Quite a while ago – i decided that my company website need sprucing up – and that powershell and vbscript just aren’t going to cut it anymore as some of the automation pieces we write for clients get more and more complex.
So… what to do?
Well, after finding a couple of web-design places that were locally based, i got a few quotes – for a basic visual re-design of my website, i’ll update the content… while there was approx 15 pages – most of these were the same template page just with different text, so probably only 4 or 5 unique pages… logo’s etc were already done, but some other gfx would need to be updated.
The quotes, well, for the places that bothered to quote, were ridiculous, $5000 at the low end, $8000 at the high end.
So, i gave up on this idea for a while… and then i thought i would give freelancer.com a go.
On the coding side – one of my guys cuts 1/2 decent .NET code, the rest of us script well, but are kind of hacks when it comes to .NET. (we can do it, but not well!)
Back to the webpage: I posted the job – and recieved a slew of SPAM responses, some legitimate ones and a wide variation in prices, from $30 to $250… with an average price of approx $200.
Freelancer.com makes you place a price range on your project – and many of the bids come back at the higest price in the range – i assume just because of pure laziness…. i have learnt that these bids can be ignored immediately – as these are generally from the people that haven’t bothered to read the spec at all and just send a template response.
I ended up choosing one of the lower bids who had good reviews – and to my surprise, he delivered…. it wasnt perfect – and his knowledge of asp/aspx was non-existant (i had to end up doing the contact form) – but considering the price i paid and the turn around time (of less than a week) – it actually turned out pretty good.
Lets be clear though, it was a very small project, there were communication issues (the freelancer was inidian) and when he could not get the asp page working, he wanted to fuck around with my web server – which is something he clearly had no skills in…. so that caused some tension.
I also posted a coding project – which the winning bidder never did anything, except make excuses and tell me it would be done “tommorow”.
I have now re-posted the project and have learnt from the 1st experience… and am trying to ensure the freelancer can actually complete the work before awarding the project… however i think the communication differences could pose an issue – as this is has some more complex concepts in it.
On to freelancer itself…. well, the site is not intuitive at all, its difficult to use, clunky and just messy. Their support people do seem to reply relatively promptly – but the unfortunate side is that for a first time user, i needed to send them quite a few emails on how to do what i would see as basic things…. and found that certain things need to be done by emailing support, which is disappointing.
The charging model employed by freelancer also comes across as a little dodgey, but i’ll re-evaluate once im a bit more used to the site.
Hi hayesjupe. My name is Emir and I work for Freelancer.com. I visit various online forums, sites and blogs that discuss Freelancer.com issues and I came across your post here.
We appreciate the feedback. It’s great that you’re using Freelancer.com services. We’d like to assure you that there are thousands of great freelancers that you can work with at the site.
To help you select the best Freelancers, we suggest you view their Reputation. It provides a detailed summary of what the user has accomplished. The higher his/her ratings are (5 being the best), the more reliable the user is. In addition, you can also view how much thought they put into their profile and most importantly how comprehensively they respond to your proposal and how well they communicate.
As for our support, please be further assured that our Support Teams dedicate themselves in answering and resolving issues as quickly as possible.
On the matter of our fees, we strongly believe they are nominal and some of the most competitive in the online outsourcing industry. For more information on our fees and charges, please visit these links – http://www.freelancer.com/faq/view.ph (Payments and Billing section), http://www.freelancer.com/news/articles.htm (Fees and Charges).
Your feedback about our services and support are important to us and we’ve taken them into account. We will definitely push ourselves to further improve on them.
I hope I’ve adequately addressed your concerns. If there is anything I can do to help you with your project, please send an email to emir@freelancer.com and I will be more than happy to help.
Thank you very much and we hope you continue to use Freelancer.com services.
Geez – and above now there is aanother big reason not to like them – apparently, they have people trwling blogs so they can extremely generic – completely unhelpful posts like the above.
I fuckingn hate companies that claim to be servicing customers when all they are really doing is employing marketing spin and not actually giving real answers – thats absolutely fucking pathetic….
After this original article – i didnt mind freelancer, i just thought some things were a bit iffy…. after trying to get the next project done – dealing with the bidders of whom none of which read the spec…. and now this post – i dislike freelancer.com and will be going elsewhere.
Hi Hayesjuspe. I came across your reply to our response and we value your feedback.
Please be assured that we wish only to help you to better utilize our site. We also wanted to clarify any Freelancer.com issues and concerns that were raised in your blog post.
We are also sincere about addressing any concerns about your project. That is why I included my corporate e-mail in case you need a more direct line to Freelancer.com.
Thank you very much. We hope that you continue to use Freelancer.com services.
I started using Freelancer recently to male a little cash on the side. There are tons of spam employers but I just finished my first legit project. If youever need anurging my username is Anirath91