I have used a site like GetaFreelancer, Scriptlance. For the most part I've had success - however there are three users on there who decided they weren't going to pay me for the work I've provided. Which amounts to $400 usd of lost profit last month. It totally sucked and changed the way I accept projects now. Instead of accepting and completed projects on goodwill, I know require the buyer to place the entire project bid in escrow before I even start.
Hi, i'm one of the providers in GAF, i think it's a good site, combined with the escrow system make the transaction very secure for both parts. anyway, if you are a buyer, i recommend see the portfolio of the provider, ask all the necessaries questions to be sure what that provider it's trustworthy. give the site and her provider a chance, and if you are wise and take your time to see the options, you going to have a great success Regards, Shadow.
I do prefer to work with oDesk.com, people tend to be a little bit more expensive, but their service is great and you can find very professional people. The problem with GAF is that the buyers tend to get the job done for peanuts, so they end up with unexperienced providers who are willing to work for nearly nothing to build up their portfolio. This is true for any freelance site, but as the bid is displayed for each provider with the job offer on GAF (which is not the case on oDesk), each new bidder tries to be cheaper than the last one, so the buyer usually doesn't check the work history of every provider but goes by the price first. A good way to go is to ask for a little test or a sample. State it in your job offer so that every bidder will have to provide you with the same one (it's way easier with translation as you can provide the same paragraph or document for everybody). People can be reluctant as they often see it as free labour, but it pays on both sides in the end. I got one of my best client this way after a 40-minute translation test document. This way he was able to filter the providers and to get an idea of the differences of quality, and I was not the cheapest in the ranks. So don't focus on the cheapest price only, or you'll end up with half-finished or under-the-standard quality for your job.
Yes, it seems you guys are right. This guy is completely wasting my time and hasn't responded in 3 days. Oh well!
I agree with a lot of what's been said here. GAF as a whole is not half bad. The site is great, the escrow service makes sure you don't lose your money, and there is a wide variety of projects and providers. Unfortunately, it's a case of bad apples spoiling the whole bunch and giving it a bad reputation. There's so much underbidding that goes on and so many unqualified applicants that it just becomes a jumbled mess much too fast.
The greatest problem in GAF from my experience, is that the people bidding on your project rarely even read thoroughly its description. They usually offer you a service which is not related to what you have asked for. a nightmare. Except that, GAF is reliable.
There are two problems with GAF: 1. They don't let you communicate with your client in any other way then through their site, which is bad for the project and often leads to failure on big ones. 2. If you don't have a portfolio yet on the site you have to bid super crazy low to get any project. I'm sure the buyers enjoy this but it sucks as a freelancer to work on something and know you are practically doing it for free, or for a good review. I prefer to get my project from other sources then GAF.
Thanks for those 2 solid points. In my experience through all this I have come to realize the same things.
I lost a password and wasn't able to get it back, through their help desk which is another site. I signed up again and couldn't get the verification code either, which is supposed to come in 10 minutes. What am I doing wrong? What other sites can be used? I tried odesk and elance but it seems liked GAF had the most bids.
First time, i got scammed 1000 dollars by a coder from cambodgia. The second coder wasn't doing the job and i got back the money through escrow. Now, i only hire coder in my city.
Hi, I check gaf every day. however i have never been able to take a job as i am constanly priced out. The reason is most of the bids come from india and similar areas. I also use Rentacoder and have nothing bad to say about ths site. They have a good system in place for both buyers and providers. Check it out.
Hi, all your points are valid but also i think if you are a buyer need to use a little of common sense... if you need a project what usually cost $1000 and a developer from GAF charge you $100 or $50 something need to be wrong... also, about the providers dont read the descriptions, you have a PM system where you can ask anything what you want to the provider, do some question, check the answers, make some research with the username of the provider to see if he have some dark past, take your time to evaluate each offer and always use the escrow system. if you follow this advices, for GAF or freelance site, you never going to get dissapointed why you always going to choose the right freelancer in all the world (no only in net) are bad people, you only need to do the same what you do in the real life, think before take a action and evaluate each option to choose the right one Regards, Shadow.
So what you do is, somewhere in the middle of your post you say "to make sure you have read and can understand the description, the first word in your reply should be "*****"." If they don't do this, you simply ignore their reply. Obviously they either did not read the description, or have poor reading comprehension, either way, you don't want them. At least that's what works for me.