Freelancer - the latest in knob driven help desks

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nunz

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#183769 29-Oct-2015 16:12

I've been on the freelancer site for a few years - employing poeple for short jobs - and recently had to get help from them 3 times in the last 24 hours - their sites malfunctioning.

Anyway, I have 22,000 credits which i cant give away to others so decided to use them. Tried to buy project credits with my credits at the store. This failed. Went to thier help chat system. turns out there is a mess up in their system around this. Cant buy it.
so i asked what can I buy? as I dont need mst of the rst of the other crud - the only thing I dont have is someone to manage my project and the one time I did that they were useless.

It turns out I can buy bid packs for my account - increase my bids - but wait for it - it wont increase the number of bids on my account. when I ask why I would buy something I wont receive - double speak and fudging and plain incompetence follows.

Another sad but true episode in the annuls of inline help systems. where do they get these monkeys from? My zoo needs some new stock.

Your Question: My reviews and stars don't show up in my bids -
User: onformsoftware

bid on project https://www.freelancer.com/projects/Excel/Toolkit-required/

Please wait and one of our operators will be with you shortly. Leave us a message

You are now chatting with Dave S. (Email and Chat Support Representative) - Chat Tier 2

15:07Dave S.: Hi, this is Dave. Welcome to Freelancer.com Support.

15:07Dave S.: Hello, Shane.

15:08Shane: hi.

15:08Dave S.: When you place a bid on a project, the ratings and feedback that will be shown there will only be for the skills that are require of that project as well.

15:09Shane: so my 5 star rating over my projects doesn't count?

15:12Dave S.: As mentioned, it will be shown on the bid if the skills match the skills required of the project.

15:13Shane: What's really funny is they want to integrate excel with Lotus notes and I'm the only developer bidding with LN experience - and yet Im the lowest ranked - hmmm ... most experienced, no stars. doesn't sound right to me.

15:14Dave S.: So, what do you wish to be done, Shane?

15:14Shane: You really don't want to know -

15:14Shane: L is really ripping my daks at present.

15:14Shane: Second question - why can I not buy credit with my FL credits?

15:15Dave S.: You can only using your credits to purchase items from the credit shop.

15:16Shane: Credit shop says:

15:16Shane: Credit
Credit to help you out with the fees of your next project.

15:16Shane: try to buy - ends in failure.

15:16Dave S.: May I know your username, please?

15:17Shane: as per my initial posting:

15:17Shane: Your Question: My reviews and stars don't show up in my bids -
User: onformsoftware
bid on project https://www.freelancer.com/projects/Excel/Toolkit-required/

<4 minutes passes>
15:21Shane: ?

15:22Dave S.: Upon further checking, it appears that the item that you're trying to purchase is not usable. We apologize for the confusion.

15:23Shane: so I can only buy more bid slots - and I already have plenty - or get stuff I already have?

15:23Dave S.: You should still be able to purchase bid packs. <- Notes he suggests I could buy bid packs

15:23Shane: like I need them - I don't run out of bids ever.

15:23Shane: I am normally an employer

<and here it comes >

15:24Dave S.: However, note that when you purchase bid packs, it will not increase the total number of bids you have on the account.

15:24Dave S.: Meaning, if your membership plan only offers 50 bids per month, you will only have a maximum of 50 bids on the account regardless if you purchased the 100 bid pack.

15:25Shane: so why would I purchase it then?

15:29Dave S.: It is your option if you wish to purchase it, or not.

15:29Shane: why would I purchase a bid pack -0 if ?I have 50 bids, purchase a 100 bid pack and still only have 50 bids?

<time passes>
15:31Shane: hello?

15:32Shane: please feel free to answer before I die of old age

15:33Dave S.: As mentioned, if your membership plan only offers 50 bids, you will not exceed 50 bids on your account.

15:34Shane: so what you are suggesting is I pay for something that I am not going to get?

15:34Dave S.: I'm not. What I'm saying is that it is your decision if you wish to purchase the reward or not.

15:35Shane: and you suggested I could buy a bid pack - and now are saying fI do I wont receive the bids I purchased with my credit. So why would I buy a bid pack if I get nothing for my credits?

15:36Dave S.: I did not suggest that you purchase bid packs. What I said that you will not be given more than the number of bids that your membership plan offers. <- Notes he says he didn't suggest I could buy bid packs

15:36Shane: either you are trying to piss me off, are brain damaged or trying to rip me off on behalf of FL. Which is it?

15:37Dave S.: You may submit a ticket if you wish to discuss this further.

15:37Dave S.: Would that be all for today?

15:38Shane: Duh!!! I am already on your help desk - but I'll tell you what - I'm going to put this conversation on social media - they'll probably find it as amusing as I do.

15:39Dave S.: Is there anything else I can help you with?

15:40Shane: Yes but I'm not allowed to suggest that in public.

ENDS

Further note - we just had a 30k project messed up because a freelancer programmer - with banking experience who should know better- posted a list of my clients client list on the internet ain a screen shot of work he was working on - major breach of privacy, terms nad conbditions, basic common sense, NDA, contracts etc.

Free Lancer wont tell me what steps they have taken in relation to this event - as it would breach HIS privacy. Not even a generic response on what steps they take, safe guards they put in place or types of sanctions given.

Don't use them - expensive and no responsibility taken.

DaveB

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#1416232 29-Oct-2015 16:42

From their website .......... "Post your project and receive competitive bids from freelancers within minutes".

I am assuming that this is all driven by the cheapest price rather than ability.

All I can say is Gosh, the internet and its users have a long way to go.

nunz

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#1416241 29-Oct-2015 16:57

DaveB: From their website .......... "Post your project and receive competitive bids from freelancers within minutes".

I am assuming that this is all driven by the cheapest price rather than ability.

All I can say is Gosh, the internet and its users have a long way to go.

No - for us it was about getting the right skills in a timely fashion. NZ not the place to get a wide pool of skills. We were paying between USD$25 and $70 per hour. not exactly a cheap option when I can hire a code money for less than that in NZ.

The biggest problem was wading through the copy and paste responses - which is why many times we would put a note 'say this in the first line of your response' to let us know you have read the project. Canned responses were banned and binned.

We employed people from NZ, Australia, USA, Vietnam, China, India, Bangladesh, Egypt, Ukraine and Romainia - oh and some scandanavian and S. American coders. All were far from the lowest price offered. all were paid bonuses when work was completed and some are now friends - family photos, news etc floating around.

We also worked for some of them too - specialist skills - rare in some parts of the world. I forgot Russians - we had a root kit written back in 2005 - hooked into the file change IO of windows 2003. Worked a treat for real time backups and logging.

turnin

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#1416266 29-Oct-2015 18:00

I stopped using freelancer the day I had to pay $50.00 to prove I spoke Englandish.

freitasm

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#1416356 29-Oct-2015 19:30

There are lots of New Zealanders looking for jobs. Why bother with these services that most likely will get you things of similar quality to Wheedle?

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nunz

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#1417652 31-Oct-2015 12:09

freitasm: There are lots of New Zealanders looking for jobs. Why bother with these services that most likely will get you things of similar quality to Wheedle?

I had to do some research to figure out what you meant. i thought wheedle might offer programming services but a quick flick through shows it was an IT disaster by the looks of it.

Wheedle didn't fail for lack of good coders- it failed for lack of good project mangers. Freelancer or similar might have been the tool used to build wheedle but don't blame the tool, blame the tools that use them.

I know many people look at sites like freelancer as a way of screwing prices down - pure greed motive. That doesn't work. coders burn out, code is bad quality, clients get shafted, product fails. But we are part of a global economy now. If they can code at a good price (affordable not cheap), then my clients back here are enabled to do business more easily - better tools - good for the client = good for the economy.

We get good results because:
1 - We dont do things like most others do - we put good coding practices in place to manage work

We do the analysis, software engineering and turn the requirements into work units ourselves.
We also test back here in NZ. - our work force is not solely overseas based.
We do heavy UAT and have code test plans in place , based on user requirements, before we code a single line. Test driven programming.
We write very tight requirements documents
We test early and often and will send crud back, early and often
We demand good practice, enforce coding standards and documentation, then pay well for compliance

2 - We dont do it to save money - we pay well for good quality coders - and have told coders who have bid too low to go away, increase their bids and come back

Win / win coding involves both sides prospering
Shafting a coder by screwing them down price wise leads to hurried rushed work and stressed coders = bad code.
We often pay in the region of $25USD - $75USD / hour - that's not cheap.
We do it to get quality skills - when we need them

I see Freelancer type sites as a win, win, win proposition.

good for client getting affordable tools
good for me getting work
good for coders overseas -
good for third world economies
good for our economy
good for our NZ workers - concentrating on skills that let them most benefit our people - we don't need more code monkeys, we need IT people who understand and improve businesses - upskill and be the local bridge that brings code and clients together.

Other thoughts:

3 - Where possible we try to employ locally - but

Prices are often ridiculously over priced. We have a client who paid a well known company over 300k for a POS site that made what i hear about wheedle look great. the site has never gotten off the ground and should never have cost more than 100k - using NZ coders.
We have been screwed around right royally by local providers - a client bought in their own graphic designer and 11 months later we finally got the PSD for the site graphics - after we sent the design back three times as not being fit for purpose or only codable using flash - it required 11 z layers to implement and so many work arounds to get menus where he wanted them and looking right it was not viable. Design on paper != design on web. The list of issues like that goes on for miles. i know some quality coders - they are busy. local coders are not hungry enough - often not focused on delivery and service. I tried Nz first - it didn't work well.
There is a lack of skills in many areas. I kept looking, ended up coding it myself and became the blockage in my own processes. Also separation of requirements, coding and testing is vital to good code outcomes.
If there where NZers on freelancer with the right skills we would employ them. We already employ Aussies x 3, USA x 2, Canada x 1, UK x 2. however there is one heck of a lot of talent in India and china owing to their awesome universites and a high level of IT focus from the govt downwards. Nz could learn from the IT revolution in India.

4 - By using free lancer we are bringing in overseas income = good for the economy.

E.g As a very skilled Lotus notes coder with experience in back end java API work against DB2 databases and using RS6000 and AS400's amongst other things I could get zero work in NZ. Overseas there is still a bit of LN work around. Even IBM doesn't support local coders of their products but I have gotten work by coding via free lancer.I've also gotten VBA, Visual Basic, Java, HTML , ASP, ASPX, CSS, PHP and other work from overseas.

5 - Helps good coding practice.

We can be part of of 24/5 coding team - We get code back, test it, send it back, go to bed. They get up, get working on changes, new work, send it to me, go to bed. Doubles speed of delivery.
separation of design, coding, testing = best practice.

nunz

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#1417655 31-Oct-2015 12:16

freitasm: There are lots of New Zealanders looking for jobs. Why bother with these services that most likely will get you things of similar quality to Wheedle?

1 - We are too small to employ full time.
2 - I don't know anyone who understands PHP, VBA, CSS, HTML5, Javascript, , Jquery in Chch and who also is capable of building say a wordpress template or child template from the ground up then integrate authentication with Json data feeds through to iOS devices and Android devices. If there is someone like that around who is employable I would be interested in knowing. I can do that but i am a little unusual in my skills sets and experience owing to length of experience.
3 - Every project has different skills needs - we would need a pool of on-demand contract coders

Is there an Nz / Australasian site for coders looking for work? - trade me is a waste of space - too many agencies with BS adverts that dont lead to work or call backs.

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nunz

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#1417680 31-Oct-2015 12:56

turnin: I stopped using freelancer the day I had to pay $50.00 to prove I spoke Englandish.

Yeah - Englandish is a really rarely language - I can imagine they charge a premium for that. :b

You don't have to prove you speak English - but you can take their tests - and the tests can be paid for by credits earned doing other things :)

Kyanar

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#1417943 1-Nov-2015 01:55

nunz:
Is there an Nz / Australasian site for coders looking for work?

Yeah, Freelancer.com. That's Australian.

nunz

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#1418143 1-Nov-2015 13:23

Kyanar:
nunz:
Is there an Nz / Australasian site for coders looking for work?

Yeah, Freelancer.com. That's Australian.

I really am not happy with Freelancer:

1 - We got screwed royally when a coder blew through an NDA and disclosed confidential information by displaying it on freelancer as work he had done with lists of email addresses, client names etc. WE killed it almost immediately but Freelancers wil not tell us what they are doing in regards to the incident as the coders privacy is paramount. There was no doubt the NDA was breached and internal data displayed for all to see - coder admits it too - but as the client we have had NADA from Freelancer.

2 - Their site sucks to use - I have three projects with closed signs on them, cannot edit them or do changes required like uploading messages / data / specs etc, but in the dashboard they show as in progress.

3 - Their services suck - we spent some of our credits on getting a proj manager to recommend / prequalify coders - all the coders recommended didn't have the skills requested. Also the FL person doing the previewing of coders etc wouldn't respond on even a daily basis. Shocking experience.

4 - Corrupt practices. you can pay to get your advert to the top of the list. first in first served, skill levels etc can all be trumped by paying FL cold hard cash - that's corrupt in my opinion.

5 - FL help desk time to respond is measured in days, we are still waiting on support from a project whose time has now run out

The only reason we are on FL is we were on Rent-A-coder and they got sold to FL . Everything including my satisfaction levels dropped through the floor - especially when the first thing FL did was loose all my project archives in the transfer.

Oh yeah - we had a coder bidding who I had told to get lost as he lied to me in the bidding process - who started spamming us with messages. After telling him to go away several times I got sick of it and told him to do something rude in Urdu. We got reported and censored, he got no censure for spamming us and being abusive about our mothers, ancestry etc. Seems if you dont use the f word you can say what you like but one little Chello Jau<spelling all mine> and you are up the creek with them.

nunz

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#1428095 14-Nov-2015 18:35

got a good one today - cancelled services with a company over 8 months ago - continued to get bills, emails, invoices etc from them.

Three help desk tickets, five phone calls and multiple emails later they send this:

Hi Shane, Thanks for your email and we apologize for the delay.
I can confirm the mail plan has now been cancelled along with the older invoices as goodwill.
All the best.

No wonder we left - who needs a company that considers it good will to cancel incorrect invoices