Freelance Websites

[HenryLarson]

I had a project I needed to get done fairly quickly so I decided I'd post it up on GetACoder - Quick & Easy Project Outsourcing. Outsource Your Project Today.. Instantly I received lots of replies with people bidding on the project. One caught my attention, a guy named Bryan Carnegie. I asked him to produce some works that he had recently done and all looked ok. He then requested 50% of the project cost to be sent to him via western union. This of course rang a few bells so I ran a search on him - It turns out he is a scammer and once he receives the 50% he then disappears. I came across a few interesting websites about this guy, most notably this one: Bryan Carnegie - Scam Artist & NOG - Did he not realise that the people he scammed would get pissed off and post websites like this one.

Anyway just said I'd let you guys know of my experience incase your ever using freelance websites like this.

 

[TheMenace]

I don't understand why anyone would think that there isn't a massive risk working this way. I would normally ask for a 50% deposit as well but I wouldn't expect someone to pay it if they found me on some website like 'GetACoder' simply because of the trust factor. Which is why I would never use such a website.

 

[TheMenace]

PS: LOL. On reading the blog it would seem that the opposition to Mr. Carnegie is a pretty nasty racist type.

 

[louie]

when you decide to use websites like the one above t find a developer or designer, you have already taken certain risk. In this case you were lucky enough to find some useful information about him and you did your homework, but there are others that are not so cautions, and there are other scammers out there that you can not find anything on them that easy.

Anyhow, paying 50% or even 10% in advance requires trust and is like playing poker.
In this case more likely the paid party disappear than actually doing the job.
Some could do the easy part and when it gets complicated they are gone.

I posted a job once on Elance, and everything was done through their system which i liked it - no risk - no payment in advance, and when the job was done, i made the payment. I was sorry afterwards because the job wasn't done the way i wanted, it was hard to make yourself understood of how and what, but couldn't just pay nothing to him because he was always on the ball trying as hard as he could.
To be honest never used what he done and while he was still working at it, I rolled my sleeves and did it myself (dropping what I was actually doing) but hey that's life.

 

[dude]

I use scriptlance.com a lot (as a webmaster.) I've never really had any problems. Just make sure you give a really detailed spec in the job description (most people don't do this) and choose a programmer with lots of positive feedback.

I pay everything via escrow, so the programmer doesn't get anything until the job is done. The escrow lets him see I can be trusted.

 

[mneylon]

Using escrow or similar makes sense if you don't know exactly who you are dealing with.