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by karatchov 4568 days ago
Hy

Being an old RAC then vWorker freelancer, I totally share weland's view.

Lately, I restarted on freelancer.com, and the amount of WTF moments that I faced are quite substantial. Let me give you a summary (and why I decided to move to elance):

-- The worker being constantly extorted in every corner of the site:

-Pay $5 in order to take a test.

-Pay more $ to get your bid in the first row/highlighted

-Pay some $ to unlock more BidsPerMonth and Skills

-Pay upfront 10% of every job you are awarded, even if the employer is determined to scam you and never pay

-What about a constant Ad to remind you that you can always choose to pay more. ...

-- Milestone payment is not defaulted, if the employer didnt made a milestone payment, we couldn't care less, we wont give you back the initial 10% fee (even if both agree to cancel), and you'll have a permanent "Work in Progress" job in your profile (until you decide to constantly harass the support team and wait few weeks)

--The website is a hassle:

- Everything is dynamically processed, slow loading, excessively simplified, and most pages cant be bookmarked

- Forced facebook-like communication!! seriously!!

- Using game mechanism to motivate workers is interesting(levels, badges, XP points ...), but most of it is actually useless/funny (Exp: 78000 credit point to have a 20min call with the CEO)