j70141
Colorado Springs,#2Consumer Comment
Mon, September 17, 2012
I had a VERY similar experience to this person. The only big difference is that I tend to not put funds into my credit card account until I am ready to use it.
Long story very short, my account was suddenly suspended on oDesk for non-payment. No warning, no inquiry, just a sudden suspension.
When I look into it, it appears they were trying to charge me BEFORE any work had been done, reviewed, or approved. I look into the diary, and it appears the person was logging hours while doing some other job, possibly for someone else. I email the contractee and am told that no work has been accomplished. A few days pass, and no submission of work, just more emails explaining away.
Was told my oDesk that their policy is to pay the contractee while work is being done, whatever they report has been done, no reviewal and no acceptance process whatsoever. They said if I had a problem with it, to fire the person, pay them for the time they claim, and find someone else. uhhh... NO!
I check my account and find that they do NOT have any way to either remove or change my 'method of payment'. Namely, they try to lock you in and keep trying to charge. The 'dispute' forms were in no way in an easy to find form or location, and their website was confusing and not user friendly (I am an IT Professional).
I sent them a nastly email, cancelled my credit card at the bank, and closed my account. I know a scam when I see one.
oDeskvictim
Palm Springs,#3Author of original report
Sat, February 04, 2012
First, I lay odds that you are one of the oDesk staff in the Phillipines. They have a large Phillipino staff. Second, you just admitted in your post that you are a tech worker that takes contracts off oDesk. oDesk has a large network of people like you all over the web putting out all the good at oDesk. There is nothing good about oDesk. Period. If someone like, me, who knows nothing about the tech side of website development, and only has an outline with psd files they are screwed on oDesk, because there is no protection from bad contractors. Freelancer is a much better place to work, money goes into escrow and if I am not satisfied with the end project I don't pay. Then the matter is reviewed for quality of work by the Freelancer staff.
Archie M.
Cebu City,#4General Comment
Sat, February 04, 2012
oDeskvictim,
Upon reading your report I know how where you coming from. I am also an employer and at the same time a contractor in the network and based on my experience I am extremely satisfied of the service I'm getting from the contractor I hired because in the first place I know what I'm looking for and I choose very wisely who to engage and work with my small projects. If I want to get work done for less I usually hire people who had been in the platform for many years based on the number of hours they logged in the sytem let say a thousand hours or more, a feedback score of 4 and a half or greater and the skills that you are looking for. You have to make sure you invite them for an interview just to make sure that they do understand what you are trying to accomplish and set up your own ground rules - Talking about your expectations from the contractor in relation to communication, his availability, logging time (for hourly jobs) submitting deliverables for the project, reviewing work progress and anything else you can think of since they're in the other part of the world and timezones. If I were you, you should hire a contractor for a flat rate , a small paid test run just to make sure he's the right 'one'. You can shortlist 3 candidates of your choice and select the 'best one' . If he's not ,then you can end the contract right there and then and use oDesk database to search for great candidates. After the testing phase you can always hire them for longer hourly work. With flat rate you have the total discretion and control of when and how much you will be paying for your contractor. You make only a final payment to your satisfaction once you get the final and working product. You might had hire a technical project manager who will do everything from interviewing, hiring, managing and paying your contractor for easy management per say.
I quoted 'I don't see why I should have to pay for him to learn how to do what he claimed to know how to do and train him.' Right there and then you should fire him and ended the contract and left a feedback. In the real world, if you don't like your employee's work you fire him and pay for the hours he worked for you, its the same thing here in oDesk.
Frankly speaking I was able to understand the entire work arounds from policies, its user agreement and technicalities inside oDesk for 2 weeks only. What I did was I engaged in researching the company's reputation, users' review and other pertinent information that can be very useful for me before I made my first hire. ( I hope you've taken your time to read understand the oDesk user agreement)
To cut the story short if you had only manage your team correctly I'm pretty sure that this failure wont happen. This is a learning situation that would greatly help you improve your team management for future projects , may or may not be in oDesk or any other similar sites and I wish you goodluck heaps