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Mixed bag--that Elance.



There are some (a few...) projects for good freelancers. Some actually paid good money too, say $50 an hour for me, for example $2000 or more for a single gig.



But, their customer support is virtually nonexistent, so some of my clients there have stated. Providers say the same, if they were unlucky, and some problems arise.



Elance is not necessarily a scam, but it is DEFINITELY MISMANAGED at the human support level. If something does not go right--perhaps, a client's good credit card has problems, do not expect the problems to be fixed anytime soon. It might take weeks for them to straighten things out. If ever...



They also kick some providers out if they complain about their problems about not getting paid and all, through Elance's fault, but through no fault of theirs, I hear...



(Keeping my fingers crossed...)

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From a service provider's point of view, I can say Elance is far better than any other freelance website out there.

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I have been using Elance for the past 18 months as a provider and it has worked out great for me. I have been able to generate a steading stream of income from the site.

ELANCE ARE LIARS AND THIEFS!

I signed up for Elance in early December. I followed their advice and took some performance tests (at $5 a pop) because they claim that when buyers do a search if you score high you will be high in the rankings for whatever skill. NOT TRUE.



My test results were top 5% in several and top 10% in others. But when I went and did a search for those skills there are people will lower and non-existent test scores way above me.

TOTAL waste of money.



I also paid ($15 a pop) to use their service which is supposed to verify your "credentials". They say verifying them shows you have reliable references to buyers.

More than 2 months later I am still waiting. 1 it said they couldn't verify, 3 they haven't even tried. They are all former employers and the one they said they couldn't verify told me they never got a letter, call, or email from anyone trying to verify past employment. Elance just took my money and did nothing.



Spent a month and a half calling and emailing them. Even sent Elance a letter in the mail. They never answer their phone, never return emails, don't respond to voicemails and don't answer letters.

I basically wasted about $100 because of Elance lying and stealing my money.



Elance is the WORST thing in the world!

Elance is a joke if you are looking to provide quality work (and get anything close to a fair wage).

For buyers it's even worse. The whole site is chalk full of low-quality providers with glowing resumes and feedback. The thing is the providers make multiple accounts and "trade" projects within the accounts for that very feedback.



Elance turns a blind eye so they can collect their service fees.

Their escrow isn't a real escrow system, the website itself has errors all the time and if you are looking for any type of customer service or support you get a phone answering machine and an email support service that never returns emails.



Elance is by far the worst freelancing site I have ever had the misfortune of working with.

If you ever think of checking it out be sure and READ their 800 page terms of service statement. They are not responsible for ANYTHING. They can come back and take money you made months ago if they want (and they have citing problems and fraud)...even though their system is supposed to prevent these things.



Elance is a joke and a horrible affront to decent business practices.

Elance

www.elance.com



I have hired a programmers/web designers through Elance, online outsourcing company. I made my choice based on their rating system and the bid received from indian group Synapseindia.



The project is 2 months past due and Synapseindia is unable to correct the functionality although a full payment was made.



Elance investigating team was contacted in order to arbitrate but they have no system of protection for the customers and are less than willing to argue with their "select" providers who provide part of their online fees.



I had a tech team to review an existing site and they immediately pointed out to several issues including security; Synapseindia corrected them only on our request, ignoring the fact that as a "select" provider they are expected to maintain at least basic expertise.

Scam at Elance



We are terminating our outsource a web development project and demanding refund of USD450 from a developer in India on the ground of project delay more than 6 months and the developer is obviously lack of skill to deliver.



We have reported the case to Elance but they did nothing much other than forwarding emails, claiming that they act as a finder service only and suggested 3rd party mediation service. The developer is refusing refund with lots of lame excuses and stalling time to participate on 3rd party mediation wasted another 4~5 months since the case reported to Elance.



My question for the situation is



1. How can we make Elance liable to its duty as the owner of a marketplace to protect its member from fraud and fair business practise?



2. Is there a way for us to venue for us to demand refund from the developer as they are in India, though a bulk of their business could be from US?



3. Is this case worth to be pursue, refund amount is $450 plus delay penalty and other damages could worth more than $5,000 is chargeable.



Thanks in advance for taking time to response to our concern. If there is something worthy for us to pursue, I am surely with you to go all out.

Left a project on Elance and this company bids. Not a great bid a bit generic but I like some of their apparent websites.

They bid agian for the same amount which also happens to be the max amount the project is going for.



They then bid a week later for a third time and this time it's $250 over the max bid amount! After questioning it his reply was "Ah I bided on the wrong project".



OK so I should have had alarm bells then but pickings were slim and they looked like the best shot as anyone can make mistakes. Should have gone with my sixth sense!







So I award the project on the 18th OCT 09 and leave my terms, they come back with "thanks for giving us this project we should have your Ecommerce up and running in two weeks" Kavin its not an Ecommerce site, its a blog site and the ususal apologies came up...







We argue over the 50% upfront and them not being in business to RIP OFF anyone... I read up on Elance rules and it's not uncommon to do this, So in order to get the ball rolling I agree but only after we've agreed on a design.







I see a design on the 20 OCT 09 2 days later and dont hear anything substantial about the site for another 4 days when a mockup template comes through which is crass to say the least and after I've released Escrow funds of 50%







All i hear is theyre uploading it to my server for 4 more days and after threatening them by saying if nothing is up and substantial by the morning I'll be canceling and looking for another provider.







They put up a wordpress site with no interaction apart from the back end (which is build into it automatically) which I could have done myself. And then stuck the rudimentary graphics on the front! to resemble the website. All thiswork would have taken a proficient designer a couple of hours. They said they worked on it all day to get it live and missed out the crucial parts to building a website. Giveing the client what he wants! Development, testing, adjusting, launching.







At no time did they put up a holding page they just did it ad hoc, and after their mess of a site going up I canceled. I got called a thief for closing their FTP and that they would fight me over ALL the work they did. All they did was try and rip me off. I'm waiting on Arbitration from Elance.com to get my money back...







My recommendations, avoid hustlers like Kevin Patel and Dhruv Patel from 05creations.com like the plague... They have no clue how to do business and will take your money anyway way they can!

I paid $350 into Escrow re a project for 60 SEO Links from a provider that failed to provide reports and project outcomes within specified period. Due to unforseen personal circumstances it was over the 6 month deadline period that I was able to pursue the provider further - unfortunately they no longer exist on Elance.



The project is not completed to satisfaction and a year later $350 sits in Escrow and I'm unable to return it to my paypal account.



I've tried on a couple of occasions to contact Elance - but all I receive is set of instructions including forms to fill in that specify a 6 month deadline less a set number of days - over which the Escrow money appears to roll up to the Bank of Elance.



As I say, project was not completed to time or satisfaction, I was over the 6 month deadline re claiming with supplier - but they no longer exist - and I seem unable to get my $350 back.



Please assist.



Sarah

Elance is a supposed freelancer website.



Elance is nothing but a scam. They post false buyer jobs to improve their numbers. They do not adhere to any of their policies. They allow buyers to post multiple non-awarded jobs which service providers pay to bid on. They LIE and say buyers are automatically stopped from posting jobs if they award less than 20% of those jobs - however anyone can see that there are tons of buyers who've posted 10, 20 and more jobs that are never awarded.



Elance offers an escrow service but this is a scam as well. If you are a buyer who puts money into escrow it will ALWAYS be paid to the service provider NO MATTER WHAT. If you hire someone to setup a website and they upload a chicken soup recipe, Elance WILL release ALL of your Escrow money and say, "we can't be responsible for the quality of work".



Elance does not tolerate dissent. They never answer their phone, rarely return emails and their website is full of bugs. Many service providers and buyers who have complained on their forums have had their accounts banned.



I could write pages on the schenanigons going on over there. I learned my lesson the hard way (after they stole my money).



Elance has to be the worst scam out there.



Hyter g.

Dallas, Texas

U.S.A.

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Well, I got a nice 500U$ work the last month.

I guess I have almost no complains.

It's hard to get a good job on this web though.

Regards

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As a developer, I am very satisfied. Great system.

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So what is the alternative aside for elance?

Hey guys. I wanted to get in touch with as many people as I can regarding Elance and their shady business practices. I'm an employer. Elance let me hire a firm from India that they kicked off their site for God knows what 1 day after I posted my job. Did Elance tell me? NO. This company had 100% positive feedback. That happens because Elance allows them to create multiple accounts, hire themselves and give themselves positive feedback. Many times the projects they have listed in their profiles are not from other companies but inhouse projects. Elance let me hire them and they ended up stealing my intellectual property, taking the first two payments for milestones, never delivering anything, and HACKING my computer, Elance account, bank account and basically my life. DO NOT WORK WITH THIS COMPANY!



I went to Godaddy to buy the domain ElanceSucks.com but it was already taken. What a surprise!

This is a rip-off, I tried it, it does not work! period...unless you want to work for free! i was reading a job description for a VA and the guy siad in his country a good Assistant charges no more than $2/hr...

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I've been providing web content and articles for clients via Elance for about a year now. I work between 30-40 hours a week and have made over $20,000.00 in the last 6 months.



I see negative reviews all the time and I just don't understand them. Not everyone has the skill to do this kind of work. Blaming Elance for lack of time-management skills, talent or motivation seems unfair.



That said, there are definitely buyers out there who aren't completely on the up and up -- just like in the real world, imagine that! The good thing about Elance is that you're able to read feedback that's left for buyers from their previous clients, as well as the feedback they've left for their providers.



All you need to do is take a bit of time to look into the projects you're bidding on. You can make money at this -- provided you have the talent. Not everyone does; don't beat yourself up over it -- but don't blame Elance either!

If it was an option, Elance would receive zero stars from me. They don't go after non-paying buyers and claim they can't "get involved." I'm sure if a writer failed to provide the good for the buyer they'd "get involved."

Horrible!!! In the same league as Guru. They put the screws to the contractors and suck up to the employers, who receive services for free!!! Elance is the worst!

Horrible for everyone else This site offers an excellent place for job posters and an absolutely horrible one for service providers. Just take a look at the ratio of postings to service providers. For example, Design and Multimedia has, right now, over thirteen thousand service providers...and only four hundred and twenty-two job postings.

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I do have complaints with the low bidding practices and for employers who want to pay 3-4.00 per hour (or less) for high level work.

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Really mediocre. I've been using Elance for about a month and I find the charges outrageous. Elance takes huge cuts out of any projects you win, and I think most buyers are contacting the providers directly.

I own several companies which employ more than a thousand service providers so I enrolled in Elance. I asked Customer Service for support on some areas that was not clear to me, which is normally answered in Guru less than 24 hours. Weeks passed and finally I got a response from them asking me to explain what I want. I sent them several inquiries weeks back and they don't seem to have a record of it. Guru sends me a message and resolves all my problems within 24 hours. I don't blame your reviewers for giving a poor rating on their customer service. So when I tried to cancel my membership for over $1500 dollars, I cannot anymore! Oh well!

Completely awful. Elance was worth using years ago at its inception, before it charged outrageous subscription fees and took unreasonable cuts from any of the projects you managed to win.

Waste of money, no customer service, Elance lies, poor website I signed up for Elance in early December. I followed their advice and took some performance tests (at $5 a pop) because they claim that when buyers do a search if you score high you will be high in the rankings for whatever skill. NOT TRUE.

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If the service provider doesn't respond, Elance does absolutely nothing to protect the *buyer" except to tell me that if I serve them with a subpeopna then they will send me the service providers personal information like home address, etc so that I can take the service provider to court. Bad, very bad business. I wouldn't recommend Elance at all.

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Have been back and forth on this site and am finally leaving it for good. This is not the place for serious contractors with experience, references, etc. expecting a fair wage.

Elance has the worst customer service of ANY freelancing site and I have used many of them. There is simply nothing worthwild about Elance.

No customer service, no good providers, bunch of frauds and cheats out there Elance is a joke if you are looking to provide quality work (and get anything close to a fair wage). For buyers it's even worse. The whole site is chalk full of low-quality providers with glowing resumes and feedback. The thing is the providers make multiple accounts and "trade" projects within the accounts for that very feedback. Elance turns a blind eye so they can collect their service fees.

The provider was horrible. They couldn't follow the project details or even simple instructions. They drug the whole thing out for like 3 weeks before they finally just said they didn't have the expertise to do it.

Use Elance if you like wasting money.
It's great for job posters and Elance employees and horrible for everyone else.

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If you are a buyer, thigs are very good for you.

If you are a seller, you will soon find out that you are the golden goose for Elance. Initially, it's free to open an account and list several items in your Elance shop, but as said earlier you can't expect any transactions to come by just listing your services.

What does this membership pay for? Elance says it pays for advertising and marketing expenses of the Elance (and in extension, your) marketplace. That's a pure rip-off! It's like paying Google to let you search! These people are unbelievable!

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Hefty charges for Service Providers. Mediation policy and refund policy are not reliable. Elance is a very costly site for service providers. It picks your pocket by both hands - (1) A hefty fee on registration, and (2) Additional 8.75% of the cost of the project, with minimum of $10 (25%, if Project Cost is $50). Its refund policy is also quite defective.

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Advantages: Easy to set up.
Disadvantages: Impossible to sell Elance is a work / project marketplace, where buyers post works / projects for bidding by sellers. Elance of course offers a listing service - where you can list all the kind of jobs you are able to offer, but according to my experience buyers almost never see those listings, since they are able to post a project for bidding.

No customer service, lots of fraud, expensive Elance is about the worst freelance site out there whether you are a buyer or a provider. If you're a buyer you have to watch out for constant fraud. Their escrow service is nothing but a scam.

Total waste of time for anyone who isn't an off-shore, fly by night group trying to pass themselves off as professionals who are willing to work for peanuts.