oDesk

Odesk is the WORST! I am a freelancer who charges per piece. voice overs and such. Odesk can only handle hourly projects which makes billing weird. they have slowed up their payment process allowing clients to Decide if they WANT to pay for two weeks! Then, they hold the money for another 6 days for «security». This makes working on Odesk risky, you could go on working for a couple of weeks and have the client back out on you. If a client is a no pay I need to cut my loses, not do a bunch of work for them. One day I got a strange email, supposedly from Odesk, but not thru their website saying I had better improve my «customer service» or I would be suspended. I was too odd, so I ignored it and kept on working on the on 30 file job I was on. A month later another came and said I was suspended for not «improving». I’ve never had a negative review. They say they will let me back if I improve my «customer service». But since I have no clients there and can get none, that’s unlikely. It’s a negative unprofessional environment, they continuously tell you they wont guarantee fixed price projects, put «give a refund» and «reduce rates» buttons prominently on pages,. I probably have lost some work from clients that only can find me on Odesk, but in the long run, Im better off not being tempted to use their service, and probably not Elance either..

oDesk is a very, very, very poor run business. The sad part is I am doing fine on Elance. I’m not a big talker so I will make the long story short. It stared in late September when Odesk has been harassing me with the following email:
” We’re writing because a routine system review of your account identified an unusually high number of disputes, client concerns, poor feedback, or evidence of moving work off the platform. As a result, your account has been placed under review.“
Afterwards, they temporary suspended my account.
Fast forward to January 12, they said before they can reinstate my account, I would have to change my profile picture since it was too far (in which is my bs but whatever). So I change the profile pic and the restore my account the next day.
Fast forward to today, they said my account is suspended. For what? I didn’t do anything wrong. Hell, I only been on there a few times this past few weeks because people were sending me job invitations. Honestly, I really want to file a lawsuit against this company. Seeing all these complaints lets me know I would be justified in doing so. I will still have clients on Elance for now (they probably plotting on me over there too) but I’m writing my novel as we speak. I’m tired of writing for other people; especially through janky sites such as oDesk.

I used to be employer for Odesk Consultants. Many of the overseas consultants are poor workers which is understandable given cultural/​educational differences. What caused me to close my account was that the company DOES NOT protect it’s employers who are scammed and then lied about on feedback reviews. The contract who we hired was useless, unusable code even with strict examples and guidelines within the documentation we provided. Still had to pay the consultant and then they leave a bad review. Odesk a place for scammers to get work.

I forgot about my reviews until tonight — update — Odesk did offer to reopen my account soon after it was closed (presumably by accident). It was such a nightmare, though, what with all the emails and the insult and insinuation that I’d done something wrong — even if it was a computer glitch. I was so turned of I gave up these contractor sites altogether — but now I’m going back… to
. I had a pretty good experience with them and so far, nobody unprofessional! But I did want the world to know Odesk did at least offer to reopen my account, I like their testing system, and liked them before they merged with Elance!

I have an account on oDesk that I really only utilized for 3 small voiceover projects as a freelancer with a total sum of about $ 60…had an issue with one of the contractors where he just said he didn’t like it and wanted it done over, but wouldn’t provide any other feedback as to what he did not like and how he wanted changes to be made. So I did several other takes of the script, mind you I have been in radio and public speaking for years, so I am not some newbie pushover that provides a poor product. This was professional studio quality stuff. Luckily I was smart enough to require 100% paid in advance before I did any of the work because of he could have, he would have tried to not pay me for it though I sent four or five takes fully mixed and mastered, as I’m an audio engineer with a home studio. He still complained and though I again asked for him to be specific and provide more direction because he did not have any significant requirements in the job description when I accepted his offer. He got rude and even more unprofessional, so I knew I did provide more than enough quality takes for him to use on his answering service and I was not putting more work into it for the little pay he gave. So he threatened to libel me al over the Internet and leave me a bad rating, and tell people to never work with me… yada yada. I immediately responded that I don’t take kindly to threats and had reported him for libel to oDesk and that our working relationship was over, and that if he responded he would be reported again for harassment, and I left him a bad review before he could leave me one. He never contacted me or left me a review one that.
Anyway, after that project which was probably completed either during summer or fall of 2013, I stopped seeking work on oDesk because I felt like I couldn’t trust oDesk to take any action against these unprofessional contractors who try to get you to commit to a project, and then pressure you to do more work than what you agreed to and get paid for, and I also didn’t trust the caliber of postings by contractors… many were extremely low pay and ridiculous requirements, and people would send me invited to interview for a job that was not at all a match for my credentials or interests noted on my profile. So I just had lost interest in them, and focused on my full time retail store management job.
Well, today, well over a year. almost year and a half since I last utilized oDesk, with no complaints against me whatsoever, I go to log in to oDesk and it says in big red letters on the top of my profile that my account has been SUSPENDED. I can’t apply for any jobs, just update account information. I immediately put in a ticket inquiring why my account was suspended with no explanation when I haven’t even logged in in well over a year and had never had any bad dealings with the company or any negative reviews reported from a client. Well a few hours later, oDesk customer help desk emails me back saying that «unfortunately their Trust and Safety Board has determined that our working relationship must come to an end.» And that they have the right to revoke privileges to any account they want without providing any legitimate reason. I was outraged and insulted that they had provided such a generic, non-​specific explanation, and wrote them back expressing so. I also made sure they knew that, as I have proof in screenshots of client message threads, and several screenshots of my public profile and account information that proves I never had problems or had been notified of an issue by oDesk in the past, that they better provide me evidence as to why they suspended my account and won’t let me utilize the service as a freelancer. Also, that I have no problem providing my comments and supporting documentation to the Better Business Bureau. It’s a shame because this had been a good place to start as a freelancer to get use to the environment before moving on to bigger remote work from home gigs, or just a way to make some extra cash, buts potently oDesk doesn’t care about doing right by the customer, which is fine by me– they’re losing out on 10% of the payment for every voiceover, writing or customer service project I would be doing right if my account wasn’t suspended for no legitimate reason. Get outta here with the generic, robotic responses and start giving a damn about your freelancers oDesk/Elance…we are what makes you the money after all. If you were smart, you would have someone from oDesk contact me and everyone else on here who has said their account has been suspended, investigate our accounts thoroughly and when you see we didn’t do anything wrong, give us access again to your site so we can have a fair shot at the jobs available through your service and will be more inclined to leave you positive reviews and recommend your service. That’s how you stay relevant and make money, by doing right by your customer. Simple stuff, no rocket science here. Best Regards

I was a client and got SCREWED! Their freelancer didn’t perform the work after weeks of waiting so I notified Odesk customer service about it. They did nothing. I formally disputed the charge with my CC company. Sent all of the docs showing the numerous requests for status and the escalation to CS that had gone unresolved to the CC co and, sure enough, they ruled that Odesk didn’t deliver and credited me the charge. Their freelancer leaned of the dispute (how?) harassed me and I had to file a police report on him. Asked Odesk to help but they refused to assist. What a nightmare! NEVER, EVER again!

Don’t mess with these guys there over charge you for terrible work & when you try n call customer service they don’t pick up ever!

This website is a big scam. Odesk does nothing about it. They side with workers 100% of the time and never the employer (me). I got a complaint opened with them and the Better Business Bureau. I won’t let it go until I get a refund of my $ 26.17. Someone scammed me and sent me stolen software from another website and closed the job. How can they close the job marking it complete? I’m the employer! I say when it’s complete! I want them to review/​change their policy and refund my money.

I have to agree with all of the negative reviews here. I was once a happy customer, but since they merged with Elance, things have REALLY gone downhill.
In 2012 I hired someone half way across the world to create a simple website for me — for $ 40. It was awesome. The website was very, very simple and inelegant, but it was all that I really needed for my purposes. I’m still able to update it in Seamonkey without problems.
My next experience in 2012 wasn’t as good. I got a terrible web designer who used an old version of WordPress to create a copycat website for me. I later found out from my hosting company that the idiot contractor made all of my domains vulnerable to hacking! I lodged a complaint with ODesk because the crappy contractor wouldn’t turn over the project files and continued to host them on his own server. ODesk customer service rep Sarah did help me finish up and get the files, but they were a bit useless since they were in an old version of WordPress.
2^nd customer service fail for ODesk: I opened a ticket because my full name is now available to the entire internet whenever I post anything. It wasn’t this way before the merger with Elance. Before (in 2012) I could post jobs with just a company name. Now, in 2014, they admit a «bug» that releases my full name on all jobs and correspondence for all the web to see, but they won’t fix it! They actually closed the freaking help ticket saying there is no solution in the foreseeable future. Just L-​A-​M-​E again.
Anway, bottom line: contractors are a real crap shoot. BEWARE horrible, shoddy work. But double beware that ODesk will not support you if there’s a problem. And, right now (July 2014) your full legal name will be disclosed to all potential hires and will be released onto the WWW with any job posting unless you keep your job posting hidden.

I’m an employer and I LOVE Odesk. It’s very convenient to use and you can meet great people to work with. I have no idea why people complaining about the customer service. I just got off of the phone with a nice lady who explained everything very well to me and answered all my questions.
Definitely will keep using it.
Thank you!

My view on Odesk after 3 projects:
–Poor quality of contractors who are overrated (by Odesk metrics). For example they have a score of 5 in English fluency but often lack even conversational skills.
–Odesk has very few material assessment and feedback loop options. In other words, a contractor may be rather poor but somehow manage to reflect a 4+ review score.
–Their customer support might as well be a machine. Responses to questions and comments are often unrelated to the question or comment, and somethimes takes days for a reply.
–Their overall processes, metrics and performance criteria on contractors or clients are rather weak.
I no longer use them as I realized the time and energy spent on finding, engaging and getting quality work is too big and time consuming a challenge on Odesk and will effectively cost more money for any given project.
Idea is good. Execution is very poor.

Dealing with oDesk with either a contractor or customer service is guaranteed to flare up your hemorrhoids, heartburn or induce a heart attack so if you have any of the above conditions or risks, let me help save your life and relieve you of pain right now.
Go get what you need done elsewhere.
The experience of working with a contractor and dealing with their customer service is an end-​to-​end seamless NIGHTMARE experience.
I hired a highly rated contractor to code a custom website and provided specific information with a wireframe.
If you are unfamiliar, a wireframe is like an architect’s blueprint of the building. Every detail from structure, layout, dimensions, design and color element is documented.
All was well whenever I checked in with her over the course of a few days
When the mock up was presented, I thought either Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles had done it.
NOTHING was how I wanted it. From colors, logos, layout — nothing was as per my wireframe. She was coding it out of thin air, I kid you not.
After talking via Skype at length, she confessed she could never see my wireframe from day one but said nothing to me. I could have solved the problem in 30 seconds by exporting the wireframe into a PDF document and emailing it over.
oDesk said I was liable for the «WORK DONE» and they charged my card on file for this piece of shit I received.
Even after I proved she had lied through documentation of the Skype chat, they didn’t bother.
I disputed the charge and oDesk suspended my account — Awesome! I didn’t plan on ever going back anyway.
One year later, they emailed me to update my credit card — even though they had suspended my account.
I contacted them to shut my account permanently but had to chat to their customer service robots who keeps pretentiously thanking you per every other line of text and you have to deal with a ton of emails.
This is the worst online company with the worst policies ever.
Congratulations on being the most memorable shitty online experience ever!
oDesk is truly an exquisite piece of shit.

Very bad experience with ODesk. I’d you are smart do your research. Odesk makes money on billable hours so really not interested in refunding you. Zero support when the freelancer rips you off. You can’t speak with anyone if you have a disputable. Some one always picks up the phone but they can’t help or transfer you. I have a claim with my CC company because I believe this is a fraudulent company. Do you self a favor and stay away

I have spent well into 5 figures with employees I found on this site. After using it for years the one time I had a customer service issue I was severely disappointed at the response. I hired one person to do some work for me and after weeks of asking for updates it became clear that he was not doing what he was supposed to. So I cancelled the contract and left an accurate and fair feedback. In turn this contractor was able to leave me a negative feedback even though I did everything I was supposed to do including paying him for work that he didn’t finish.
With all my proof in hand of the situation I approached the oDesk customer service requesting the inaccurate feedback be removed from my profile. Having never needed oDesk support I expected this would be a quick fix. Surprisingly, customer service claims there’s nothing they can do about it. Beware potential employers, these guys are not on your side and do not care about facts. All they do is read from a fixed list of guidelines and if your problem does not fit in it, you’re out of luck. No personalized support. Very bad idea trying to rely on these guys for your critical hires. Feedback levels are meaningless because any employer has to fear potential negative feedback returned to you if you say anything poor about a contractor. I have already joined a competitor site that charges less of a management fee, a better interface, and customer service staff who seem more interested in fair resolutions to any problems that may arise. After I wrap up whatever contracts are left on oDesk I will not be returning for any new hires.

This review is written from an employer’s perspective. We used oDesk a few times to hire contractors for various jobs. Some of the simpler jobs, like article writing, were completed successfully. But with larger jobs oDesk is a nightmare and crooked contractors run rampant. When a job ends up not completed the contractor still keeps the cash. Odesk has a policy that you can revoke payment but it must be from that week. For small jobs this would work, but not for large jobs that take a month or so. Basically, it is very easy to get ripped off here.
We had a contractor rack up 60 hours and then bail and not finish the job. Odesk just tells us we’re S.O.L. on our money and does a poor job for mediation. It takes days to get a reply back from their dispute mediation people. The same contractor did this to several others around the same time, judging from their feedback. We told them either the contractor goes or we go. Of course the same contractor is still on oDesk! For some reason I guess they feel keeping some lousy contractor that rips people off is better than keeping an employer that pays both them and oDesk? Doesn’t make any sense to me!

This site is a piece of shit.
I hired someone to create an app for me, and after the contractor said he was done, I checked out the app and it wasnt even working.
I asked oDesk if I could get a refund because the app the contractor created did not work at all.
oDesk wasnt able to fucking do anything about it.
FUCK YOU ODESK

This has to be the worst experience I have ever had with a website. I contacted the first «contractor» and got harassed with over 100 emails trying to get me to hire him. then the next «contractor» did absolutely nothing so I fired her. then odesk continued to take my money out of my account 3 weeks in a row out of my account even though the account was closed which caused me to get hundreds of dollars in fees. SO i reported them to my credit card company and got the charges reversed and now they have the nerve to send me a bill for the money they attempted to steal from me and threaten me with collection! Avoid them at all cost.

I could not find an assignment that wasn’t paying slave wages. Akin to the ads on the craigslist «gigs» section, Odesk has almost entirely ridiculously low paying jobs only a fool would accept. Not only does this include writing someone’s school assignment for $ 5.00, but ghost-​writing a 15,000 page book for $ 175.00. By complying with this slave market fees are driven down. Also, you are paying %10 to Odesk. If you’re too lazy to write your own term paper, you have to pay for it!!!

I posted a job opening for an experienced writer. The responses I received were from people that couldn’t even write/​speak English enough to reply to my post without errors. And they weren’t even writers. They were random professions outside of the US, asking for as low as $ 3/​hour. This does not look like a serious service.
The worst part of this experience was that within hours of me opening my account and posting a position, I began getting continuous spam messages (that MY emails were undeliverable). The system must be sending emails on my behalf from my email address to random email addresses. Horrible experience. I closed the post immediately. I am STILL getting spam mail in my personal email. Really disappointing. Bad experience.

I have been signed up on odesk since at least 2008. I have never had any issues with them on the Employer side of things. It may not be perfect, but its a much better ran company with more quality talent than their competitors.
I have been contacted twice over the years for Security Verification via Phone, and it was quick, and the lady who called was very polite.