Comments on: oDesk Review

By: Ruby

Ruby — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 17:36:07 +0000

Odesk is terrible their verification department gave me a headache. Their jobs pay miserable and mostly hire from other countries that will accept 1 dollar an hour. The employers abuse of the contractors by paying so little and demanding so much.

By: Riyam

Riyam — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 14:20:33 +0000

Odesk is a good site to work from home. However, there are some bad companies there in Odesk. If you want to apply for a job, apply only for hourly paying jobs. Please do not apply for Fixed price jobs because some companies are not paying well as they agree to pay. I had a bad experience with some companies in Odesk. So, please be care while you apply for jobs in Odesk.

By: Marie

Marie — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:25:03 +0000

I have had 1 good contractor (out of 6-7) with ODesk who actually finished a project for me. The others disappear in the middle of working on my projects and take off with any money I’ve given them. Then I’m always told by the next contractor that the work the last person did was crap and it needs to be redone and fixed, of course costing more money. ODesk has horrible customer service, they don’t care about employers at all and totally disregard any agreements that have been made between the contractor and the employer. I personally, will never be using ODesk ever again. The contractors are terrible, especially if you are a woman and are outsourcing work.

By: Isa

Isa — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 22:50:11 +0000

To be clear, Odesk can be a good tool if the employer is VERY careful.

I suggest only going with a fixed amount for a project. The contractor should be able to estimate their time and approve a fixed amount if they have experience with the project type. OF COURSE it is suggested by Odesk that one pays by the hour. Naturally odesk and the contractors make more money (even if contractors had misrepresented their capabilities. They can just say, “sorry, it’s taking me more time, blah blah blah…”).

In the interview, make sure you cause them to respond to very specific items in the job description to check their knowledge, making sure that they NOT ONLY have a portfolio, but that they identify knowledgeably what role(s) they had in the portfolio projects.

Insist on complete paragraphs of information in discussions (versus texting) and require details as the project progresses.

Finally, try to NOT pay any but maybe a token initial payment. Keep the contractors motivated!

If you are a seasoned employer you know already to be polite. Use the words please and thank you generously, and pay on time when the project is complete.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:31:51 +0000

I have been working with oDesk for quite awhile now and have established a good reputation. Yes, there are unscrupulous employers and contractors alike, but that seems to be the case all across the board with any freelance site. The key is to be selective. If it’s too good to be true – beware. Potential employers’ active and completed projects and feedback as well as pay rate are all visible under the job listing so you can see their preferred pay scale and review employee relations by reading feedback. This is excellent for us freelancers – because we can choose projects with more precision, increasing the odds of a good match. As an employer, there are tests to rate skill levels, feedback, online portfolios of previous work, an interview process and so forth for their protection. I realize it is a risk – and some of the employers I have worked with have been burned by other unscrupulous contractors – my word of advice is – read the cover letters carefully, watch out for braggarts… ask for references. Check them. Just be careful. There are those of us on oDesk who are more than willing to give a quality job to you – the ideal for us is to get work – scamming people only ruins it for everyone. It is a shame people resort to such means… just be aware.

By: ron

ron — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:36:46 +0000

I used scriptlance in the past, and got mostly excellent results. It kind of sucks that I have already built up a good reputation on scriptlance and now all of the action is at odesk- so everyone needs to start from scratch. But the really good thing is that the service provides a pretty awesome way to keep tabs on workers.

By: Lornajane

Lornajane — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:08:47 +0000

I have been working in Odesk from April 2011 until now. I am proud to say that although there might be some minor glitches in Odesk, I have earned around $700.00 in a 6 weeks this summer. It is a good way to earn money at home. I am pleased with working at Odesk.

By: Support Specialist

Support Specialist — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:01:50 +0000

Don’t waste your time with Odesk. Check out Elance or any of the other sites out there. Odesk’s “customer service” is awful. If you have a problem, they won’t work with you to get it resolved. You can only deal with them via email and it could take weeks to get any sort of resolution. I gave up after a week of ridiculous back and forth emails. They suspended my account (due to an error on their part) and would not work with me to get it resolved.

By: hackrishna

hackrishna — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:31:01 +0000

Never understand why customer pays to install wordpress
or write HTML. Odesk and its so called candidates is fooling customers. HAHA HAHA

By: interior design decoration

interior design decoration — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 06:52:26 +0000

Odesk is a good site for people who would want legitimate work at home. I am sad to hear about some unfortunate experience of some readers about odesk. But in my experience, it is a very nice site for extra money. I am still open in trying other freelancing sites in the near future.