Share your worst experiences with outsourcing

Here's mine from elance when I needed to get a site converted to wordpress and ended up hiring a so-called "company" from a certain region in South Asia. Writing up the whole thing would take too long, so here are some tl;dr bullet points.

- Trying to sound all professional, nearly every other word is misspelled. At least i got a good laugh.
- Project was supposed to take two weeks, a month in they say it's impossible to keep the links intact, even tough the project description emphasized over and over that it's the most important part
- Whole project ended up taking 6 months instead of 2 weeks.
- Threatened to sue me ("breech") after I end project prematurely. Apprently I needed their consent to fire them.
- Malware found within a week after project ends

I've learned from the whole thing to keep outsourcing to the minimum because it's really hard to trust people on the internet, especially those in third world countries. Share some of your experiences and maybe the people new to IM won't have to go through this shit.

Here's meaning for the term "outsourcing" :



As in the dictionary, it says - outsource is just to reduce the cost & time, But what people on internet getting these days when they outsource their work to someother is "wasting of time & money"

This is my to do list when hiring freelancers

I always check their reviews ( I never give project to newcomers )
I Interview with them, asking for their similar projects they have done in the past

While I am checking freelancers offers and bids, I would emit those "copy and paste" kind of bids with out haste, cause they have not read your project and they are doing bid spamming, If the bid is too low and looks unrealistic I still will not give it to them, It might have several reasons such as the freelancer is in need of money, once his financial problem fixed he will not complete the project, The freelancer has no idea how much works it takes, The freelancer give low bid to win the project and later asking you for more.

Never release any payment before the developer provide you full job, not even 1 cent, put all of it in escrow account and wait for him to finish
I usually ask them for 24-48 hours testing before releasing the fund so in this time I can check and find their mistakes and bugs in the work they have done. because once you release the fund you have nothing else left, except giving them rating.
I suggest you to give them rating 1 week after you release the funds, as in the first week you might need help in the software or whatever they have developed. because they want high rating from you they would answers your emails and messages.

the projects usually takes two times more than what you have asked

The phillipine pervert somehow got a hold of my paypal information and bought a handful of sex toys before I could change the password.

I mean, come on.

1) Paid $10,000 of $30,000 to get a working prototype/basic functioning of a World of Warcraft gold farming bot made after Blizzard went through and banned Glider and a couple others, and was sent a free opensource Chinese farming bot that relied on easy macro's to function - which was received 4 months after the due date.

2) Second time, same project, I hired someone here in the U.S. who later decided it was best to take my money and then sell it himself.

3) When I attempted to set up logistics and purchasing operaitons in Shenzhen China before I moved there, a guy named John Chen worked for me for a good 6 months before I paid an additional amount to have him rent out a small warehouse, buy more inventory, and hire 2 people. For a month, he hired his wife while they both continued to work full time jobs and then when confronted he decided to sell my items on eBay and run with the money. Was eventually arrested and put in jail for 4 years - he was unaware I operated a legitimate business in China and thought I would never travel there apparently. He was originally found on oDesk.

4) Hired a team of SEO "experts" from India, later found out they outsourced the job to another outsourcing agent on oDesk... who then outsourced it to another. When confronted, all 3 said "what does it matter, work is still getting done" - which was funny because the reason I confronted them was because work wasnt getting done. How did I know they were triple outsourcing? I assumed I wasn't going to get paid my $1200 back, so I relisted the same job on oDesk and the third outsource SEO team used my own name as a reference which was found in the .pdf instructions of the work I needed.

5) Data Entry - India, hired someone who just couldnt seem to do anything on time. Everything was about 2 weeks later, even simple things like "transfer this information to a spreadsheet" which was copy and pasting. Couldn't do it.

6) I've hired probably 6 people in China whose jobs was to type in keywords into TaoBao and find the cheapest of an item, contact the seller, haggle a lower price, and make the purchase. All 6 would lie about the pricing, often tacking on an extra 20% (assuming I couldn't use TaoBao myself being a Caucasian American) and claiming it was the lowest price they could find. How much did I pay these people? $900 USD a month for part time work.

7) I paid someone in New Zealand to create an application for me based on API calls from TaoBao, didn't listen to instructions at all and then threw a fit when I refused to pay him more than $1000.00 and threatened to kick my ass even though I still paid him $1000 of the $2000 agreed upon while in the end I was stuck with something I couldn't use because he apparently knew what would work better for me - This guy was actually from BHW.

8) Once I hired a guy from the Philippines to create a niche eCommerce store for me, and he did and it was amazing and he made it really fast. He made it for $80 USD, and I paid him upfront based on his references and cheap price. I was pretty impressed, that I asked him if he would make 1 site for me every 2-3 days, and I would pay him a flat $250 for the site with installing it, and he wouldn't have to mess with my database of items. Said he was mostly working for someone else, but what I was offering him was a lot more than what his current boss was paying him so he asked for the money upfront to show to his family to reassure them of him quitting his current work and coming to work for me. I paid him an upfront $1200 (but keep in mind, I had been talking with this guy off and on for a couple of months) as a deposit. Paid him, never heard from him again.

9) I hired someone on Freelancer to compile a list of 20 top eBay Sellers in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc - the number 10 spot on the lists had people with less than 100 positive feedback on eBay. She left me negative feedback on freelancer too, lol.


Just about every time I've hired someone from India to do wasn't even half assed, it was more like 1/4 assed. Not making racist generalizations, but it didn't even seem to matter if I paid a premium price to get something done, it was always "I need more money" or "We didnt understand at first, but now I do and we need more money" or "I know I said I could finish it 2 months ago, but it is very difficult, my wife is very sick, give me 1 more month" - I'm pretty much convinced that they come across a free WSO on SEO, think they have found easy money and actively pursue a constant stream of people looking for workers and then ditch their online accounts and create new ones.

Once I partnered with a outsourcing company in South America and hired 30 employees. We had to buy work stations and software. After a views weeks the main guy disappeared for 3 months without paying employees. Sucked big time.

I ordered an authority site with 1 months full promotion from a US company - its almost a year and it still isnt right. Broken links, no headings, keywords, no forum population, blah blah blah on and on and on. Yesterday i discovered I've got all these shitty external links to russian porn sites - wow so impressed NOT!

Had some bad experiences with oDesk as well - a lot of liars on there, mainly about their skills.

Wow.. every time I have been very disappointed it has been for under $25.... I am glad I am a cheap bastid after reading some of these stories.

[7/29/2013 11:43:24 PM] ME: Happy birthday
[8/16/2013 10:28:51 AM] HIM Hello
[8/16/2013 10:29:07 AM] ME: ?
[8/16/2013 10:29:15 AM] HIM I saw your post on BHW
[8/16/2013 10:29:20 AM] ME: which?
[8/16/2013 10:29:20 AM] HIM do you still need seo?
[8/16/2013 10:29:20 AM] HIM
[8/16/2013 10:29:29 AM] ME: seo whhat?
[8/16/2013 10:30:03 AM] HIM Aren't you Bostoncab from bhw?
[8/16/2013 10:30:03 AM] HIM
[8/16/2013 10:30:08 AM] ME: yes
[8/16/2013 10:30:13 AM] HIM i've worked for you in past
[8/16/2013 10:30:14 AM] HIM for small jobs
[8/16/2013 10:30:16 AM] HIM
[8/16/2013 10:30:24 AM] HIM are you still looking for a VA?
[8/16/2013 10:30:28 AM] ME: you mean the va?
[8/16/2013 10:30:30 AM] ME: ya..
[8/16/2013 10:30:32 AM] HIM Yeah
[8/16/2013 10:30:42 AM] ME: im still looking but what skills do you have?
[8/16/2013 10:30:53 AM] HIM seo skills?
[8/16/2013 10:30:54 AM] HIM
[8/16/2013 10:31:16 AM] ME: listen.. i take business seriously.. if you do not you are not who i am seeking
[8/16/2013 10:31:42 AM] HIM i take business seriously too..
[8/16/2013 10:31:57 AM] HIM
[8/16/2013 10:38:24 AM] HIM please let me know
[8/16/2013 10:38:52 AM] ME: please dont bother me with foolishness
[8/16/2013 10:38:59 AM] HIM ?
[8/16/2013 10:39:11 AM] HIM what foolishness ?
[8/16/2013 10:39:25 AM] ME: you can not answer simple question when asked..
[8/16/2013 10:39:47 AM] ME: ok based on giving me a silly childish answer i want to pay you...
[8/16/2013 10:39:53 AM] ME: think about it..
[8/16/2013 10:40:16 AM] HIM well
[8/16/2013 10:40:27 AM] HIM i've just finished this summer computer science college
[8/16/2013 10:40:41 AM] HIM and i'm doing seo in part-time
[8/16/2013 10:40:56 AM] ME: what specifically can you do for me?
[8/16/2013 10:41:04 AM] HIM what are you looking for
[8/16/2013 10:41:14 AM] ME: ohhh please..
[8/16/2013 10:41:17 AM] ME: go away
[8/16/2013 10:41:59 AM] HIM lol
[8/16/2013 10:42:08 AM] HIM i really don't understand you...
[8/16/2013 10:42:14 AM] HIM you said u are looking for a VA
[8/16/2013 10:42:18 AM] HIM a VA to do what?
[8/16/2013 10:42:47 AM] HIM and i didn't added you today
[8/16/2013 10:43:00 AM] HIM i've got you in my skype list because i've worked for you in past
[8/16/2013 10:43:08 AM] ME: you have?
[8/16/2013 10:43:09 AM] ME: when?
[8/16/2013 10:43:16 AM] ME: what did you do for me then?
[8/16/2013 10:43:36 AM] HIM i don't remember exactly , but i belive seo
[8/16/2013 10:43:40 AM] HIM when penguin camed
[8/16/2013 10:45:01 AM] ME: cant be
[8/16/2013 10:45:29 AM] ME: honestly if you can not tell me what skills you have to offer I will pass and its frustrating the way you conduct yourself
[8/16/2013 10:45:43 AM] ME: if I needed people with no skills I would hire homeless americans
[8/16/2013 10:46:23 AM] HIM I can do seo , website management
[8/16/2013 10:46:41 AM] HIM account creation
[8/16/2013 10:46:42 AM] HIM etc
[8/16/2013 10:46:47 AM] ME: you are just going to keep saying seo right?
[8/16/2013 10:47:35 AM] HIM i can do most of things on PC
[8/16/2013 10:47:40 AM] ME: so far you can not manage to tell me what you do for seo but you want to manage my website?
[8/16/2013 10:47:40 AM] HIM i can't tell you all right now
[8/16/2013 10:47:50 AM] HIM i've just finished computer science college
[8/16/2013 10:47:56 AM] ME: ok yes.
[8/16/2013 10:47:59 AM] ME: computer science
[8/16/2013 10:48:06 AM] HIM ?
[8/16/2013 10:48:09 AM] ME: and you are working part time doing seo
[8/16/2013 10:48:19 AM] ME: i have that yes i understand now
[8/16/2013 10:48:21 AM] ME: seo
[8/16/2013 10:48:24 AM] ME: computer science
[8/16/2013 10:48:54 AM] HIM yes
[8/16/2013 10:49:02 AM] HIM ohh , you don't belive me ?
[8/16/2013 10:49:16 AM] HIM send me an email on xxxxxx
[8/16/2013 10:49:24 AM] HIM uvt = universitate de vest timisoara
[8/16/2013 10:49:25 AM] ME: i dont know what to think all i know is that you do computer science and seo
[8/16/2013 10:49:39 AM] HIM or west university of timisoara
[8/16/2013 10:49:40 AM] HIM
[8/16/2013 10:49:41 AM] ME: i dont think you know what that means exactly
[8/16/2013 10:50:36 AM] HIM well , i'm guessing you are looking for a VA
[8/16/2013 10:50:38 AM] HIM for pc working
[8/16/2013 10:50:40 AM] HIM right?
[8/16/2013 10:50:58 AM] ME: yes va work on pc
[8/16/2013 10:50:59 AM] HIM and i've told you that pc's are my speciality and passion
[8/16/2013 10:51:19 AM] ME: ok yes you enjoyseo and computer science
[8/16/2013 10:51:30 AM] HIM yes
[8/16/2013 10:51:53 AM] HIM i guess u arent looking for a VA to get undress on webcam
[8/16/2013 10:51:54 AM] HIM lol
[8/16/2013 10:52:02 AM] HIM
[8/16/2013 10:52:19 AM] ME: no


I recently bought a wordai subscription. I am now convinced that when you buy content from most outsourcers all they are doing is taking an article running it through the Turing spinner adding some of their own changes and sending it off to you..

You have to be very careful who you hire. It's more likely that hiring someone from a third world country will yield bad results than someone from a developed country, simply because of low standards and rare good education opportunities. Always prefer to hire someone with a degree, someone who's spent 3-6 years specializing into something is highly unlikely going to screw it up.

Junkfood00 said:

You have to be very careful who you hire. It's more likely that hiring someone from a third world country will yield bad results than someone from a developed country, simply because of low standards and rare good education opportunities. Always prefer to hire someone with a degree, someone who's spent 3-6 years specializing into something is highly unlikely going to screw it up.

Click to expand...

LOL sure as hell didnt work for me!

I hired a few writers for a BST thread I started and in the end spent more time editing the articles than it would have taken me to actually write them myself.

scallen37 said:

1) Paid $10,000 of $30,000 to get a working prototype/basic functioning of a World of Warcraft gold farming bot made after Blizzard went through and banned Glider and a couple others, and was sent a free opensource Chinese farming bot that relied on easy macro's to function - which was received 4 months after the due date.

2) Second time, same project, I hired someone here in the U.S. who later decided it was best to take my money and then sell it himself.

3) When I attempted to set up logistics and purchasing operaitons in Shenzhen China before I moved there, a guy named John Chen worked for me for a good 6 months before I paid an additional amount to have him rent out a small warehouse, buy more inventory, and hire 2 people. For a month, he hired his wife while they both continued to work full time jobs and then when confronted he decided to sell my items on eBay and run with the money. Was eventually arrested and put in jail for 4 years - he was unaware I operated a legitimate business in China and thought I would never travel there apparently. He was originally found on oDesk.

4) Hired a team of SEO "experts" from India, later found out they outsourced the job to another outsourcing agent on oDesk... who then outsourced it to another. When confronted, all 3 said "what does it matter, work is still getting done" - which was funny because the reason I confronted them was because work wasnt getting done. How did I know they were triple outsourcing? I assumed I wasn't going to get paid my $1200 back, so I relisted the same job on oDesk and the third outsource SEO team used my own name as a reference which was found in the .pdf instructions of the work I needed.

5) Data Entry - India, hired someone who just couldnt seem to do anything on time. Everything was about 2 weeks later, even simple things like "transfer this information to a spreadsheet" which was copy and pasting. Couldn't do it.

6) I've hired probably 6 people in China whose jobs was to type in keywords into TaoBao and find the cheapest of an item, contact the seller, haggle a lower price, and make the purchase. All 6 would lie about the pricing, often tacking on an extra 20% (assuming I couldn't use TaoBao myself being a Caucasian American) and claiming it was the lowest price they could find. How much did I pay these people? $900 USD a month for part time work.

7) I paid someone in New Zealand to create an application for me based on API calls from TaoBao, didn't listen to instructions at all and then threw a fit when I refused to pay him more than $1000.00 and threatened to kick my ass even though I still paid him $1000 of the $2000 agreed upon while in the end I was stuck with something I couldn't use because he apparently knew what would work better for me - This guy was actually from BHW.

8) Once I hired a guy from the Philippines to create a niche eCommerce store for me, and he did and it was amazing and he made it really fast. He made it for $80 USD, and I paid him upfront based on his references and cheap price. I was pretty impressed, that I asked him if he would make 1 site for me every 2-3 days, and I would pay him a flat $250 for the site with installing it, and he wouldn't have to mess with my database of items. Said he was mostly working for someone else, but what I was offering him was a lot more than what his current boss was paying him so he asked for the money upfront to show to his family to reassure them of him quitting his current work and coming to work for me. I paid him an upfront $1200 (but keep in mind, I had been talking with this guy off and on for a couple of months) as a deposit. Paid him, never heard from him again.

9) I hired someone on Freelancer to compile a list of 20 top eBay Sellers in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc - the number 10 spot on the lists had people with less than 100 positive feedback on eBay. She left me negative feedback on freelancer too, lol.


Just about every time I've hired someone from India to do wasn't even half assed, it was more like 1/4 assed. Not making racist generalizations, but it didn't even seem to matter if I paid a premium price to get something done, it was always "I need more money" or "We didnt understand at first, but now I do and we need more money" or "I know I said I could finish it 2 months ago, but it is very difficult, my wife is very sick, give me 1 more month" - I'm pretty much convinced that they come across a free WSO on SEO, think they have found easy money and actively pursue a constant stream of people looking for workers and then ditch their online accounts and create new ones.

Click to expand...

It sounds like you must do some money making stuff if you can suffer all these defeats and keep moving.

outsourcing is why i went into biz for myself and now do everything myself.
never again! :mad2:

paid $15 for others to write my articles. paid another $15 to edit the said articles. paid another $30 for blog owners to post my articles. money site got penalized so invested another $100 to clean up my backlink profile. smh.

I'm a full time developer\coder that works from home and 90% of my clients hire me because they are sick of getting screwed by foreigners on freelance sites. If you want quality work done you have to hire from a developed country. It might seem like it costs more initially but it will save you in the long run and the quality of the work will be 10x better.

I rarely outsource, but from time to time some foreign people popup on my skype asking for a custom design WP theme..their budget $15 for the said theme, this is custom design, admin panel, and all the bells and whistles you can think of.
I still wonder where did they get the price of $15 for that kind of work

My worst experience doing outsourcing is when I had a malware in my network after 6 months of working with some Indians I found in Odesk and I got my credit card hacked before of that. I didn't want to outsource again after that, but here I am now trying to outsource again. I found this sweet girl saying she owns a staffing agency in the Philippines so I worked with her to find VAs from the Philippines. it's called symbiotic.me So far it's going well. I just hope the smooth sailing journey continues.