If I were to list all the clients I’ve worked with during my freelancing career, I’d say that 99.5% of them were a pleasure to work with. They gave clear instructions, sent constructive feedback, and paid me on time. I love working with these clients over and over again.
Then there’s that 0.5% that I wish I never worked with. They scammed me out of my work, never paid, and tried to get away with it. After taking advantage of me, they repeat the same process with the next freelancer, and the next, and the next, until threads about their scamming ways start appearing in message boards. Does this sound familiar to you? If not, count yourself lucky.
It’s a good thing that this hasn’t happened to me in the last three years. I probably owe this to the fact that I pay attention to any red flags or hunches I get when negotiating with new clients.
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Although I haven’t kept a close eye on Elance, my impression has been that it was a basic job “bid” site for freelancer programmers. The site description summarizes their main focus as “outsourcing to freelance programmers, web and logo designers, copywriters, illustrators and consultants.” People with the jobs are the employers or “buyers” and the Web workers with the skills are the “providers” on Elance.
Since launching in 1999, the company has worked to expand their offerings, integrating some features to create more than just a job site and more of a work tool. What interested me beyond the job marketplace is Elance’s concept of a Remote Work System with the goal of creating a remote workspace for freelance workers to provide them with additional incentive to continue using the site after the job match has been made. The features are meant to help service providers manage a part of their work through Elance and give buyer and service provider more ways to connect and transact business.
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