elance may be very good in many situation but also has disadvantages. clear expectation would really help get the task done properly and in time.
lol, what damn douche! i charge $25/h, and i would have done a simple login script in an hour lol. oh maybe 3 hours with a pm system as well lol.
That is impossible To do this job with high quality at least. For Users and Personal Messages system I have charged my clients starting from 500$ dollars, up to 1000$. And they were always satisfied. For example, if you're building a users and PM script, then you need a lot more stuff beside basic login/logout/registration form and couple of pages to read and write messages. You also need administration panel with options like PM inbox limit, banning of users etc. Then, you need good security systems( this is something that require experience, and beginners will surly miss the point, leaving system unprotected to all kinds of attack), you need "captcha" integration for reqistration form. You need couple of pages where users can modify and update their profile information. You also most to think of some special cases - for example, when user change his email address through this pages, should he have to confirm this new email address? And what about showing different content to logged in users and visitors? You need to implement that too. What about caching? It's much more complex to implement caching mechanism when there is Users system on the website. And you can do this within one hour? I think you still have much to learn, no offense. @inManila and other employers PM me if you require quality software solutions. I can offer you fair deals, with fixed prices.
it took me 3 days to program this forum 100% from scratch line by line: http://thebinaryapproach.com took another day to get the formatting right, because i'm not very good with fonts for dark coloured websites. it really does not take a long time when you know exactly what your doing, i didn't even know exactly what i was doing when i made that forum lol. as for caching, LOL! why would you cache a PM? that's just a complete waste. as for the captcha, that literally takes 5 minutes to do, the longest part of the captcha is registering with recaptcha. as for, "And what about showing different content to logged in users and visitors?" lol, that wasn't part of the job description that he posted up. ps, i said 3 hours, not 1 hour. if you don't believe me, than google me.
I'm not sure what you expected for $24/Hr. Assuming there are 173 1/3 work hours in a month, you should have been charged over eight grand!
I believe the client asked for 2 things: 1) a Login/User Script and 2) A Private Messaging System. As a contractor, you have to be careful about inserting requirements that weren't asked for because that can not only generate a lot of unnecessary work that doesn't guarantee payment, it can also negate a contract. Suppose a client asked for a simple notepad program, yet received a full-blown wordprocessor and html editor, for example. Will the client have to pay for the final delivery? (Nope. Cause s/he didn't get what s/he asked for.)
It's also a matter of working through a service that protects you as a client. Some of these online services contain loopholes that allow abusive behavior. Others don't, so you need to take your time with each and thoroughly review their terms of service policies before working through any of them.