Brian L.

The recruiting company that calls itself "McCarthy Search" seems to not actually exist. A simple Google shows that people have been flagging their emails as fraudulent since the early 2010s at least. Here's what happens: You'll receive an email from an entity identifying itself as "Mike McCarthy" from McCarthy Search. The email will include a brief, generic message saying it has found new job listings relevant to you, and that you should click through to either view more details about the job(s) or "update your search criteria." (In my case, none of the jobs they highlight are in my industry or at my level of seniority, and many are not in the state where I live.) If you reply, "Mike" will not respond, but will send further listings with the same generic intro. If you look up the street address listed in the email footer (******* Jefferson Blvd., Ste. 390, Culver City, CA) in Google Street View, you'll find a single-story shopping plaza containing a bunch of standard retail shops and takeout restaurants, no storefronts indicating "McCarthy Search," and certainly no "suites." Google also turns up a number of alerts posted by other real businesses with "McCarthy" in their name, saying they are in no way affiliated with whoever is emailing people with job listings calling themselves "McCarthy Search." There is also evidently a recruiting company in the UK called McCarthy Recruiting, and McCarthy Search is not that company. It's unclear from "Mike's" emails what their end game is, and I hope you have the digital savvy to NOT click through on their links to find out. Legitimate companies that recruit experienced professionals don't operate this way; real recruiters liaise between hiring companies and job seekers, personalize their emails, include relevant details about the position in their introductions, and respond to further queries. Seeing as McCarthy Search has been flagged by other people several times over the years, and they continue sending these emails, suggests to me they are operating outside of the US and are not under the jurisdiction of the FTC -- but that's just my guess based on my experience working digital security companies.

Known scammers. Not sure why any company still partners with them to fulfill their promotional magazine subscription offers. Mags.com and Magazineoutlet.com are part of the Synapse Connect group. Synapse Connect has been successfully sued by customers for failing to adequately disclose terms of renewal or notify customers of pending renewals. Even after being sued and found at fault, this company will automatically renew these promotional subscriptions at prices well over the market rate, without notifying the customer. Customer service will deflect requests to cancel and insist the company will have to get back in touch with the customer to complete the cancellation. Customer service refuses to share its terms and conditions with the customer.

Fabric is comparable to the fabric of inexpensive printed T-shirts I've bought from Etsy or eBay stores. Print quality varies by artist; customers should keep in mind these shirts are printed on demand by individual artists. Because of those variances, it would be beneficial for TeePublic to display reviews on artists and/or their specific designs, because otherwise you have to trust the image you see on your screen will match the final product. I've had positive experiences in the past with TeePublic, but the color scheme on my most recent purchase didn't match the product page. The design is a fairly iconic image, easy to reference both on the web and irl, and the colors are just noticeably off. I put the shirt though the wash 4x and the colors have only slightly mellowed (still not a close match to the displayed color scheme). Customer service was really helpful and prompt and kind, and I suggested that maybe they should send the order to another TeePublic artist who offered the same design if they thought it might help (there are other such artists on the platform), but the order went back to the original artist who printed a new shirt in exactly the same color scheme. I kind of love the fact that TeePublic artists have such broad offerings, but I came to feel like I was flying blind. Shipping times: I believe my first TeePublic order was during the height of COVID, so that's a mulligan -- all shipping in this region was screwy. With this order I described above, the first shirt came in 13 business days, and the reprint came in three biz days.

It's okay. There is a high volume of leads, but in my experience, most of those leads are not very good. I found few decent gigs to apply for, and declined most of the offers I received. Common reasons I had for either declining or not applying were: a) pay far below industry standard, b) client misunderstanding freelancer/vendor responsibilities (e.g. Conflating PR, marketing and sales), c) unethical requests (e.g. Writing product/service reviews for pay), d) requests that were so vague it would have been difficult to measure "success." I eventually worked with some very nice clients, but they had little to no experience working with freelancers, and I had to do a lot of hand-holding. Let's face it: Established companies and experienced freelancers typically find each other via word of mouth and do not need platforms like UpWork or its competitors. I'd say UpWork is okay for picking up an occasional gig, but the volume of subpar clients and the 20% cut (!) the platform takes from vendor payouts should discourage regular use unless you're just barely starting out.

EDIT Jan. 27,2020: It is very likely Bark has been inflating their ratings on this site with FAKE REVIEWS. If you look back from 2018 until Dec. 2019, reviews skew negative, and there aren't very many of them. From Dec. 2019 until at least today -- a period of just over two months -- DOZENS of very positive reviews were posted to this site. So it's one of two things. Either a) Bark has experienced a tremendous upswell in client/customer goodwill over the last two months, or b) it's something else. Wonder which? -- I would also like to add that Bark.com messaged me regarding my review below. They apologized and asked for the email address that was receiving the unwanted messages, and any websites where my email address may be listed, which are definitely questions a legit company would ask! Unless they're not!

(ORIGINAL REVIEW from Oct. 2019 :) Bark trawls the web for email addresses that appear to pertain to "businesses," then spams their owners with completely irrelevant "offers." I co-manage a not-for-profit studio space. We provide services to the public, not to clients. Bark.com emailed me 13 times in the past two months. They are literally asking a room in a warehouse if they want to provide magicians for children's birthdays. Utterly unreal.