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Discussion : Internet Fraud by Freelance Websites

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1-15> 16-30 > 31-45 > 46-60 > 61-75 > 76-90 > 91-105 > 106-120 > 121-135 > Total 133 comments

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2009-10-22 23:59:57 -
aristompot

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2009-09-05 20:19:27 - Davidbow
The fraud committed at some of the freelancer sites are mostly internal. The sites are developed to enable fraud. One site I used appear to collaborate with certain companies in what appears to be a syndicate, helping to entrap project, especially those with a high value for a fraud hit.

I posted a project, deposited over $1000 to enable payment first half payment, within a few weeks the designer became quite funny, on holiday, sick, or he had a problem etc.
The alarms went off. I raised concerns with the help desk. I observed that either the designer was telepathic or he had access to the helpdesk, He was almost simultaneous sending me an email addressing concerns raised with the helpdesk.

I canceled the project and initiated a money withdrawal which appeared fine, a few days later I found they had intercepted and stopped the withdrawal. I raised an instant issue resolution with Paypay. I attached a screen dump of account showing - 1) the initial deposited amount, 2) Eschew payment to designer and subsequent cancellation 3) auto-email to me indicating payment withdrawal OK and transaction details. Efficient, Paypay effected a transfer of my money to my account. Leaving the get a fraudsters site furious. They wanted make to raise an official complain so they could officiate a resolution and decide in favor of the designer – themselves.

If you make a deposit take a screen dump of the account status, Always.

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2009-08-24 13:38:47 -
Scriptlance.com is the best of best.I am designer and get projects from this site i earned 21,000$ in 1 year.Long live scriptlance fully secure and great escrow system

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2009-08-19 05:53:12 -
Ok, I'm tricked definitely. After waiting the payment for more than 15 days I had to cancel the project to get the fee back. GAF said that they can't help me because I didn't use escrow. Beware of the provider under user name 'thegnllc'.

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2009-08-12 09:33:35 -
I was working for Forum in GAF and money was transfered by buyer to GAF account but GAF suspended my account for no reason and did not transfer 58 dollars to my PayPal account.

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2009-08-12 09:26:21 -
I was working in getafreelancer.com in Forums and money was transfered by the buyer to GAF account but at first they transfered part of my money to PayPal account ,but then they suspended my account for no reason ,I did not get the last 58 $ .How can I get my money? You must stop them doing things like this to people otherwise they will be millioniares soon.

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2009-08-10 05:14:15 -
Hi, I wouldn't say that getafreelancer.com is a complete fraud. I did ten projects during the last year (one is ongoing), for very nice buyers and nothing was wrong until the last one.
Buyer had very good ratings, so I haven't asked for escrow. And now I'm waiting for $100 payment for more than 10 days after I completed the project - he don't answer my emails anymore. If he don't pay me soon, I will get back here with his user name.
The bad thing is that there is no way to say this on GAF, because I can't even rate the buyer if the project is not paid. And I'm also getting suspicious about fake reviews.
But once again, it's not a complete fraud.

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2009-07-13 13:22:34 -
Sent me all online & Offline BPO & Call Centers fraud list of peoples.

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2009-06-02 15:36:01 -
I am a coder and have ran into several people who have chosen me as the winning bidder and then in the getting to know each other stage(s) and instruction confirmation stage(s) where they disappeared on me and I not get any kind of money at all, or we have gotten past all that area and I have done the job for someone with them having sent me a partial payment to my Paypal Account and then after delivering the files to them, they turn around and file a complaint that I didn't render the services that I was supposed to render.
The last of these is the newest one that has recently happened to me and I'm not sure what to do because the man is in Canada.

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2009-05-04 21:28:51 -
If you are planning to outsource with CSSAGlobal, please do ask for my feedback. I am sure that you won't regret it. You can contact me by using Contact form available on www.uday.net/CSSAGlobal Thanks.

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2009-04-14 11:08:45 -
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

On April 10, 2009, a bid request for a “Super Debugger” was posted on RentACoder by a buyer named ATuring. The bidding was scheduled to close on April 30, 2009 with a deadline of 90 days. It was in the “Medium Business Project” price range. The specs were as follows:

I require a program that can accept source code in all the major languages (C / C#, VB, Java, PHP, .NET), analyze any loop structures within the source code, and determine whether the program will run from beginning to end or will run in an infinite loop. It must be in the form of a windows application with a file input control and status bar messages.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with this project, it’s a manifestation of the Turing Halting Problem. The Turing Halting Problem is to find an algorithm that can read programs as input and determine whether or not there will be infinite loops. This was proven to be impossible in the early 20th century by Alan Turing, the father of modern computer science. In other words, the project cannot be done, even by a reasonable and competent coder.

To see the Bid Request, go to the following link:

http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/BidRequests/ShowBidRequest.asp?lngBidRequestId=1146467


The point of the bid request was to see if coders in RAC were smart enough to ask questions related to the project and conduct research on their own BEFORE agreeing to do anything. My findings were rather disappointing. Not only have coders posted bids on the project without reviewing the specs, but some of them were ranked 9 out of 10 or higher with as many as 72 successful projects to their name. Here is a list of the coders who participated in this experiment:

Coders Who DID NOT Bid (The Good)
• wataylor
• Realtime Engineering
• jpapp
• isidor
• -Ajay-
• akamaus
• biotech86
• ClassiX Soft UK
• bitdonkey
• GVahe
• BGDN.Net





Coders Who DID Bid (The Bad)
• Al Wonderer (Rating 8.4)
• Umbraco (Rating 9.07)
• outsourcing guru
• samia21
• Asad Inc. (Rating 9.98)
• Rjavier (Rating 8.44)
• Soft-AX
• CodeXp3rtS
• Claudiocordera
• John Doeish

Coders Who Asked for More Money (The Ugly)
• Cyclone Soft (Rating 9.55) (Asked for $50,000)

Although there are more coders who did not bid, their names will not be mentioned simply because they implied interest and competence in being able to code the project without figuring out in advance that it was impossible. Those coders are advised to conduct more thorough research in future projects BEFORE they comment on any bid requests period. If this project had an “expert guarantee” and you accepted the project, then you would have been screwed.

After a thorough review of the buyers who actually bid on this project, I have noticed several trends. The most obvious link is that most of these coders are from Pakistan and India. I’m not sure what it implies, but it sorely discredits the quality of the coders from those areas. I work full-time with Indian coders and they would be embarrassed to see their brothers and sisters displaying such unprofessionalism.

The second commonality is the overwhelming amount of “cut-and-paste” responses that fail to address the bid request. Stop trying to TELL a buyer that you can do the job and SHOW him you can do the job by asking relevant questions and providing related demos if possible. If you were a buyer and had 10 people simply stating that the project can be done while one coder provides a demonstration or a detailed explanation of how it could be done with a time estimate, who would you pick for the job?

The third, most disturbing thing amongst the people who made outright bids on this project comes from those who have a high ranking. Some of these guys have done work for only one or two buyers, yet have a ranking of 9 or better on every project. For these supposedly “Very Good” or “Excellent” coders to bid on a ridiculous project as the “Super Debugger”, their bids deeply put into question the legitimacy of their ratings. I’d hate to suggest the use of “meat puppet” RAC accounts which fabricate bogus projects in order to inflate ratings for a select group of buyers and coders, but their project history strongly suggests such a practice. As a result of this potential fraud, ratings and job counts should not be the ONLY factor in picking an appropriate coder.

I hope this will help buyers weed out some of the more honest and competent coders from some of the “bad seeds”. Don’t allow a few incompetent coders leave you with a bad taste in your mouth about RentACoder. Learn to tell them apart so you don’t receive deliverables that are below your standards. As for coders, if you heed some of my above-mentioned suggestions, then you’ll find yourself winning more bids and receiving higher ratings LEGITIMATELY.

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2009-03-31 13:41:50 -
Hi all,

I am also heard about getafreelancer but still now i didn't use that site,because there is design also some what not nice.But I am using http://www.net4manpower.com for taking freelance projects..I am a freelance translators,i got some projects from this site and also they provide me 100% secure payment..so now i am using this one only, and also initially i don't want to pay any money for registration and bid anything..so we don't cheat ..if you interested try it..

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2009-03-19 09:09:33 -
I have used rentacoder.com for several years now on 28 jobs. I rate them 5 stars *****.
I have a 1 bad experience with a lazy coder, but the staff at RAC corrected this in 3 days.
I will continue to use RAC for future jobs. Thx. Greg

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2009-03-12 19:20:34 -
GetAFreelancer.com is a complete fraud. I seriously doubt any of the jobs that are advertised on there are real. I bid for one project, got a private email back from them asking me to go to a website and write a review of it after I had completed 'a simple application form'. the site turns shows a form that signs you up for stuff via your mobile phone, thus they get massive hits to the page and then money on top out of the sign up.

Also, if you try and google 'Getafreelancer scam' like I did, the search brings up multiple entries of an actual job advert on the site about writing about scams/fraud. They've key-worded all the negative association you might attach in your search and turned it into a legitimate ad!!

Google Alexis Tilman freelance - He/She is everywhere on freelance sites doing the same thing and must be raking it in

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2009-02-18 06:28:58 -
Unfortunately, I've had to go through arbitration with Rent-A-Coder twice now; once initiated by myself and once initiated by a buyer. Both times what has happened is that a buyer basically abandoned the project. Both times the buyer did not really take advantage of the arbitration process, because they failed to present their case AT ALL. They did not even respond to requests by the arbitrator. Both times the arbitrator also gave the buyer extensions in order to respond, but yet the buyers still did not respond.

Although I don't like the arbitration process, because it is a bit tedious and nerve-wracking, my impression is that the process is more than fair. My advice to buyers is this: 1) Make sure you can clearly define the end product that you desire from the coder. Watch out for 'scope-creep' (that's just general advice). and 2) If you find yourself in an arbitration, be timely and complete with your responses. Please remember that by definition the coders you are dealing with are professionals, so if you are in an arbitration with them you should expect them to fully present their case. You should do likewise.

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Total 133 comments