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Discussion : Internet Fraud by Freelance Websites
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2008-01-24 03:44:00 -
Hello everyone,
I (perhaps foolishly) entered into a site design agreement with CSSAGlobal a few weeks back and have to date handed over in excess of $1200; they are now becomming very evasive; not answering emails, no longer availably on Skype, etc and I am beginning to "smell the coffee" as the only tangible "product" that I have seen is a half finished homepage.
I would really appreciate any further information that anyone may have regarding this company.
Many thanks..
2008-01-15 13:54:56 -
How about CoderForRent.com? I was thinking of posting a project there. I don't see how they would pull this scam off since they are free. They don't take a commission. The only way they make any money at all is if you want to upgrade your account or add special features to your projects.
Anyone had any bad results from them that I should know about?
2008-01-07 14:29:11 -
Update:
After much backpeddling GAF will be crediting back (they say) the balance of my escrow funds. Crossing fingers...
I have figured out how this scam works and every person who buys or even provides services on that site is at risk.
GAF doesn't allow any feedback to be posted unless a job is completed in its entirety. (NOT DEFINED IN THEIR TOS) The only way to post a bad feedback is to complete a job or get completely ripped off and have the provider be paid in full! Using this hole in their policy, scam providers simply bid on any and every job they can. Once they get the job they'll ask for a good faith deposit in cash and continue to beat you for as many cash payments as possible. Most buyers will catch on before a job is completed and cancel.
These scam companies are betting on it because that's how they get away with it. Once a buyer realizes they've been ripped off and either stop paying or start using escrow only the scam is complete. With NO possibility of having bad feedback posted, the buyer is Sh$T out of luck and GAF takes their cut of the loot. The provider is secure in knowing that the few jobs he does complete (almost always little cut and paste mods)will make him look good and he'll be able to bid on large jobs that will rake in large cash deposits. It's actually a brilliant scheme because GAF appears to look like a legit service. They actually rely on this scam to boost profits and go out of their way to ignore any questioning regarding their policy.
The company I dealt with had 40+ positives and seemingly perfect feedback, but since I've gone through this there have been 2 buyers that did manage to complete their payments and have since left scathing feedback. I can only imagin how many people this and other companies have actually ripped off using this method and for how many 10s of thousands of dollars.
Shame on GAF who provides a haven for such obvious thievery!
2007-12-22 14:46:09 -
Just a warning... the company is CSSAGlobal and their site can be found by adding the dotcom on the end. Has anyone else dealt with this scam company?
2007-12-22 14:39:02 -
After going through the motions of settng up as not only a buyer but a provider on GAF I settled on a company to write a software program for me. They had near perfect feedback and had a long list of projects that were similar to mine. Everything seemed great...
This company signed my very detailed contract and agreed to use escrow for payment. They then said they needed a small good faith cash deposit to begin (RED FLAGS) and I complied by sending them $200 of a $1500 project. They started programming and even set up a site on their HOSTED (RED FLAG) server for me.
The project was to take 2 months, 5 months later and $650 in cash payments I received nothing but a shell webpage with stolen graphics and cut and paste programming.
I refused to make any payments outside of escrow and all emails stopped. I had been ripped off!
My logic was, FINE I'll post bad feedback on GAF...right? WRONG to post feedback a project has to be PAID IN FULL in order to post feedback!!! WHAT!!! Thats right folks, all that good feedback for these companies is there because anyone who finds themselves being scammed usually find out long before the project is paid in full, and guess what? They can't leave negative feedback!
The bottom line s that Getafreelencer.com is setup to allow any company to make any deal they can. If you get a good honest company you'll be lucky, but if you get ripped off you won't be able to let anyone know about it and the providers all know this and exploit it. Good feedback is all but representative of the actual level of service a given company provides. GAF is perpetualting their ability to steal from buyers and happily do so for their 15% cut of the loot. BEWARE of GAF!
2007-12-02 09:35:04 -
I just got scammed by getafreelancer.com I just got a mysterious charge on my credit card.
2007-10-02 04:33:05 -
Hi
I want to know if this web site is real www.thehomeworker.org
Thanks
Gerald
2007-09-15 10:25:04 -
hi this is luli,
Pls advice me on the following:=
1.Is elance.com & getafreelancer.com genuine
or scams.
2.Recommend any other genuine freelancing site.
3.What is average income for a freelance(dataentry,
writing,webdesign)
4.Is www.thehomeworker.org a fraud.
5.Recommend genuine home-based-work site.
2007-09-13 16:42:45 - Good luck
This posting was a complete fabrication. If there are criminal investigations of RAC, why are none listed anywhere on any government website. Viewing the Rentacoder site shows that it charges 8.5%-15%...not even close to the 40% claimed in this writeup. And the person who posted this fake writeup, actually WON his arbitration on Rent a Coder, but lost in the end becuase he couldn't stop insulting the arbitrator and the other party (which was against his contract):
http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/ArbitrationInfo/KamenKaburov/RentACoderArbitration/KamenKaburov_RentACoder_Arbitration.htm
2007-09-03 11:55:47 -
Hi I'll join to check if a certain freelance site is not a scam. Thanks
2007-05-24 17:10:54 -
The famous insulter “kamen123” has been banned from RentACoder.
This week he is celebrating 1st anniversary of this ban.
Read more about his personal failure at RentACoder:
http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/ArbitrationInfo/KamenKaburov/RentACoderArbitration/KamenKaburov_RentACoder_Arbitration.htm
“kamen123” spoil perfect site in revenge.
My name: Sergey I.Grachyov
Nickname: TakeReal
I am famous freelancer.
I have:
878 projects completed via RentACoder
100 projects completed via GetAFreelancer
33 projects completed via Scriptlance
2007-05-07 02:23:20 -
hi kamen, why not join us in Mission against rentacoder fraud ? Have you complained to BBB and square trade ? Have you read 50 ways to force shut down rentacoder..?
2007-05-05 14:43:02 -
With serious projects rentacoder staff make mistakes
And they are proficient to blame someone else
Read my funny experience and perfect examples at http://kamen123.blogspot.com
2007-05-03 00:07:43 -
Hi , I am here to help us all. Read this post as a Case Study.
I need your help to write similar fraud alert marketing campaign plan.
50 ways to Force Shut down fraud business like rentacoder -
Marketing Campaign Ideas and Targets :
We have to convey our alert message to as many freelance serller and buyers.
There are locations where they almost always visit.With this strategy we can reach about 10000 coders and buyers in a week.
Frauds often use BBB and square trade seals, second target will be to get those seals removed.
#0 Creation of a website with forums and blogs - Domain name like rentacoder-fraud-alerts.com that will give website a place in first page of google for same keywords that rentacoder uses.If word rentacoder is typed in google search, the second search result will be fraud alert website.
#1.Post as a project on 30 freelance websites about what rentacoder did to them.
Several thousands software buyers and coders will come across those postings.
They will withdraw their deposited money and close account with rentacoder.They will provide testimonials , some of them might be already victims and might be feeling helpless.And many coders will offer services for software development.
#2.Find 50 programmers who are victim of rentacoder. Get their feedback on forum.
A good idea is to see who had arbitrations in profiles and send them a message.
Such coders and buyers will be given complete anonymity , no personal info. will be required to register.
#3.Write articles about rentacoder fraud and publish on 250 articles websites.
This will ensure that 1st result in google for keyword freelance will open rentacoder-freelance-fraud.com.
20 articles will give 5000 backward link , that means high placement in google , not only this, the articles will be there forever and many new visitors will be coming in for many years.
#4.Project funding. The actual cost of developing the website is less than $100.
Web designer bids very low. Victims will donate .and I have got a good software source code for websites with forum.
#5.Tell to all victims that they can report to BBB and square trade with all details.
#6.Forum topic : IF you are a victim of rentacoder, we wil fight for you. Let us know your experience.
#7.Find articles about rentacoder fraud and create archieve .Visitors will be able to download all articles at one place . in a zip. suggest me if it is better to link to original website where article is present, copying may be a copyright violation. though we can copy with permission and give credit and link back.
Marketing Campaign
#8. Publish archieves/articles/posts in
a. Blogs - 1000 blogs would be enough ?
b. Yahoo answers - who is the number one fraud. Answer : rentacoder. see the website rentacoder-fraud-alert.com
c. expertexchange.com
d. codeproject.com - there coders come to find codes
e. business forums - there buyer comes
f. pscode.com
g. 30 most popular source codes website
h. sourceforge.net
Suggest me more. To be effective we need to place articles,testimonials on 10000+ places which are very relevant and highly likely to be found by buyers and sellers.
I prefer to develop and publish downlodable sharewares on shareware websites because they give 250+ PR1-10 links that improves google and search engine rankings as well as good featurs.
#9. A downloadable software that popup desktop alerts when fraud alerts are raised by admin on website.
#10. A chatroom
#11. A browser toolbar like google toolbar that alerts on desktop.
#12. Tell a friend form. Fill 20 email address in form and we will send all of them an email.
#13. software source codes can be published on websites like planet-source-code.com, sourceforge.net ( sf.net ) , codeproject.com. There are 50 more .
#14. The competitors of this frauds who are honest will surely help. A competition research can be done on web.They can fund the project as well as help in several other ways.
#15....
suggest me more , i will post new ideas in continuation in next message.
2007-05-02 10:12:58 -
I've got to say that with over 150 projects through Rentacoder over three years the real fraud seems to be by the writers of this article trying to smear Rentacoder. As for the prices of the projects being a tenth of those of an on-site coder in the west (who may well be an Indian or from China anyway) - this reflects the generally poorer standard of work and much higher management overhead that we have found in outsourced projects.
Great coders on Rentacoder often charge much the same as local ones - mediocre ones or those with no reputation are forced to charge much less.
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