Odesk Scam - DON'T USE ODESK.com **Odesk Scam Warning**

Well, I would have to agree that not all cheap freelancers are reliable so it's a MUST to provide the right choice since it couldn't also be oDesk's liability as a whole to provide protection among buyers once their freelancers have already got hired. That's only one of my personal perceptions though and I recommend you go for monthly basis contract - plus, it's also a good point to divide the tasks of a milestone to 2-3 freelancers at a time so you won't be spending too much attention with only 1 freelancer in place. Also, for an hourly rate, this will just allow the freelancer to procrastinate as long as he's aware he needs more time to finish so go ahead to pay per month.

 

I am so sorry to hear this as I have been working through O'Desk for 3 years now. I hate when people rip others off as I have a reputation of being a good worker and have never charged anyone more than I deem appropriate. I have even not charged if project takes longer than I said it would. Did you know you can dispute it by showing the pics of their screen that shows what we employees are doing? If the employee also has a web cam you can see them working. Make sure that you check everyone's feedback always. And good luck. I hope you get that non-working fool off of O'Desk as it reflects badly on us that are hard workers and take pride in a job well done.
brujea

 

freelancer isnt better.I'm spending over 3k's every month over freelancer.After frelancer got sold its only a real mess.They are just trying to force people to sign up under goldmembership and making money on not reading of their longterm customers.Myself i'm just mad as they really try to cheat you just to get the most possible money out of you for nothing

 

Thanks for info , any ELANCE users here?

 

Sad to hear you lost money. It's better to invest your time researching than getting scammed though.

 

I don't think you can call this a scam. It's a misunderstanding at best.

 

You can get scammed in any of the outsourcing business if you are not careful. Odesk claims buyer's protection in Fixed price jobs, and Contractor's protection in hourly jobs. So you might wanna try fix price jobs at first. Means the buyer can decide what to pay in fixed price jobs, and for hourly jobs, hours worked is hours billed. Contractors also get scammed in fixed price jobs, where the buyer just disappear after taking the final project. If you are inclined towards hourly jobs, there is a work limit, which you can apply on hourly jobs. This means that the contractor cannot work more than the number of hours you schedule. This will prevent you from over billing.

 

You can agree to pay per action (some part of project), that way you both somehow protected.

 

I hired Omar Edwards from Shabz Design to make 2 pages on my Facebook for $20 and 100 fans on facebook for $4 ($0.04/fan). This was one of my first posts on oDesk so I made this an hourly job instead of fixed because I figured I would get quoted an amount of hours which I can then make a milestone for these certain hours. We agreed on $24 and spoke back and forth on oDesk and skype. He finally messaged me on Odesk on March 3 stating he has completed the job. I reviewed and had a few changes which he complete quickly. So I went into payments to make a milestone and I submitted a $24 bonus on accident instead of closing the job and submitting $24 for this fixed job. He did not mention anything about the hours, and I failed to change this to a fixed job. So I contacted support through live help and told them I made a payment but it is not being released. Here is the conversation which was fairly short since I was on my iPhone:
Allan: Hello, Alex D. Can I help you with anything today?
Alex D: ID 11272872
Allan: hi is that a contract id? please hold as I check that on your account
Alex D: I hired as hourly but I paid worker as fixed price.
Alex D: But it says I paid as bonus
Allan: I see - I'll check your payments as well.
Alex D: And it will not release
Allan: yes when you pay a fixed price it is usually called a bonus payment
Allan: oh ok
Alex D: And I already ended and we left feedback for eachother
Allan: is that the $24 payment?
Alex D: Please release payment
Allan: yes sure I will go ahead and ask finance to charge your card
Allan: one moment pls
Allan: glad to report that your card was charged successfully
Allan: thanks for contacting oDesk today!

After the payment was released, I felt comfortable telling the agent that my job was complete and I wanted to release payment. Keep in mind I work 15 hours a day, and I use oDesk as support to get my work done and depend on oDesk agents to help or catch mistakes if I speak with them. That is what sets apart good customer support from horrible support. So thinking everything was ok, I left very good feedback. After I received the 100 fans from Omar Edwards, I turned on my own Facebook fan account from an external website. This website is where people with fanpages can exchange fans/likes. You can gain anywhere from 30-100 fans in one single day. They just constantly stream in as long as you have enough credits in your account which I had plenty. I had paused it so I can see if Omar's (Shabz Design) fan technique really worked and it did. I received about 120 fans and it slowed down so I un-paused my own fan account to begin exchanging fans on my own and went up another 300 fans in approximately 3 days. So I decided to ask Shabz Design to give me another 400 fans at $0.04/fan and he said I already owed him for 300 fans. He saw my facebook fanpage and claimed it was him that got me 300 more fans and I should pay what I owe. I told Omar Edwards we agreed on 100 fans and that is what I paid you. He disagreed so I took screenshots of my account and showed him 5 pages of fanpage likes that I have received on my facebook fan exchange account on an external site. I have proof of building my own fan base and showed him but he suggested that it was him as if he is the only one who knows how to obtain facebook fans. I used him for additional fans because I like to use different methods of obtaining fanpage likes. After I told him I will not pay him for work I did myself and work that we did not agree on, he told me his charge for fans is $0.12/fan instead of $0.04/fan. He said he will not charge me the same price as before so I told him I will no longer need his service.

After we spoke I begain other work and did not pay much attention to oDesk because I had to attend to other very important matters in my business NOT knowing that the job was still open and the $24 I had paid him was still considered a bonus and not as a final payment. Approximately 8 days later I receive notice from oDesk that I was charged for $35.55! So I logged in to see why this was charged to my account and noticed Omar Edwards from Shabz Design summed up $0.12 x 300 fans = $36 so he logged on oDesk and logged 5.33 hours @ $6.67/hr which = $35.55! Very clever way of taking advantage of someone who just began using oDesk and made an honest mistake of paying him the wrong way. He saw that I was inexperienced with oOesk and deliberately logged on to oDesk to log hours which we never agreed upon. I take this no other way then theft. If you leave your wallet on a table, and turn your head for a second, it may get stolen. Maybe it is a bad idea to put your wallet on the table in the first place, but steeling the wallet is a crime regardless of where it is. IT IS NOT YOURS!

I then contacted oDesk to file a dispute and they told me my time for dispute was over!? Here is the ticket conversation:

Ionie: Hello, Alex D. Can I help you with anything today?
Alex D: Hello I have a feeling the worker I hired has manipulated odesk to charge me $35 today but I already paid him $24 for the work he did. Unfortunately it was done as a bonus since I am very unfamiliar with odesk. So we left eachother feedback and that was it. Now I have a new charge for hours that we did not agree on
Ionie: One moment let me check
Ionie: May I have the Contract ID please?
Alex D: His name is Omar Edwards from Shabz Design. He made 2 pages for my Facebook page for $10 each and he got me 100 fans for $4. Each fan was $0.04
Alex D: I am on my iPhone. I am not sure if this chat will end if I try and go to another page
Ionie: No need
Ionie: one moment please
Ionie: So the agreed amount you had with him is just $24 is that correct?
Alex D: Yes only $24. I asked for more fans but he wanted to charge me $0.12/fan and I said no I will not pay more. So I deleted him from skype because I did not appreciate the price spike. He claims he gave me more fans then 100 which is not true so he probably thinks I should pay. We only agreed on 100 fans for $4
Alex D: And 2 pages for $20. I would also like to take back my feedback if possible because this is not professional to do.
Ionie: unfortunately you hired him under an hourly contract which is a guaranteed payment it means everytime a contractors log in they will get paid per hour
Ionie: you will need to speak with your contract to process a refund
Ionie: as employers review period for the week he worked for was already ended yesterday
Alex D: Well can you see screen shots? He didn't do any work. The job ended a while ago before I left feedback
Ionie: Unfortunately time given to you to dispute charges for the week he worked for already ended yesterday so we cannot file a dispute any more
Ionie: it is the emcccccccbpnffketrrhinglugccnkcrinvnuounjjtfnfvjf
Ionie: employers responsibility to check the work diary during the review period and file a dispute between that time as well incase there are issues on the work diary
Alex D: I have all logs of skype messages. I will try and ask this thief to refund but if he says no, I am calling my bank to file for a charge back and I have all conversation logs to prove the work ended before I paid him $24
Ionie: What you can only do now is to contact him and ask for a refund
Ionie: Problem alex is you hired him under an hourly contract it is stated on our policy that hourly contracts are a guaranteed payment. So what ever agreement you have with him if you hire him under an hourly contract and contractor logged in he will still be paid
Ionie: Contract that you should have offered shoukld be fixed price if it will be a task something like a commission basis'
Alex D: Yes and I will also call my bank to file a charge back and I'll discontinue using odesk. This is not fair. I will not participate with a company that does not help claims such as mine regardless of the dispute time. I was unaware and did not receive any notification that I was being charged. I thought once you pay and leave feedback the work is done. I did not make a milestone or agree more hours.
Alex D: I asked to change to fixed but this is not possible. You can see our conversations in inbox. I don't understand why odesk cannot investigate this. There is proof.
Alex D: You understand that I will not be robbed like this. I will not let someone just take my money because of a loophole in that I failed to understand. You should not protect someone who takes advantage of people like me
Ionie: he cannot change it to a fixed price as you have to do it on your end
Alex D: So now he will continue to login and take my money. I want this job closed now please.
Ionie: Also, if you both just agreed to make a bonus payment on this you should have set the weekly limit to 0
Ionie: The logged in he made was made when the contract he had with you was still active
Ionie: How it works was posted on our odesk User Agreement which we asked user to accept
Alex D: I don't know how to do that! I submitted a ticket explaining this and I said job is complete please release payment. Then I left feedback and I thought job was closed. He logged in and did not work!!!
Ionie: The charges on your account was for the log in he made March 1
Ionie: as I see here contract was ended march4
Ionie: You were just charge yester as employers review periods end Sunday 23:59 UTC
Ionie: Your contractor can refund these funds
Ionie: please speak with him and ask for a refund
Alex D: I know about user agreements as I own a business and I also like to protect myself from refunds but I hope you understand that regardless of what accepted, I did not accept to be robbed or to have odesk not take my claim into consideration and investigate. You guys are not robots. You can clearly see that I have been taken advantage of. But if you want to be defensive and protect a thief then I will protect myself too. I'll discontinue using odesk and submit a charge back since you don't seem to realize that im just an honest person who is just asking for my money back which was not earned buy this crook!!! I work too hard for me to sit back and let this happen.
Alex D: Please close this job to prevent this a**hole from charging me again. Have a good night.
Ionie: Time period given to you to file a dispute was already ended
Ionie: and it is your obligation to check their work diary'
Ionie: Ionie exited session.

I agree that there are policies to follow but you cannot write a policy for all issues. It is not possible. I was in the military and there are issues that still happen to this date that there is not a policy in place for. We are all humans, and we have to treat each case differently. I tried to contact Omar Edwards from Shabz Design on skype and he blocked me right away so I then knew this was not a mistake. He deliberately took advantage of me. I contacted oDesk one more time and pleaded that they look at my case and forward it to a manager for review and Odesk refused to help me. I am an honest man and I explained to odesk that I have proof of our agreement and him saying the job is $24 and he has completed it on March 3. Odesk will realize Shabz Design obviously took advantage of my open project to log hours which he did not work if they just reviewed the evidence! I will be damned if I just let some jackwagon steel my money. How are you going to ask a thief to give you your money back? I understand policies but this is a very clear case of abuse. Odesk should set all hourly jobs to 0 by default, NOT unlimited incase things like this happen! Once the job has been awarded, it should be up to us to set the hours we agree upon and have the provider agree and accept. If you set as unlimited as default, the provider can begin logging any hours he wants! This is ridiculous! There are no checks and balances here. Mistakes happen! I am getting no protection here. I am going to try once more to get help from odesk. If it fails, I will file a chargeback and I could care less if my account is closed because I will not support a company who does not have the capacity to investigate claims of abuse. If I would make suggestions to odesk I'd say to set all new hourly jobs to 0 by default so if people like me are new to odesk and do not know that the job starts off as unlimited, the provider will be forced to remind them to add hours just like milestones which we both can agree and accept! But if people like me accidentally do not change the hours from unlimited to whatever hours that we both agree upon, the provider can stay quiet and log as many hours as he wants which is a ridiculous loophole in favor of any dishonest person or company like Shabz Designz. Wake up oDesk! I have read countless complaints about the same issue! Don't you think it's time to take a closer look at your policies?! You give little time and notice to file disputes! Now that I have been charged, I cannot dispute?! I literally contacted oDesk with in one hour after I received notification that I was charged. I will do my research and find out if I can file a BBB complaint. I will also post this on ripoffreport.com, sitepoint.com, etc.... I do not care if this takes 30 hours out of my work time. I will gladly do this so I can warn people of Omar Edward's scam tactics from Shabz Designz www.shabzdesignsinc.com, and oDesk's lack of protection for employers!

 

Once again I am so sorry to hear of the unscrupulous people that take advantage of others. Shabz Designz should kick this fellow off their team if you ask me. There are many out there that take advantage of people BUT there are also many (like me and others I know) who do the work in a timely manner and don't rip people off. I am sorry for your bad experience. There are also many VA companies out there that do this sort of work and also guarantee the work. Research (or hire someone to do it for you) each and every company and all of their rules. Good way to cover your back. Hope things go better for you in the future USNSWCC. Like I said there are plenty of us out here that are NOT ripoffs.

 

It's sad this happens to some people

 

Thanks for the info as I have recently started hiring on my own also. Will definitely put this in my "Don't go near" file. Good luck to you.

Jeanne

 

That is exactly why I use a service called PrePaid Legal (I'm not an affiliate). They have attorneys all over the US and Canada so if a "matter" does end up in court, I can feel assured in knowing that I'll be represented in court without me having to physically be there.

More than likely though, a law suit probably won't be necessary as the attorney that will be assigned to your "case" would probably mail out a letter using their letterhead directly to Odesk on your behalf which would more than likely resolve the issue.

Have you ever received a letter from a prestigious law firm on their letterhead? Works like a charm!

 

wow usnswcc there are alot of cheaters on ODesk

 

Any other PrePail Legal users here?

 

Business should not be conducted with:
Anoop/Rex Thami of Mudra IT/Tecriti Consulting

I joined oDesk about 6 months back and my experience has been mixed. The interviewed several people for my first project and narrowed it down to 2 guys. One was a freelancer, the other was part of a business in India. While both appeared qualified, I chose the freelancer because it was a heavy project and I didn't want to get stuck dealing with a middleman when I needed to communicate with the developer.

While the freelancer was working on my project, I came across a smaller project that needed immediate attention. I didn't have to to start interviewing again and I remembered the great guy I talked to (Anoop/Rex Thami) from the Indian company (Mudra IT/Tecriti Consulting). I reached out to him and hired him for more than my original offer, primarily because of his initial communication. He requested 40% of the total cost of the job upfront, which I wasn't really comfortable with but I was having such a positive experience with the freelancer and Anoop seemed eager to please, I agreed.

Once I made that initial payment, communication began to fall apart. The agreement was that the job be completed by the 12th or March and I provided him with specs. He said he understood what I needed and the delivery date would not be a problem. I heard back from him 2 days before the deadline because he had many questions. I began to worry if the deadline would be met because based on his questions it appeared they had not begun on my project. For the next 3 days all my messages to this guy went unanswered. He finally gets back to me a day after the deadline to tell me that they're closed on Sunday's. He never mentioned that because my end date was on a Sunday that my project might be delayed. I asked if they were closed on Sunday why didn't he reply to the message I sent on Friday or the one I sent on Saturday -- he ignored the question. I asked what the new date of delivery would be -- this question also went unanswered.

The next day I reached out again and he informed me it would be complete in 5 hours but they couldn't provide me with a demo because their servers were down. 24 hours later and I still had nothing. Again, I reached out and he said that it would be complete in 5 hours and the server went down again. The server was not down. I knew this because he had provided me with a link the day before and I guess he forgot. I saw nothing new was done on my project. After a few more unanswered messages, he messaged me saying the project was complete and attached I would find the files. Yet, no files were attached and the demo was incomplete. He didn't even let me approve the final product before he considered the job complete.

At this point I had no other choice but to hire someone else to do this project for me. I ended up spending more than double my original offer because now I had no time to spare. I contacted Anoop and requested a refund. After hours of disputing they agreed to refund me about 54% of my initial payment if I gave them a neutral rating. I didn't like this but I agreed. I was told that we would complete the rating and refund the next day.

The next day, Anoop contacts me and tells me that there's a problem and I would now need to give them a favorable rating of 4 out of 5 in order to receive my refund. I completely disagreed and was angered that they change our agreement. I was willing to give no feedback (so that there would be no impact on their overall score) but they said 4 or no refund and there would be no other option. We continued to argue this and I was told that my feedback was pointless, no one would listen, they are more established so they are more believable, they would hide my comments, and so much more.

I decided to go ahead and give them the rating that I truly thought they deserved 1 out of 5 and an honest comment. I didn't get the refund because I wasn't willing to let them buy a good rating with my own money. These guys are true scumbags. Watch out for them.

Business should not be conducted with:
Anoop/Rex Thami of Mudra IT/Tecriti Consulting

 

This just stinks as there are some of us who will do the job and do it right. As I both do jobs and hire people to do job this is invaluable information to me. At one time I took a job but after looking at what they sent I knew that I was not capable of completing the job but informed the boss within one hour. He was not upset with my decision as he knew it was a very complicated. If you are a person who takes jobs to do please be considerate and consider the deadlines that the bosses have. If they don't meet their deadline they don't get paid and if they pay you then they are out doubly. This is how I make my living and wish that you would not mess with it with unscrupulous work ethics. CBINC I am so sorry that this has happened to you. I hope you still understand that there are still some of us out there that have high moral ethics when it comes to the jobs taken. Good luck to you.
brujea.com

 

This was happening everyday, not only odesk. Buyer are looking for the cheapest service provider but never think about the quality. I'm both buyer and freelancer on those freelancer site (same as what I did in dp forum, I buy and I sell). Many freelancer never provide quality job as they promise. I don't charge cheap price, I know I not able to provide the best with cheap price. I'm active on those freelancer site previously but not now because I already have some regular client.

 

I am Elance is great and secure.

 

Well good to hear you got your money back