oDesk

Odesk - the freelancer marketplace - can be hit and miss. The better freelancers might prove to be quite expensive, while the cheaper sometimes would do their job and sometimes wouldn't.

One freelancer completely ignored my job requirements, fortunately Odesk customer service refunded the funds.

Overall, it's a great marketplace but be wary of the cheaper freelancers.

I hired a contractor from India. According to him he could do everything that I was asking for. But after he started working on the project is was a BIG LIE.

BEWARE of this site they have no control over any of the freelancers. And they all lie to get the job.
These people are committing fraud on a massive scale. We lost over $10,000 and when I complain which oDesk
That our freelance was a big fraud, they didn't do anything about it.

When I refused to pay the balance, because is was a very $#*!ty job, they send me this e-mail:

Your balance is more than 30 days past due and we have been unable to collect the amount owed to oDesk. Please pay your outstanding balance within 7 days of receiving this notice. If your balance is not paid, we will refer your debt to TrueAccord, a collections partner who helps oDesk users settle amounts that they owe.

NEVER AGAIN I WILL USE oDesk.

Odesk has a really good concept. My company hired a Freelancer from Odesk and the best part is that i can check his activity level any time and also can see monitor screenshoots from the freelancer's computer. 5 Points for the site and 0 for the support. I am waiting from 20 days to change the company owner name, because now the name is wrong and invoices are also wrong. They sad to me verification process takes between 7 and 10 days but now is the 20th day and still nothing. I have also tried to reach them on the phone but nobody answer. After that i write with live support chat and they take my phone number and told me after 1 or 2 hours they will call me back. It was 4 days ago and still nobody connect me.

We are so puzzled because Grabcar whch is under GrabTai inc., located at Makati, Philippine is recruiting people to operate a taxi by using their own car in exchange of an incentive and while in the process of recruitment they give as high as 40 thousand pesos to 50 thousand per week but when they were able to recruit almost a large scale they immediately remove the incentives and let this people work while driving and upgrading thier apps online so they can advertise around the world and do the same without thinking that the people they recruited invested brand new cars and is still paying the monthly amortization. In other words, they used people's resources to set up their business around the globe and they will earn much and their strategy at first is to to entice people by giving big amount of incentives weekly but after getting them into the job, they remove the incentive right away and we picture this as indirect Large scale Estafa and a scam in nature. Please beware public. Their website is grabcar.com

I have been working on Odesk for 4 years, and they suspended my account suddenly without any reason saying it's their upper management decision. I have both freelancer and client acount with odesk. My client account have a balance of $39 and I told them to transfer that amount to my freelancer account, So I can withdraw that my hard earned money, and they are saying they can't transfer that money as they don't have provision for that and don't have any other solution. I am asking then again and agian, but their customer support not even replying my mails.

No reports worth using. Their system wont let me give a good person a raise. It doesn't recognize me and when i tell it the CORRECT answer to my security question it does not take it. I send in a forgot security questiuon request. I get the link. I click the emailed link. I enter a new security question - it doesnt take it.

I am sick of this.

I was told that it was guaranted satisfaction, now that I have an issue with Reetu Sharma making changes to my pages with out asing me she began being mean and calling me names like Half minded and insulting my intelligence. Then they said they were getting involved with the dispute and they have done nothing but take back what they said and displayed, Money back guarantee, now they are saying only if it were hourly is is guaranteed. I think that this site is not regulated in any way, I think they can get away with no customer satisfaction and I think they can absolutely steel your money if you go here.

I have my account on hold also without clear reasons. I asked them couple of times what is actual problem, they responded with some nonsenses. My rate is 4.9.

DID ANYONE TRY TO CONTACT SOMEONE RESPONSIBLE FOR ODESK BUT OUTSIDE CUSTOMER SUPPORT?

Where do I begin?

1. The site is UNUSABLE almost every Monday morning EST. You cannot advance from page to page within a keyword search for job postings.

2. They have not allowed us to use our agency profile for weeks now. They acknowledge its an error on their part and three weeks ago said "It's in the queue" to be fixed. We have email proof of this. We have to submit all applications as a freelancer only

3. They violated the Patriot Act by demanding that we submit a color scan of a US passport, then acknowledged in writing that this was another error on their part.

4. They have harassed us many times for a variety of things and interrupted our normal business procedures

5. The ODesk software that they REQUIRE you to download to work is intrusive and takes screenshots of your desktop or phone, risking your company's security

6. They do not pay you for work performed if the client bags on them. This is true for hourly work as well as a fixed fee job which they take no responsibility for as well

THIS WEB SITE IS GARBAGE, THE COMPANY IS LOCATED IN A DUMP (Look on Google Maps--it's a dump of a building in CA), and they are morons.

I have NOT had good luck with these goobers. I think they're stealing my idea to make their own app. I contacted two of their programmers. After I had them sign an NDA, to told them what the app was that I wanted them to make. After that I've heard nothing from them. I contacted their management and all they could do was offer me paid assistance to find another freelancer. Also be aware the Elance and Odesk have merged so, they're one in the same. Baaad juju.

Horrible.

Almost every freelancer on the site has rating above 4, so the system is suggesting that it's full of professionals while in fact - it's a bunch of third-world country students strangling everyone in their way just to make an extra buck, disregarding quality of work and communication.

Basically this is what happens:

For example, you post a job in here you will immediately get 30 "professional" Indian/Bangladeshian freelancers offering their services of something that doesn't have anything to do with your job posting at all.

Or if you're a freelancer, you get a bottom-feeding client who will expect you to work for 3$/hr with you being available 24/7.

I can't describe how many absurd people I've found here, sending their personal/family photos, demanding for upfront payments while they have no portfolio or proof they've done any work before whatsoever. Half of them BEGGED for "work" and when you give them something, they either do horrible work or just try to scam you.
I even got my server hijacked by a freelancer from oDesk.

Freelancers, stick to "over 20,000$ spent" clients mostly Australia/UK/US. Most of them are companies looking for outsourced work. And stay professional.

Clients, get off this site. You are most likely getting mugged.

I signed up at odesk.com 2 weeks ago I applied for a couple of jobs with no response for interviews. Then last week I received an email for an interview by client, was interviewed thru AOL IM go the job was told I would receive a check, which I did it was a Cashier's Check in the amount of $3,275, took check to my bank found it was a fraud no funds available. Thank goodness my instincts were correct. Reported to odesk.com however the job posting is still live. This week received another job interview was told I would receive a cashier's check, don't know amount, the woman wanted to "test" my skills and how well I took direction(s). After being scammed once I sent a response thanking her for considering me but I do not accept cashier checks due to previous incident. My issue is odesk.com does not seem to care enough to take action against these scammers. So I closed my account with them. No good reviews from me. I understand that not all scams will be found by odesk.com however if a client is reported it should be investigated and if needed action taken!

I've been working at oDesk.com since 2 years. Now I have become one of the top rated freelancers at odesk.
Thank you so much oDesk staff and all responsible authors. Such an amazing and quality assurance e-money site for all who are looking for hiring freelancers and to be hired for online jobs.
I recommend oDesk mostly!
Also I very much appreciate the support (Help Desk) they are providing. They are responding our questions and problems with our account as soon as they can, and I had couple of problem occasionally, they were given accurate and 100% successful answers in a loyal manner. I appreciate that very much.
Also, the development of oDesk timeline and other tabs, they are very useful to analyze my account, so that I can improve my work quality and have a confidence on my work quality as well as my abilities at oDesk freelancing.
I'm very impressed on the service of oDesk.com.

I recommend all the people to join with oDesk. This is the best freelancing service I ever worked with!

Thank you!

Situation in 2016.
They blocked my client and blocked me. I did a lot of work, but they decided to suspend client (ugh...). Then they unblocked me. But me and this client we decided to move to another platform.
Then I did some jobs for other clients on UpWork. At some point with next client I faced situation of weird refund operations performed by UpWork support team. This is when contract was in Suspended status. So UpWork support first suspended my contract with this client, then perfromed some refund operations with my account, returning money to this client. And then I had lesser money, than I had when started this currently suspended contract (this is all when job was completed and client looked satisfied according to communicatons we had).
I do not uderstand what is rotten more - their support, their routines or their software (platfrom itself)...

Update from 2017.
They improved a lot, support is much better, more interesting projects available... I think they significantly improved a lot of things in this platform.

If you live in the United States forget this site. There are a high volume of so called "Software Developers" who's hourly rate is $2.00/hr or less. Today I found a job that had been filled at. 83 cents an hour. What amazes me even more is that companies would trust their data and code to someone in a foreign country charging nothing. Remember you get what you pay for and in today's world security is everything.

Look at the link right from their site:

https://www.odesk.com/jobs/VBA-EXCEL-EXPERT-MUST-GOOD-PROGRAMMING-MACROS_~01d8c5a3a*******?search_result=1