There are quite a few freelance writing sites out there these days - some are pretty small online affairs that don't inspire confidence whilst others have grown so big they have lost sight of quality, value and more importantly integrity. The sad truth about a couple of these successful online freelancer job sites, is that since they have made their mark on the world, and naturally a lot of money, their members, users and project creators appear to have been put on the back burner.
So let's look at these freelancing job sites - let's take a look at some positive aspects of the sites and then let's take a close look at some of the negative reviews these sites have received over recent times and let's do this one at a time. This week it's the turn of Freelancer.com
Freelancer.com AKA GetaFreelancer.com
The site that claims to be the biggest Freelancer job site on the Internet - Freelancer.com aka GetaFreelancer.com. However, there's been quite a lot of speculation as to the accuracy of these claims. A little like the site itself, many of the people who use Freelancer.com have got several identities. It would be quite fair to say that a good percentage of registered users have at least 4 other IDs - shocking or what?
Now, obviously this changes things somewhat - 4 million plus users could suddenly become 1 million plus users - and that's quite a BIG difference. In fact, it is one that just cannot be ignored. Claiming to have so many users would need to be confirmed, verified or else it could be conceived as a little deceptive - some might even want to call it a "scam".
This is a word that's frequently associated with Freelancer.com - all one has to do is check out a few of the online review sites to read what's being bandied around about them on the Internet. SiteJabber, the ComplaintsBoard and many other review sites, are places where people go to vent their feelings - and a good job they can too! After all "a problem shared is a problem halved" and all that. Thank goodness for the Internet!
The problem, however, does not simply stop there because these fake IDs allow users to get up to all sorts of shenanigans, normally at the expense of an innocent person or two. These innocents just happen to use the site occasionally. Or it could be the hapless user who stumbles into a maze of deception when they first start using Freelancer.com either to find work or to seek freelancers for jobs they need doing. And this is where it gets really sticky.............
And it doesn't get any stickier than trying to get any help from the so called "support team". It would be pretty fair to say that most of the people who work wherever it is they do work for Freelancer.com, cannot boast that the universal language of English is their mother tongue. AND believe it or not, this can cause serious issues - getting a complaint over to someone who does not have a clue what you are talking about, can, it would seem, make an already frustrating scenario a thousand times worse! Scary or what?
The founder of the site is a bloke called Matt Barrie, and hats off to the guy for getting to where he is today, which is somewhere between not being able to find a hat that fits his head and a tie to go with his suits - BUT - and there is a but, Mr Barrie reckons he can be likened to Sir Richard Branson and other earth moving entrepreneurs who have made a serious impact on the modern world.
Well.............begging Mr. Barrie's pardon - but I don't think so. I mean come on - we are talking different stratospheres here (literally) - we're talking about a guy who is hands on and who employs 'la crème de la crème' to ensure that his numerous ultra successful companies run smoothly - talking about Branson here, by the way, just thought I needed to make that clear!
Barrie on the other hand gave a talk recently titled 'The art of making $30k a year for doing nothing ' and that just about sums up how he lets his staff run the Freelancer site - c'est terrible - as the French would say, but hey, it seems to work for Barrie. It is just a shame it does not work for the people who actually use his site and therefore the people who got him to where he is in the first place.
Conclusion
Freelancer.com alias whatever it was before - has to be thought of as a freelancing job site where anything goes. It is not a site where good writers who know their worth would look for work - BUT - it is a site that offers lots of job opportunities for people in countries where there is no minimum wage issues and it is here that I remain polite.
When it comes to the site being one of the biggest on the Internet - I think this really does need to be looked into and then verified because at the moment this is a very, very grey area. Needless to say, Mr Barrie is hardly likely to look into it - I mean who would want to admit the fruit of their labours is not as big as they claim it to be?
So let's look at these freelancing job sites - let's take a look at some positive aspects of the sites and then let's take a close look at some of the negative reviews these sites have received over recent times and let's do this one at a time. This week it's the turn of Freelancer.com
Freelancer.com AKA GetaFreelancer.com
The site that claims to be the biggest Freelancer job site on the Internet - Freelancer.com aka GetaFreelancer.com. However, there's been quite a lot of speculation as to the accuracy of these claims. A little like the site itself, many of the people who use Freelancer.com have got several identities. It would be quite fair to say that a good percentage of registered users have at least 4 other IDs - shocking or what?
Now, obviously this changes things somewhat - 4 million plus users could suddenly become 1 million plus users - and that's quite a BIG difference. In fact, it is one that just cannot be ignored. Claiming to have so many users would need to be confirmed, verified or else it could be conceived as a little deceptive - some might even want to call it a "scam".
This is a word that's frequently associated with Freelancer.com - all one has to do is check out a few of the online review sites to read what's being bandied around about them on the Internet. SiteJabber, the ComplaintsBoard and many other review sites, are places where people go to vent their feelings - and a good job they can too! After all "a problem shared is a problem halved" and all that. Thank goodness for the Internet!
The problem, however, does not simply stop there because these fake IDs allow users to get up to all sorts of shenanigans, normally at the expense of an innocent person or two. These innocents just happen to use the site occasionally. Or it could be the hapless user who stumbles into a maze of deception when they first start using Freelancer.com either to find work or to seek freelancers for jobs they need doing. And this is where it gets really sticky.............
And it doesn't get any stickier than trying to get any help from the so called "support team". It would be pretty fair to say that most of the people who work wherever it is they do work for Freelancer.com, cannot boast that the universal language of English is their mother tongue. AND believe it or not, this can cause serious issues - getting a complaint over to someone who does not have a clue what you are talking about, can, it would seem, make an already frustrating scenario a thousand times worse! Scary or what?
The founder of the site is a bloke called Matt Barrie, and hats off to the guy for getting to where he is today, which is somewhere between not being able to find a hat that fits his head and a tie to go with his suits - BUT - and there is a but, Mr Barrie reckons he can be likened to Sir Richard Branson and other earth moving entrepreneurs who have made a serious impact on the modern world.
Well.............begging Mr. Barrie's pardon - but I don't think so. I mean come on - we are talking different stratospheres here (literally) - we're talking about a guy who is hands on and who employs 'la crème de la crème' to ensure that his numerous ultra successful companies run smoothly - talking about Branson here, by the way, just thought I needed to make that clear!
Barrie on the other hand gave a talk recently titled 'The art of making $30k a year for doing nothing ' and that just about sums up how he lets his staff run the Freelancer site - c'est terrible - as the French would say, but hey, it seems to work for Barrie. It is just a shame it does not work for the people who actually use his site and therefore the people who got him to where he is in the first place.
Conclusion
Freelancer.com alias whatever it was before - has to be thought of as a freelancing job site where anything goes. It is not a site where good writers who know their worth would look for work - BUT - it is a site that offers lots of job opportunities for people in countries where there is no minimum wage issues and it is here that I remain polite.
When it comes to the site being one of the biggest on the Internet - I think this really does need to be looked into and then verified because at the moment this is a very, very grey area. Needless to say, Mr Barrie is hardly likely to look into it - I mean who would want to admit the fruit of their labours is not as big as they claim it to be?
