Guru

If you are a freelancer they request a credit card to validate your account, your ID is not enough, they need you to pay a membership, it seems like they do not want to work with you, they only want your credit or debit card, Guru treats freelancers like bad clients not partners, there are better free alternatives.

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First of all the tiny bit of good. Guru seems to do some quality control on their job posters. Most jobs are legit from decent people.

Then the bad. The escrow system allows you to automatically bill your client without providing any results. All the money is instantly funneled offshore despite their lies about being located in Philly or NY. You add those two details together and you get a scam site. Where most freelance sites like to scam the contractor Guru goes after it's clients.

This site is a U.S. base site but the job market is set for overseas employment in terms of projects. Projects here are around a few hundred dollars. So qualified U.S. contractors cont work on this platform. The customer service is - Meh. Searching for a job here is not good. You can itemize what you're looking for. You just have to do a general search, then filter the penny contracts hoping to find a job. If there is a good paying job it is littered with overseas unqualified applicants. There are many better sites out there.

I teach at a major university. Guru connected me with some kid in India who did a fine job for my project (editing some class photos w/ Photoshop). I signed off on the project's completion and authorized Guru to pay. Guru emails me a few days later that they need some additional verification information (which it could have asked for at account initiation). I wrote back that "I am at the airport leaving the country for 10 days. I dont have this information handy." Two days later, Guru wrote back "Hello David, I've not heard from you regarding verification of the payment. Therefore, a credit has been issued to your credit card and should be reflected in your account balance within 3 to 5 business days. Your Guru account has been closed." So, I get a free project and the kid in India gets stiffed! Only through heroic efforts of my secretary do we figure out how to get the account reinstated and the kid paid. The kid wrote back "First of all let me thank you for your crystal clear sincere replied mail. The mail shows your whole hearted attitude you showed sincerely for the loss of the amount that is going to occur to me. But to be very truthful, it was not the loss of the amount I am worried with, but the loss of my first client from Guru.com. Your mail gave me a great strength because I did not lose you. For this I salute you with a huge thanks and never ending gratitude. As you asked regarding the payment. Still it is not updated. Let us wait for some time and see what is happening." He eventually got paid. I think Guru.com's conduct is shameful.

I was a big fan of guru.com until Jan 2014 when they made some changes into there website.
1. I was getting 1200 per year for $180 (top membership) but after Jan 2014 they made some changes like Freelancers will be getting 600 bids per year for $190 (average membership), though freelancers any bid into any category now. I don't know what the point of making this useless change. I am a web designer and there is no point for me to bid into business consulting or similar category. Though they reduced there fees but i don' mind paying 2-3% extra.

2. Previous Guru.com was flooded with jobs until last year, Jobs was being posted in every couple of minutes. But after making changes there are only around 2500 jobs in all the categories and now this year i can also see some dummy projects. Means guru.com may be posting some dummy projects as well.

3. Sending messages to employer was free until last year but now it costs some bids to send message to employer.

My new favorite is peopleperhour.com

Although the concept makes sense, the user experience on this platform is extremely poor and not very well thought out. The solution that's being solved is smart, but the construct and built of this design is too complicated to use - would not recommend the use of this site.

All these posts seem to be from the viewpoint of the "employer." The guru.com clearing house process is no picnic for the freelancer, not if my experience is any indication.

I purchased the "Professional" membership, about $22 a month, that gives me extra features to land a job through their database. A professional developmental editor, I could not find any jobs to apply for that paid more than $250 (for the entire project), and scores of other people from all over the world were applying for them just the same. I eventually took a chance and "bid" for a gig I thought I would enjoy. (I tried to convince myself of other benefits that made working so cheap okay.) After jumping through two weeks' worth of email hoops, I was offered the job. I should have done my number crunching and due diligence first.

I'm bummed. I just withdrew my job acceptance after reading a most unreasonable NDA I was asked to sign before work could begin. That's when some friends/colleagues helped me see the light. I was expected to give away my talents for what amounted to less than 1/2 cent per word.

To be fair, I did get prompt reply to emails I wrote to the guru.com help desk, and I even got Joe on the phone first time I called. He was very helpful and gave good advice. However, I was on automatic billing for my membership, which was billing me a week before payment was due. So I stopped that quick and switched to manual. But now that I've read other posts, this has me scared. I think I need to call my bank to make sure I don't get dinged again.

Why is it that so many "employers" think we freelancers aren't worth the years of hard work we have spent building our skills. Not all of us are inept crooks that these other posts claim us to be. Some of us come into the game thinking we're among peers and the competition will be fierce. But you know what they say, if you're the smartest person in the room, maybe you're in the wrong room!

I'm withdrawing my paid membership, now that I realize I would lose about 10% in fees through Guru (7%) and PayPal (3%). I was just looking for something to do over the summer while my current author/client is on hiatus. But I'm not going to give away the store and lose my street cred in the bargain.

I'll stick with my website traffic and work directly with prospective clients. No more "middlemen" for me.