oDesk

ODESK is terrible! Absolutely terrible! My complaint..."I applied for 8 jobs yesterday I wrote cover letters to all of them. You have decided to suspended my account. So the jobs i applied for are not being seen. Is this fair to you? I have resolved the problem you said i was suspended for yesterday, yet my account is still suspended! I want to make an official complaint about your site! As it is wasting my time and money! I find this absolutely disgusting behavior!"

Our developer held our site and code hostage. Repeatedly swore at us via email. Promised for months to finish the project. Do not hire **! Blackmailing us and taking our code hostage. Took days to respond to emails. We set up video chat which he never responded to. He made continuous excuses and blamed us. Do not hire this man he will waste your time and money.
**[personal info redacted]

So here is my story. I have been working in odesk for a few months. A lot of my work has 5 stars in them, but some of the clients don't leave feedbacks because they only come there for one work and never come back. Odesk thinks that it is my fault that my client don't leave my feedback even though I have completed the job and the client really love it. So they give me performance warning and they later on they ask for me to close all my projects so that clients can give feedback. So the clients give me 5 star rating and a great feedback. So odesk review my profile then they suspended it. Odesk support is the worst, they are cruel and unfair. Beware of this evil corporation.

There are no words to describe how oDesk is best, I had not even the possibility to use it! To confirm the profile, that should happen in 12 hours (x2 maybe...) I had only troubles, I felt really treatened bad and the costumer service doesn't even exists or surely can't be called like that, my profile been suspended no one knows why and the mobile application is full of spam, considering that the company takes a 10% fee this is totally unacceptable.
I don't suggest to try this service, is just a waste of time and I don't even know how can some people rate it more than 2 stars.

Since the merger with Elance, it's been a terrible experience as an oDesk freelancer. They suspended my account because, out of the blue, they decided they couldn't see my face clearly enough in the photo that was approved when I started two years ago. Even after I gave them a new photo, the account remained suspended until I complained - again. I had a five star client rating, no complaints. Then, they suspended me until I would give them a copy of my passport! This is for my security they claim. No way do I trust them to protect my information. They don't care about the freelancers.

I had three year old odesk account with four active project. Odesk disabled it without any proper reason. My husband opened another account and continued the work. Odesk team disabled that account without any proper reason. It had impacted project progress without any issue. I had provided my accurate address and identity. Support and risk management team are unreasonable and rude people.

I highly recommend to avoid Odesk and use other options available in Market. There are plenty.

Odesk is a ground for abuse and scams. Good clients look for those with 100+ odesk hrs. How can a newbie reach that if you work on fixed price alone?

I had a traumatic experience with G CONCEPTS fr Atlanta, GA, USA. Never work for this client... they ask freelancers to write academic papers disguised as 'articles', offer insane rate of $19 for a 5000-word paper, then after the project, haggle price down to $5-9!

They prey on newbies and they get away with it. All feedback from freelancers are fake because they blackmail you that they are not gonna pay unless you give a good feedback.

Very abusive and unprofessional!

Odesk underplays all these, they do not post all feedback and therefore is misleading to freelancers.

They also offer no protection to freelancers who work on fixed price. Any client can hire you and not pay you, and get registered using another name. No trouble for the client, freelancers go down the drain... tsk tsk..

I signed up for oDesk. I applied to three jobs. I got one of the three. I did it and the other person paid me through oDesk. The oDesk administration immediately suspended my account and the other person's account. Once suspended, I cannot receive my payment and he cannot get it returned. So, oDesk just kept the entire payment for themselves and told both of us the same thing: Your account has been suspended for irregularities. I have searched the web for complaints and I've found this same thing happens regularly. When oDesk gets the money, they suspend the accounts and keep the money. How is this not criminal?

Odesk.com is an online marketplace for buyers and providers for the services. Odesk provides an extensive online work environment where buyers and providers can build relationships based on trust and virtual office environment. Buyers can see providers actually working on their projects, receive reports and handle tasks more effeciently. While providers can be assured of payments, fraud prevention and dispute resolution in an efficient manner. Odesk also provides tests where providers can prove their skills in certain categories to maximize their potential to get hired for the jobs.

After putting in hours of information, tests, etc. to profile & apply for freelance work on ODesk, I have realized that they cater to companies with budgets of $200. Their clients pay only $1 to $6 an hour because they hire contractors on ODESK from the Philippines, and poor countries where $2 an hour is fine for them. Essentially it is looking as if ODESK is a front for cheap labor in America. Their clients go on the site & refuse to hire American workers, instead they pay $2 an hour for foreign labor.

I don't understand why people complain about oDesk in a few areas...

It's not oDesk that offers jobs for $2 an hour... it's people who use oDesk that do. It's competition at it's finest. If you can't afford working for $1.50 an hour (which i hope most of you don't) then oDesk isn't for you. This isn't their fault as the service works well to connect employers and contractors. And ultimately this is for many kinds of programming and virtual office type jobs. I find that Illustrator jobs as well paid and the offers aren't ridiculously low.

It's not oDesk's fault that the work paid for was $#*!ty and out of spec. You are given the chance to see people's portfolios and interview them. When they offer work for a dollar an hour, don't be made with what you receive. How does oDesk have anything to do with a person halfway around the world not doing the work for you. Their job is to connect you, not be a supervisor. If you don't trust online work, the oDesk isn't for you.

I have been working in Odesk 7 months permanently. I consider Odesk an excellent virtual place for working. I have never had problems with the website or with the payment methods. Odesk Support team have given to me answer to all my question in less than 1 business day.

Regarding finding a job, It is like find a job in any other place. If you send your profile and You can proof It is non-fake and if you fit properly with the job, there are high possibilities to get the job.

I recommend to do the Odesk Test, because it helps a lot to your profile.

Any help or information, It is my email.

*******@gmail.com

I think this is a good idea in concept with the "tracking" system of hours so you can pay people buy the hour instead of per project but the problem is that how can you really trust someone to really be working when he is logged in? He could be playing starcraft for all you know and just logged in. Paying per project makes much more sense and because of that I'm not really sold on the concept of logging in to work. Maybe I am missing something but it seems to be elance or guru with a log in button.

I'm an honest person and a hard worker with a profile full of excellent feedback, but Odesk pulled the random "your account is on review" trick on me as well. After emailing them for a few weeks, I was finally told that the review was complete and that my account had been reinstated. When i went back to check it out, I still couldn't apply for jobs after an entire month. I can't run my business like that, which is why I've never been back to Odesk to see if the problem was fixed. I'll keep my 10%, thank you very much... DO NOT USE ODESK!
UPDATE 1-18-15: Once my account was finally restored, it took two weeks of emailing them back and forth to get the geniuses at Odesk to CLOSE my account. Good. Lord. Do not use.

The worst thing that could ever happen to me in terms of paying for services. It was so bad that the freelancer offered me some money back to give him a 5 star rating, i didnt accept it and took it to Odesk Mediation team, they said there was nothing they could do after 30 days of waiting and that they would refund me 1/10th of the money the made to use to find another $#*! on odesk. Its just garbage, there is no protection against customers. Never using it again Never!

I have done 24 successful projects. Having 5 star in 23 project and 4.40 in 1 project. No desputes, no client complaints, good responsiveness.

There is no reason to close my account but then told me that they didn't seen improvements in my profile. I have 4.99 ratings overall then now what they want me to improve?

They are cheaters. I asked them to give me PROPER reason to close my account but they are not replying to my emails.