A Triple Screw You! to Elance
GaryCMartin.com
Although of late my complaints about the company have been mostly money related, my longstanding beef with Elance has far more to do with their user-unfriendliness than the gouging fees they charge. This all-too-real scenario serves as a perfect illustration for my frustration.
An Elance buyer who wants to hire me for press-kit material: "Thanks for posting a bid. I'm hoping to select your bid but have an update that needs your approval. Since first communicating with you my publisher took care of a few items. This is what I still need - that you quoted: XXX and XXX. If this is okay, would you email billing@elance.com and tell them that I changed the scope of the work and that your bid is now $xxx for the two pieces above. From there, they will change your bid amount to reflect this new amount. Sorry about the inconvenience. It's my fault entirely."
Actually, no, it's NOT your fault. If Elance weren't so money-hungry, it would be easy to alter bid amounts, but we all know that Elance lives and dies by the mighty dollar, soooooo...
Me: "Is there any way you can just extend the bidding? That way I can place a new bid at the lower price. If we go through Elance CS, straightening this out could take days."
Elance buyer: "Sorry for the trouble. That's the same thing I asked elance and they said to ask you to go thru the rigamarole. Anyway, I posted a new project and only invited you. I'll cancel the other."
Me (REALLY frustrated now): "PLEASE do NOT cancel the other project. Elance charges me for every bid I place, so by posting a new project, you are costing me more money. Just select me as the winner of the old project, and I'll take care of the Elance issue."
Elance, do you see yet how ridiculous your new bidding structure is and just how difficult it makes things not only for us service providers but also for the buyers who channel work through you. Something really needs to be done about this. I will NOT waste another bid on a new project I had already won if not for your ludicrous song and dance. In fact, at this point, I have a mind to just contact this buyer directly and take the work outside of Elance. Yeah, I know that would be breaking my terms of service, but you're making working through you so difficult for me, that I NO LONGER CARE! Screw you!!! Screw you!! Screw you! And if I had three hands, you can be sure all three middle fingers would be flipped in your direction.
Labels: rants
posted by Irreverent Freelancer @ 2:45 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
Wow! That definitely sounds like some major bull#%$#. Just a question about ELance's policy regarding taking work outside of Elance...How would they ever enforce that? Once you have each other's email addresses, it seems like there wouldn't be much Elance could do. Just curious.
The peacock image is amazing. Diva Power Rules!! And what exactly is the etiquette on working around eLance? Or is eLance that good of an income source? It is obviously much better then some of those other bidding sites.
And thank you. Your screw you make me feel not so alone in my work of bucking the system and speaking of the world in honesty and sincerity. Some people are jerks. Some things in the world are stupid. And sometimes it is just impossible to get around that no matter how hard we try!
Groovy picture that is most epitomous of Screw You! Yeah, screw Elance once and for all for all of their silly crap. They do a piss poor job of policing under $50 minimum bids and all sorts of ridiculous projects that buyers post. They expect the providers to police themselves and the buyers! Who says we can't take our business outside of their silly protocol? They do a good job of screwing us, well, SCREW THEM!
It's almost impossible to do any negotiations after a bid is placed. They kept pushing escrow on me, and when I use it, it's soooooo much worse. It's completely inflexible and unmanageable.
I don't understand why someone would pay a site like that in the first place. We are supposed to BE PAID to do our jobs, not pay someone else when we're doing all the work. My highest paying jobs and best clients have come from companies I thought were interesting, and I convinced them they couldn't live without me.
It's more than Screw You Elance -- writers should NOT pay for bidding, work lists, or anything else.
If you have an agent landing you five and six figure gigs and want to pay a percentage, that's one thing. But these little piddly jobs these sites list -- you can find much higher paying, better quality clients on your own.
Move on.
Elance can't really enforce their policy. It's basically a word of honor deal that almost everyone breaks. Of course, if you were caught doing so, say if the client turned you in, it would be cause for termination, without a return of unused fees.
I can't say for certainty if Elance is better or worse than the other bidding sites, because I've never secured work through any of the others. I have been with Elance for nine years and have made over $100,000 through them during that time. The ONLY reason I stay is because of the reputation and feedback I have built there. If I could take that with me elsewhere, I would in a heartbeat.
You're right, Ellen, Elance does next to nothing to protect the service provider, but is more than happy to derive their income from us. Without us, there would be no Elance, but of course, Elance doesn't get that.
Although I like the fact that escrow forces Elance to take an active role in the event of a dispute, I too agree it's a pain in the butt. Many buyers don't realize that after they've funded a project, they have to take the extra action of releasing those funds. There have been times where I've had funds waiting in escrow for weeks for that very reason. I'm sure Elance designed it that way. The longer funds sit in their account unclaimed, the more interest they earn on them.
Devon, I completely understand your viewpoint and I discourage newbies from joining Elance. I would have to ask, however, how much time have you spend over the years earning $100,000? For me, the amount of time I spend securing work through Elance is now (after many years) minimal, and it's a quick (but definitely NOT painless) means of landing fill-in-the-gap projects. Most weeks, piddly (though I do manage good hourly rates from them) jobs are all I can fit into my schedule. That's the only defense I have.
I just had to comment...been with Elance for 8 months. Ok, fine, I have made about $6,000 but not without dealing with a lot of morons along the way. Now Elance have done it - had a dispute with a ridiculous buyer - someone who wanted 20 drafts then the day after said they didn't want to pay - surprise suprise. Entered dispute which took weeks and weeks of faffing, finally they were supposed to call me at a fixed time for a conference call. Except...I let them know it was not a good time as I do not live in the US. They ignored that and...I have no record of a call but they have given all the money held in Escrow back to the buyer. Great! A lot of work for nothing. They are utterly useless at helping - I had all the evidence there that the buyer was agressive, a liar and extremely difficult yet they took none of that into consideration.
So bye bye Elance! If I am going to work for free, I may as well avoid you altogether and contact buyers directly instead of giving you a huge chunk of my earnings!
Ah it gets worse now. Elance bank transfers are now slow. Bank transfers that used to take 3 days are now taking more than a week. I got an email from their accounting people and they said they changed banks. I guess that means the fees they make are not enough. Now they have decreased their payment performance. I don't know if this bank excuse is true or not or they are riding on the freelancers' money, I don't know. But I do know it is getting harder and harder to stomach their asinine policies.
I think I'm just going to have my buyers pay me directly. Then Elance can wait for 7 days for me to pay them after I've been paid. Yeah... sounds fair to me.
I am currently involved in a dispute through Elance. It has been a terrible experience thus far, and it will be my last. But that is why I cannot understand why there are so many people complaining about Elance and continue to use their service. Elance is a business, plain and simple. They are there to make money and will charge whatever the market will bear. As freelancers/entrepreneurs, this is not a hard concept to understand. If you don't like the way they operate, take your business elsewhere.
I have taken my business elsewhere. I now maintain only a FREE Elance account, which still brings about headaches, but I digress. Regardless, my aims in life are not entirely self-centered. The goal of this blog is 1) to share my experiences in a way that (hopefully) will help other freelancers. Therefore, I can and will continue to spread the word about bad freelancing experiences like the ones I've encountered at Elance. What I don't understand is why so many ANONYMOUS visitors have such a hard time accepting that this blog is intended as a place to freely and openly vent. If you don't like the way I operate, you are free to take your blog reading elsewhere.
Thank you so much for your posts. It seems I almost jumped into a pile of b.s.
I was mostly through the profile process when I decided to look them up and found your posts.
Do you have any recommendations for a legit freelance source, that isn't out to screw the people that do the job?
Thanks again for the post!!!
Steph
Hi Steph,
Honestly, I think all of the freelance-bidding sites are a waste of time these days. Since I still maintain a free membership with Elance, I can observe what goes on there. IF (and yes, that's a big if) the projects are awarded at all, they typically go to one of the lowest bidders. And I'm pretty selective about what projects I watch. Check out Lori Widmer's blog, "Words on the Page," for advice on finding worthwhile freelance jobs.
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