Complaint Review: Ron - Internet

On guru.com I hired a freelancer to build a small website for a price of $185 It was not much work but the freelancer promised he will make it look nice. i sent him all photos necessary to build and other content. I should have known from the start something was wrong because he claimed he was almost done yet he had no content yet. He sent me three templates to choose from, i chose one. Then weeks later he sent me a link claiming the site was done and ready for payment. I clicked on the site link and aside of a few of my pictures entered into the template he sent back the template he asked for me to choose from. The templates if you haven't used one is a bunch of generic information and garbled text just for a place filler. He sent the template content even the template photos and pages completely untouched from its original form. In seeing this I thought i could go back and forth with this guy explaining the ridiculousness of him calling this complete but i just said I don't think its going to work out. After all, he must have put no more than 15 minutes into it by that time. Lets just end this now and save us both time. I thought he might agree but no, he expected full payment for this. 

With guru.com you can pay in this sort of escrow account. Guru.com "claims" that if your not satisfied you may receive a full refund. Well, i felt more comfortable in this case because the freelancer was in India and didnt know him at all. So I went to the safepay account and requested a refund showing the reason and fully expecting an immediate refund with this overwhelming evidence. The Freelancer spent more time on his argument then the project. Both sides in, they said 3 weeks an answer will be sent via email. Today I received the answer they said he was awarded 100% of the funds. The reason was kind of a babble they said that I agreed to pay for the project on my email to him. Which I did this is true but I assumed that meant the completed project. I was blown away. I then called them (guru.com) many times but no answer. Left messages on voice mail to return my calls but no response. So I saw a section on the website where I can ask questions, so I did. I asked why they call this "safe pay" when there is nothing safe about it. All disputes go to the freelancer he doesn't even have to complete the project. After sending the question directed to guru.com in the questions and answers section. I found out a few hours later they shut off my account. I couldn't log in or access my account at all. 

It was then that I realized that the thief was not as much the kid from India but guru.com for giving him the platform to pull off this crime with the partnership of guru.com. It was also more interesting that they would lose an employer for a punk kid using guru.com as a con to rip off honest people like myself. I then began to see that in the purchase guru.com receives a small cut but in the mediation guru.com received about 20% from me. Much more lucrative. There is no question guru.com made all this possible encouraging this type of behavior in an attempt to raise revenue while rewarding the freelancer for their efforts. I now believe the person I contracted from India may not have been from India at all but possibly from right there in Pittsburgh Pa. and yes, I do think guru.com may have been the freelancer all along. What a great scam banking from all ends. I never stood a chance. It makes little difference if they allowed / encourage it or did it themselves. I have yet to work with a business this large with this level of sleaziness.   

After looking deeper I found many with similar stories as mine. 

I believe a class action suit should be leveled against guru.com or many more people will be victims of this scam. I know many others lost much more than I in the same way. This must be stopped. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I will not give up on exposing guru.com. Guru.com are nothing more than cyber thugs.