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Freelancer.com has ruined my life

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Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#61

let me piggyback on this thread. this is my freelancer.com experience as a hirer https://medium.com/@ss88/freelancer-com-my-horrible-experien...

Your article doesn't mention how much you paid them. If you are paying someone 5$ per hour, you can't expect much. edit: you mention the prices in the comments, so here they are for anyone curious: Node.js port 155 USD, Android port 789 USD, Website theme 300 USD. It is not slave wages considering the living costs in the respective countries. (sic!) >Node.js port 155 USD This is good for what, 1 hour of work? Pay pea…

considering the living costs in the respective countries

Trying to shift the blame to the market is still discrimination in my book.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#62
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here at vWorker. Did great work, ranked in the 100s, but it was not sustainable. To top it off I got a job to implement a forex trading algorithm. He had a system to buy/sell on signals. But when it came down to it, it didn't trade profitably. He wouldn't believe the code worked, and I couldn't convince him his scheme was flawed because it worked when he did it manually - and I've watched his youtube videos of h…

Sounds like the time I decided to try one of these sites and ended up with a client who wanted software written to pick winning lottery numbers based on some system he'd devised to analyze past winning lottery numbers. Of course such a thing will never work in a fair lottery. Guy refused to pay the $10 price after the "work" was done. Validated my suspicions that those types of site are a total waste of time even if…

Genuinely curious: why would you accept a job to do the impossible? Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding and his refusal to pay was totally separate from the fact his whole idea was flawed?

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#63
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your article doesn't mention how much you paid them. If you are paying someone 5$ per hour, you can't expect much. edit: you mention the prices in the comments, so here they are for anyone curious: Node.js port 155 USD, Android port 789 USD, Website theme 300 USD. It is not slave wages considering the living costs in the respective countries. (sic!) >Node.js port 155 USD This is good for what, 1 hour of work? Pay pea…

In which dreamland you get paid USD$155 per hour for Node.js work?

Contractors in the us will bill that much for developers.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#64
post #46
post #33

This review should get pulled. If the reviewer posted this under his real name, then he should remove it. This review will kill his reputation, which will cause more problems than anything mentioned in the review. If it's not a real name, then I imagine it's a violation. This is the only review under this user. The review has a TLDR at the top, but my own TLDR for this review would be "I was desperate". It's easy for…

Safety nets are good, but that review is about the abuse of power by a freelancer.com employee.

The person who posted the review is projecting this behavior on customer service. We don't know exactly what happened and we only have one side of the story.

> It became clear later on that this limitation was placed by a support agent which I apparently angered during the first issue...

Was it actually that clear? Did the customer service rep give an indication that he or she was "angry" with this person? No details were offered except for language which most likely wasn't being used.

> They didn't use these words, but it was the gest of it.

This was used liberally through the review. The reviewer posted the "gest" of the customer service replies which seemed to be filtered through the reviewer's perception of the mood of the person on the other end.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#65
post #33

This review should get pulled. If the reviewer posted this under his real name, then he should remove it. This review will kill his reputation, which will cause more problems than anything mentioned in the review. If it's not a real name, then I imagine it's a violation. This is the only review under this user. The review has a TLDR at the top, but my own TLDR for this review would be "I was desperate". It's easy for…

I second my sibling poster.

"It's easy for me to armchair quarterback these situations"

You have the self-awareness to recognise that you are "armchair quarterbacking", then you decide to... blame the guy for his problems, judge him negatively for speaking out, and go off on some airy tangent about the history of social security.

"This is a person who is susceptible to disasters, being forced into the street and can't manage the basics of living in the modern world."

What the hell? Basing your career on one online platform is not the best life decision, true. There's lots of freelancers who do more stupid things. Yes, this guy could have done things differently, but he doesn't deserve this kind of treatment.

If you are based in a tech hub or major city you can build a freelancing career with numerous digital agencies and other professional firms, and learn to sell yourself, manage client relationships, build a specialised skillset, etc. If you do that you also deal with a much better class of clients (have money, know what they want, don't screw you around). That is the exception, though.

The average freelancer hustles for generic projects and deals with the shittier kind of clients. This guy sounds like he is one of the more competent individuals in that category. Then he had a key relationship (with freelancer.com) turn sour, and as a result he's been absolutely shafted.

"If the reviewer posted this under his real name, then he should remove it. This review will kill his reputation" He's fighting back with the one weapon he has, which is going public with his experiences. He knows he is a taking a big risk with this. He is courageous.

On a final note: Jesus F'ing Christ where do you people come from. I've seen comments like this on similar stories. The temptation to victim blame (under the pretence of dispensing helpful advice) seems irresistible for many. I've been on the receiving end of this, so it gets my goat. An experience like this doesn't just hurt you materially and financially, it also smashes your self-confidence. But people are very selective in the things they are sympathetic towards. With other things, they respond with scorn and condescension.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#66
post #46
post #33

This review should get pulled. If the reviewer posted this under his real name, then he should remove it. This review will kill his reputation, which will cause more problems than anything mentioned in the review. If it's not a real name, then I imagine it's a violation. This is the only review under this user. The review has a TLDR at the top, but my own TLDR for this review would be "I was desperate". It's easy for…

Safety nets are good, but that review is about the abuse of power by a freelancer.com employee.

The reviewer is building a monument to their conflict with a previous employer.

Every future interview they have will be in the shadow of this monument.

What do they gain? The company they've focused their ire upon isn't going to fold because of these paragraphs. The person working there now has an opportunity to revel in their handiwork - they riled this guy up all the way to the top of Hacker News!

Best to relegate your emotional outbursts to your art instead of putting them into your business or relationships if you can't keep perspective of how they'll effect your future. I wish someone gave me this advice.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#67
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your article doesn't mention how much you paid them. If you are paying someone 5$ per hour, you can't expect much. edit: you mention the prices in the comments, so here they are for anyone curious: Node.js port 155 USD, Android port 789 USD, Website theme 300 USD. It is not slave wages considering the living costs in the respective countries. (sic!) >Node.js port 155 USD This is good for what, 1 hour of work? Pay pea…

In which dreamland you get paid USD$155 per hour for Node.js work?

I've worked (employee + freelancer) for multiple "agencies" in the USA. $150 is a more-or-less standard rate.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#68
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't the Chinese have a saying which means 'Pay low price, expect to get screwed over'? Bangladesh is even worse than India.

A more apt idiom is "if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys." [0] [0] https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/if+you+pay+peanuts%2C+y...

another is "you get what you pay for"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you_get_what_you_pay_for

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#70
Ever since Elance merged with ODesk to make Upwork getting online work has dried up, and so I have to rely on my personal network.

With Elance you'd get leads for jobs, and take them offsite. Its not that I wouldn't want to use the ecosystem provided its just that it suck and took too much.

Upwork takes more, and really locks you in. I refused to scan my license to become authorized. Even if I used the platform, taxes and their fees makes and the chances of them hanging payments makes it a death trap.

I would love to build a platform that actually is useful, though I think with these kinds of websites it's a hard market to penetrate because they're already on X platform.

I just want to remote from a small town and bank money, but I'm forced to live near large cities because companies that pay well want you in office.

The only way not to be poor is to be a two-person income of 100K and my gf never going to make that kind of money.

So my choice is be poor in a small town or be poor in large town.

There are remote jobs for 90k, its just they are far and few and interview processes can be very involved with lots of studying.

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