oDesk

As the one stars indicate. It cant get any worse. I have finally received an answer to the big question that many freelancers have been asking about the so called "review" that no freelancer is told what is being reviewed. A review usually at any workplace has a purpose to improve the performance of the employee. Hence the employee is told what the review is about, including weaknesses and challenges to work on and advantages and strengths.
In Odesk, a review has nothing to do with the freelancer performance. However, this is illegal and so odesk will never tell you that directly but they will tell you that in their immoral actions.
We all assumed that a performance review has a reason and a purpose of performance improvement. However, this is not the case when it comes to Odesk. Several freelancers expressed their suspicion that it is merely a vindictive action that Odesk would use to paralyze freelancers should they not like a comment you published somewhere or said about their reliability and accountability. Oddly enough instead of standing tall and showing how credibility is important to them, they turn into gangsters who possess a very low level of professionalism and would follow actions to not allow the freelancer to apply for new jobs in order "to teach him a lesson" and to show some muscles. I was shocked to realize that. To be more specific the trash who call themselves management are the ones behind this very low class behavior. Customer service do only copy paste of the manual and that is why you will never receive an answer to your questions. It is not by accident that we all never get our questions answered when it comes to the so called review regardless of how nice and respectful you treat them. The so called "review team", is not a team but it is actually people who really dont know anything more than what is included inthe "copy paste" responses that they keep sending out regardless of your question.
As a business that runs behind the screen, there is a person if that what he is really, is the one who follow vindictive behaviors in odesk and he is not customer service. This is really the reason for the so called "review" that every single freelancer I know on odesk encountered without knowing what it is about and hence makes some freelancers who can be excellent and hard working people start doubting themselves and I have seen this, sadly enough, happening on several forums online.
What I want to suggest is that we should really consider a law suit against odesk for unethical conduct of business and we should consult with an attorney about that. I know they are located in California so a lawsuit should be filed there against them and to bring them to justice and question the motives and the content of what they say is called a review. If you work for odesk you are running a serious risk of dealing with low class and gangsters. Be careful.

In these days, oDesk isn't a site that it was before. I believe it's now a heaven for scammers. Low paying jobs, poor client profiles, sample scams, and many other issues are now the...

In July 2011, I joined in oDesk as a freelance medical writer. From August 2011 to May 2012, I have worked around 194 hours in oDesk. Unfortunately, due to some serious personal problems, in 2012 I discontinued my ongoing contract and left oDesk. After nearly ten long months, in January 2013, I came back to oDesk to seek some job opportunities.

But what I found was the qualities of clients as well as the job offers decreased drastically. I saw too many spammy jobs in every category. I don't know where these clients came from, but surely they don't know how to post a job and what should be the budget of the job.

Interestingly, in the meantime, I was hired in a long-term project of writing 2000 words of articles on complementary and herbal medicines. According to my client's job description, I was hired to write articles in accordance with following potential parameters:

• Minimum 2000 words
• Perfect English
• Interesting writing style, the articles should attract the readers. Easy to understand (the articles are for patients, not for professionals) and Explain ALL medical terms
• Free of plagiarism
• The articles should contain a practical part in a way that it is helpful in daily life.

Moreover, he also suggested that each article should deal with following points:

1. What is it (Definition, where can you find it?)
2. Effects on the human body (effects on body systems, organs etc)
3. Usage in the treatment of diseases (which illnesses)
4. Practical recommendations (how to use it, dosages etc.)
5. Example text for correct quotation
6. Proper references (bulleting each paragraph with a study paper)

Do you have any idea what was the budget of writing each article?

Firstly, it was 10 $USD and after writing the first one, he increased the amount to 14 $USD. Actually, this is not the horrible thing I faced. The horrible thing was when I started writing the second article. I was writing an article on a synthetic drug that is still in the clinical trial phase. Unfortunately, there is not a single article written on this topic and even Wikipedia have very few sentences about the ingredient.

I was on my desk for more than 30 hours and I studied around 40 study papers related to the compound. After completing the article, just to save my profile from negative feedback, I submitted that as a final article and after that, I immediately ended the contract.

I believe that one was one of the horrible experiences in my lifetime. I don't know what action is right for this kind of clients, but they must be stopped. Because, they are still hiring someone fool like me...