Is anyone on Elance?

I am wondering if anyone is on Elance, used Elance, or even hired anyone from Elance?

What's been your experience if so?

Thanks

I can't really comment on Elance, but I have tried oDesk and I have been happy with the people I hire. I will give Elance a go in the near future though.

I am in Elance as a freelancer and as an employer.

I have never been a fan of Elance, oDesk is my preferred freelance website.

I started freelancing on Elance in August 2012 but just recently started getting some momentum and hiring on it as well. If you're looking to outsource work, it's one of the better sites I've found. Last week I was chosen to be a part of their NYC Mobilizer program, so now I may seem a bit biased (though I haven't begun the work yet and it doesn't include online promotion anyways). But in any case, I've made money using it. Probably worth a shot.

Elance is pretty good. I've heard horror stories about Freelancer recently but I've had good experiences so far with Elance

Elance is good if your hiring. A bit harder if your looking for work and in a western country.

I've done work on Elance. It's OK if it's your only option. You won't get much (if any) work with the free account. Clients will try to scam you in various ways, so you have to always be on guard, even with people you've worked with successfully in the past. One scam that seems to be popular among clients there is to be such an ass that the freelancer will eventually just give up. They'll ask for revision after revision even if you specified in your proposal how many revisions you will do. Oh, and Elance will ALWAYS side with the client. They offer remediation, but it's $300. So if you have an issue with your client, be prepared to swallow the loss and move on.

Best way to protect yourself is to outline milestones for each and every job. If the client won't agree to milestones, tell them to take a walk.

On the technical side of things, the site works well, but I don't feel that really makes up for anything. As with every other job site, you'll be in competition with people in 3rd world countries who will do the job for 1/3rd the price.

If all you're looking to do is pay a bill, say rent, and you have a solid skill and know how to market yourself, you can probably do it if you're willing to pay the monthly fee for one of the better accounts.

When I had a "Large business" account I was constantly flooded with job invites, but most of them were for low-ball jobs. It got kind of annoying because you have to reply to them or Elance stops sending them altogether. 9 out of 10 are worthless, though.

I've done work on Elance. It's OK if it's your only option. You won't get much (if any) work with the free account. Clients will try to scam you in various ways, so you have to always be on guard, even with people you've worked with successfully in the past. One scam that seem to be popular among clients there is to be such an ass that the freelancer will eventually just give up. They'll ask for revision after revision even if you specified in your proposal how many revisions you will do. Oh, and Elance will ALWAYS side with the client. They offer remediation, but it's $300. So if you have an issue with your client, be prepared to swallow the loss and move on.

Click to expand...

Haha, you're a funny guy. I always avoid freelancers like you, the ones that keep complaining.

Whatever, man. I speak from experience. If you have a problem with it, take a walk.

What's the point of your post, anyway? Are you denying that there are lots of scammers on sites like Elance, Odesk and Freelancer?

If so, that's a pretty silly position to take. If not, I guess you're just trolling.

I have been working over there as a freelancer!

What's the point of your post, anyway? Are you denying that there are lots of scammers on sites like Elance, Odesk and Freelancer?

Click to expand...

I don't use Odesk, Freelancer is a total scam and yes, there are scammer on Elance but you have scammers everywhere. I am working on Elance as a client and as a "freelancer" even though I don't see myself as a freelancer cause I have a team of people working for me.
The thing is, there are much more lousy workers compared to bad clients. 1 out of 10 clients is a douche. 7 out of 10 freelancers are lazy people, not respecting deadlines, promissing what they cant deliver and "I don't work during weekends" and "my dog got sick I had to see vet" and "I had a massive headache that's why I didn't answer your mails for the last 3 days" and....

Everything you just described are things that any employer has to deal with. So I don't really understand why you are complaining. If you find a freelancer who works well for you treat them right so they'll work with you again.

As a freelancer, I can tell you that trouble clients are just as common as trouble workers. I really have to screen clients on Elance. You, for instance--I definitely would not work for you. No offense. I don't know you; I can only go off of our interaction so far and thing's I've read from you in other threads.

Basically what it comes down to is this: both freelancers and clients will try to get away with w/e they think they can get away with. It's not about what side of it you're on, it's about human nature. When both parties know each other and respect one another--that's when there can be a long-term, mutual beneficial relationship.

Elance is good in my opinion. It took me a while to get started mainly because, like SkyrocketSEO described, some people are extremely lazy and don't deliver. But there are ways to avoid that, like looking at reputation and so forth.

A big part of my income comes from oDesk/Elance. I have just a little bit of experience with Elance, mostly I am using oDesk as both - as a freelancer and as a client.
My experience as a freelancer is great - before starting a job I am asking on every single thing about the project, which always help me to avoid to some kind of misunderstanding and also as client as me will get an idea about each other.
As a freelancer, I am satisfied on 99%. (1% is for clients who wants to build for $100 the next Facebook).

As a client, that's worse - last experience from yesterday: I had 2 designs which I needed to code into valid HTML+CSS. One is really simple, the second one a bit more complicated but definitely nothing big.
My requirement was to code the simple within 24 hours, which was client's deadline and the second one within 48 hours. I was in a long conversational with a guy from China, who was "very interested". When I finally wanted to hire him, he told me the budget is too low, the deadline so tight, then he wanted 3-5 days for coding both layouts + to increase the budget from $150 on $300.

I was disgusted, because I was waiting for that guy than he finish his dinner, then for his answers and so on. It costed me 4 hours of my time without any solution. And experiences like this I have unfortunately several, usually from people from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China or Philippines (no offense). How to spot them? They have usually in their titles words like "Expert, Professional, Master" and another stuff. Reading these titles drives me crazy. Who the fuck is Expert/Professional/Master in something??? If you do, you probably have not a lot of experience if you write it.

Anyway, I sit to my computer and within 3 hours I finished the first design, tonight I will work on the second one.
On Elance/oDesk are definitely scammers, but in my opinion more in between contractors than between clients.

I am on Elance and there are both lazy and hard working people who make a living solely out of Elance.
You can ofc avoid a bad experience by checking the Provider's reputation and client reviews.

Wondering why no one uses vworker.com?

I used to freelance there about 7-8 years ago, when it was called rentacoder.com. Had only positive experience. Did something change over the years?

I have personally never used it. But I have a friend that used it a few years ago and loved it. She raved about it and said that it was a great way for her to make the money she wanted freelancing.

PeoplePerHour is the best. Also, I tried Elance, but with no succes. I didn't try oDesk yet.

I am a member on Elance for a year and cant get a job because I don't have a reputation. Employers never pick a begginer with no reviews. Anyone knows a "short" way of getting first few good reviews?