - I am not a lawyer (how many read apple TOS for iphone ~30 pages???)
- Support will respond quickly and help me if I encounter ANY problems with my projects.
- Support have a good sense of justice - yes sometimes the truth is in the middle, it's not all black and white.
- Website owners have the know-how and employees ready to deal with scammers 24/7
For the moment I decided not to use freelancer.com
mattbarrie & freelancer.com: Take this as a constructive criticism and ask yourselves: If you have no responsibilities, why would people want to work with you?
The essence of their terms is:
By the way: how is this possible that the user accepts a set of rules and they change them whenever they fancy it, even without prior notification?
Why haven't I been informed my personal data will be exported to Philippines or USA? Why haven't I been told that incompetent people will be in charge of processing them?
By the way: how is this possible that the user accepts a set of rules and they change them whenever they fancy it, even without prior notification?
Why haven't I been informed my personal data will be exported to Philippines or USA? Why haven't I been told that incompetent people will be in charge of processing them?
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I just would like to add my experience and observations with Freelancer.com. I have no ax to grind with the site.
First, I want to say that I have never lost any money on the site. I was a worker as well as an employer a few years ago. However, as an employer I received generally POOR quality from workers (no matter how many positive reviews that the worker had in their feedback). If poor quality wasn?t the issue it was excuse after excuse as why the job was not on time (?My dog ate the homework? type of excuses). The number of days the job was promised turned into 5 times longer. There was no recourse as I saw regarding any assistance from the site. The delivery times (deadlines) were not enforced.
As a worker, the jobs looked ?SPAMY?, or were so low paying that it completely turned me off (literally an insult). I was also too worried about any help form the site should I need it, even with escrow/milestones. As the economy was declining and my business not profitable any longer, I needed to find a way to generate income. But I knew that Freelancer.com was not the place I was willing to depend on for my livelihood.
I found a website called Rent-a-coder (later changed to Vworker) where it seemed to address all of my concerns with SCAMS, NOT GETING PAID, etc. and with a guarantee that you will be paid if you do the job according to the contract. I worked on Vworker for 4 years, completed over 180 jobs with a 9.98/10 rating and was able to eek out a living.
About a year ago, my local business began to grow again and instead of working on the site (Vworker) I became a buyer and as a buyer ordered close to 80 jobs. I had only 1 problem as a buyer, and that was a worker who did not deliver the project nor did they contact me. I started arbitration and within one day, the job was cancelled and my funds fully refunded.
I was totally shocked and disappointed that Vworker was acquired by Freelancer. All my hard work, as well as my buyer projects were moved back to the site that I literally ran from as fast as I could. Freelancer did offer me 3 months of premium membership, however, not this worker/buyer will get caught up in what appears to be a fee driven drive, with nothing in return such as refunds, protection, guarantees, etc.
Another thing that turned me off was the way that Freelancer acquired Vworker. No notice to buyers/workers so that they could finish up projects. Went to bed one night thinking a project was going well and woke up to a video of Ian Ippolito saying ?we are pleased to announce that Vworker has been acquired by Freelancer. Ian always pointed out the fees that Freelancer charges as a negative and now he?s excited? I understand that probably it was a once in a lifetime chance for him personally to make some money and had to act quickly, and I don?t blame him; however it turned my stomach. It reminds me of other companies where a bigger company pays more money than something is worth to eliminate the competition and force others to patronize them instead. The actual amount was not disclosed, so this is only my hypothesis.
Freelancer never damaged me in anyway but I think they should know that there are many more people out there who feel the same way I do about their business model.
In my opinion, Freelancer needs to take a hard look at all of this if they want to be assured long term success. I will never use it unless it becomes a site that is safe and gives something in return for all the fees they charge.
First, I want to say that I have never lost any money on the site. I was a worker as well as an employer a few years ago. However, as an employer I received generally POOR quality from workers (no matter how many positive reviews that the worker had in their feedback). If poor quality wasn?t the issue it was excuse after excuse as why the job was not on time (?My dog ate the homework? type of excuses). The number of days the job was promised turned into 5 times longer. There was no recourse as I saw regarding any assistance from the site. The delivery times (deadlines) were not enforced.
As a worker, the jobs looked ?SPAMY?, or were so low paying that it completely turned me off (literally an insult). I was also too worried about any help form the site should I need it, even with escrow/milestones. As the economy was declining and my business not profitable any longer, I needed to find a way to generate income. But I knew that Freelancer.com was not the place I was willing to depend on for my livelihood.
I found a website called Rent-a-coder (later changed to Vworker) where it seemed to address all of my concerns with SCAMS, NOT GETING PAID, etc. and with a guarantee that you will be paid if you do the job according to the contract. I worked on Vworker for 4 years, completed over 180 jobs with a 9.98/10 rating and was able to eek out a living.
About a year ago, my local business began to grow again and instead of working on the site (Vworker) I became a buyer and as a buyer ordered close to 80 jobs. I had only 1 problem as a buyer, and that was a worker who did not deliver the project nor did they contact me. I started arbitration and within one day, the job was cancelled and my funds fully refunded.
I was totally shocked and disappointed that Vworker was acquired by Freelancer. All my hard work, as well as my buyer projects were moved back to the site that I literally ran from as fast as I could. Freelancer did offer me 3 months of premium membership, however, not this worker/buyer will get caught up in what appears to be a fee driven drive, with nothing in return such as refunds, protection, guarantees, etc.
Another thing that turned me off was the way that Freelancer acquired Vworker. No notice to buyers/workers so that they could finish up projects. Went to bed one night thinking a project was going well and woke up to a video of Ian Ippolito saying ?we are pleased to announce that Vworker has been acquired by Freelancer. Ian always pointed out the fees that Freelancer charges as a negative and now he?s excited? I understand that probably it was a once in a lifetime chance for him personally to make some money and had to act quickly, and I don?t blame him; however it turned my stomach. It reminds me of other companies where a bigger company pays more money than something is worth to eliminate the competition and force others to patronize them instead. The actual amount was not disclosed, so this is only my hypothesis.
Freelancer never damaged me in anyway but I think they should know that there are many more people out there who feel the same way I do about their business model.
In my opinion, Freelancer needs to take a hard look at all of this if they want to be assured long term success. I will never use it unless it becomes a site that is safe and gives something in return for all the fees they charge.
wa.. ive got job from freelancer and won the bid, the buyer paid my milestone $30 for an easy project so the freelancer deducted $5 from the rules, so it means $25 remains on my freelancer account, it needs $35 before we can make payout, im planning to link my paypal account to freelancer and suddenly ive read this thread to warn us.. thanks for posting this thread to warn us it helps me to provide or cancel linking my paypal account to freelancer.. thanks buddy..
bestfriend2
Newbie
- Dec 18, 2012
- 12
- 3
Wow, very good opinion. I lived the exact same feeling with the Ian Appolito message, had like 100 jobs in vWorker and I always loved the small company ambient (always felt protected) and one day, bam! received 3 premium months too.
I like that freelancer has lots of things to do, lots of project, a modern UI, but I feel very unsafe, like every miss-click can make me lose some bucks (I am convinced now on never losing more money here anyway, waiting always for the milestone, etc)
Well, I just hope they can rectify the issue ASAP so there wouldn?t be any blogs talking about Freelancer as a scam site. I know for sure that it?s hard to deal with this matter so my hopes goes to the management of Freelancer to fix all the issues here.
Here is a provision in Freelancer?s TOS. This is my main reason for not buying or selling on the site:
3.4 No Insurance
[Freelancer] does not offer any form of insurance or other Employer or Freelancer protection which will assist you, because our Site merely provides the online venue for Users to offer, sell, and buy professional services and we are not otherwise involved in the transactions and interactions between Employers and Freelancers. However, some forms of payment permitted on the Site, such as PayPal or credit card, may offer limited employer or freelancer protection or chargeback services and you should familiarise yourself with these before proceeding with a transaction of any kind through the Site.
Because user identification on the Internet is difficult, we cannot and do not confirm each User's purported identity.
The only thing they claim to do is ?introduce? buyers and sellers, and their obligation ends there. Other Freelance websites have some kind of arbitration in place that looks at what was promised and what was delivered and ?neutrally? decides on the basis of that, who gets the money. Granted, just like a court hearing, not everyone will be happy, but that?s when neutrality comes in.
So basically, no matter how many of their fees you pay, or the membership level you buy there is NO protection from fraudulent buyers or non-performing sellers. You?re on your own. No protection or guarantees. It?s a risk, especially if you are buying or selling high value projects, as I was. Too risky for me! Too many fees and nothing in return regarding a refund of all your money back if your are scammed by a buyer or non-performing seller. Milestones aren?t enough.
From their TOS they are basically telling you buy/sell at your own risk. As well as, maybe your credit card company/pp will help you in a problem (maybe not). We won?t, and all fees are non-refundable. Why would I risk that? This is what made Vworker my choice of freelance sites. IT WAS SAFE! WITH GAREENTEES, for both buyer and seller.
By the way, people are always told by Freelacer?s customer service (so I hear) that they should have read the Freelancer?s TOS first. Most people don?t read it and I think they know that. I have read it in its entirety and that?s another reason I will not buy or sell there.
3.4 No Insurance
[Freelancer] does not offer any form of insurance or other Employer or Freelancer protection which will assist you, because our Site merely provides the online venue for Users to offer, sell, and buy professional services and we are not otherwise involved in the transactions and interactions between Employers and Freelancers. However, some forms of payment permitted on the Site, such as PayPal or credit card, may offer limited employer or freelancer protection or chargeback services and you should familiarise yourself with these before proceeding with a transaction of any kind through the Site.
Because user identification on the Internet is difficult, we cannot and do not confirm each User's purported identity.
The only thing they claim to do is ?introduce? buyers and sellers, and their obligation ends there. Other Freelance websites have some kind of arbitration in place that looks at what was promised and what was delivered and ?neutrally? decides on the basis of that, who gets the money. Granted, just like a court hearing, not everyone will be happy, but that?s when neutrality comes in.
So basically, no matter how many of their fees you pay, or the membership level you buy there is NO protection from fraudulent buyers or non-performing sellers. You?re on your own. No protection or guarantees. It?s a risk, especially if you are buying or selling high value projects, as I was. Too risky for me! Too many fees and nothing in return regarding a refund of all your money back if your are scammed by a buyer or non-performing seller. Milestones aren?t enough.
From their TOS they are basically telling you buy/sell at your own risk. As well as, maybe your credit card company/pp will help you in a problem (maybe not). We won?t, and all fees are non-refundable. Why would I risk that? This is what made Vworker my choice of freelance sites. IT WAS SAFE! WITH GAREENTEES, for both buyer and seller.
By the way, people are always told by Freelacer?s customer service (so I hear) that they should have read the Freelancer?s TOS first. Most people don?t read it and I think they know that. I have read it in its entirety and that?s another reason I will not buy or sell there.
LOL-Blaster
Regular Member
- Aug 29, 2012
- 342
- 711
Looks like Matt is gone.
As he should be. If there is one thing that has become painfully clear after reading all 6 pages, it's that Freelancer has a huge problem that begins and ends with Freelancer.
You can't.....
1. Charge on both ends and then say 'screw you' to both parties. Even if one of them was a scam, (that you let happen) just so you can get their money.
2. You can't come on BHW and try to act like you want to fix something when you're written rules, your instructions to your employees, and your employees actions all say that that was actually the way you wanted things in the first place. It's only a mistake now because you're on BHW and takin' on bad press. If there were this many complaints on BHW, imagine the people that have no venue.
3. You can't upgrade memberships and begin charging people without their knowledge.
4. You can't cancel people's accounts just to get their money,
5. You can't make people go through such ridiculous ID proceedures just because you want them to fail so you can take their funds.
6. You can't hide what you charge all the time and expect people to stay with you.
7. You can't not have insurances in place to protect your users.
I'M BASICALLY SAYING.....
8. You can't act like a crook and stay in business. You WILL be outed!
Matt made a token show here. Obviously Freelancer scrapes the web for any negative publicity. There are numerous website threads talking about the same issues that people are having here. A Freelancer rep shows-up there too and wants to rectify monetary issues. Why do people have to post in online venues to get their issues solved and get the attention of customer service at Freelancer?
Can you imagine what the real number of people who have been violated is? On BHW and other places, not one company rep has addressed the real issues and concerns of the site. Not one rep has answered direct questions about the problems and how they are going to fix them.
Their identity verification is downright comical. I would feel like a fool to take a picture of myself holding my ID. But people do this because they need their money, but come on! What about phone verification? What about a test deposit? Etc.
Someone from Freelancer (Matt) has made the token visit to act concerned and fix a few issues. I guess they believe that that will show others who read the thread that Freelancer is a safe place to buy and sell.
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Who was asking for a chat system here?
Did you tested the chat they added? What I said about a crappy chat is always worse than a bad messaging system?
Everything is screwed right now, attachment takes forever and every employer repeats messages and I don't receive any damn message. Crap. Just when I was feeling ok again they add another annoying bs I can't control (I can try to stay away from fake employers but I need the messaging system, at least in vworker you had that as an OPTION!). Great, just great.
Did you tested the chat they added? What I said about a crappy chat is always worse than a bad messaging system?
Everything is screwed right now, attachment takes forever and every employer repeats messages and I don't receive any damn message. Crap. Just when I was feeling ok again they add another annoying bs I can't control (I can try to stay away from fake employers but I need the messaging system, at least in vworker you had that as an OPTION!). Great, just great.
After my horrible experience with them and reading some other horror stories would advise to cancel your card and get a new one. This bad company has serious issues with user data management.
