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My experience with oDesk
| Posted by badhat, 08-16-2007, 01:20 PM |
| I'm trying to figure out what is going on with oDesk. I hired my first programmer last week and everything was going well. Seemed like an intelligent guy who picked up on a few things I missed. Job would take about 14 hours.
Suddenly, the day after he began (about 5 days after I joined oDesk), he tells me that he received a notice that oDesk shut down my job due to a fraud check for my credit card. I didn't understand it since I received no email - nothing. I sent in an email to their support system. Some time late in the day a message was left on my machine by a woman at oDesk.
The following morning I sent another email and called them, leaving plenty of relevant information - including the name of the person that called me and left a message from oDesk. I was suprised to find out that this pathetic company's "business hours" is nothing but joke when it comes to phone support. You get a toll free number to leave a message!!! It says "Note: This is an answering service only. Please leave a voicemail with your question and contact information and oDesk support will contact you within 1 business day."
I did get a response from "customer support" in email. Couldn't understand what it was talking about. 10 minutes later a second email comes in apologizing for replying to someone else's support request!!! I have no idea how and why they would reply to me. I sent a third email to them for support. Today, the fourth business day, still no response and I left a second voice message with all my information.
So here I am end of week. Urgent project unnecessarily delayed indefinitely (even thought it's technically done), a good coder who is pissed off, a second job that has been nailed shut, and not a single person from oDesk caring to do a damn thing.
IMHO, the only fraud check that needs to be done is on oDesk. It sets a whole new standard for incompetence. I figured I'd share my experience here so others won't find my frustration and it's also a good feeling to vent amongst friends here who can appreciate where I'm coming from. Hope to also hear from some of you as to your handling of situations like these and whom you use... time to get a drink and calm down while I watch the time tick away from me...
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| Posted by Coolraul, 08-16-2007, 01:29 PM |
| Why don't you simply explain this to the developer and offer a different way to pay until this is sorted out?
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| Posted by badhat, 08-16-2007, 03:19 PM |
| That was the way we were about to handle it. For many reasons this is not preferred but the last resort. Plus, you always believe someone is going to wake up there and do something.
I finally got a response today by posting an angry message in the feedback section of their public forums. They will do something now. They claim that on the day they suddenly shut down my account, an email to me bounced and my voice mail was full and cut off their message. But this doesn't explain why they ridiculously ignored all further tickets or calling my mobile phone. They didn't even think to use IM which was on there. But that's all moot since my email address works since I received all their alerts. I also don't understand why they don't have a normal ticket system so, in case they claim email bounces, both customer and vendor have a running log of the conversation available such as is via Kayako, Cerberus, or even free open source software.
The bottom line is that they are trying to create as much of a barrier between themselves and the customers to increase their profit margin. Maybe it works for the most part but I can't imagine it will if your ticketing system stinks.
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| Posted by badhat, 08-16-2007, 05:25 PM |
| They finally called me and apologized profusely. They admitted a serious lapse and that they were building a help desk. I told them to just buy a ticketing system for $600 - they have serious funding. They cannot afford to have problems like this. This thread can be deleted and I was pretty irate that this took 4 days. I'm sure you could all understand why.
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| Posted by stuffradio, 08-23-2007, 12:05 AM |
| so basically odesk is a site like getafreelancer.com? They cancelled your job with the guy? If these are the cases why can't you contact him privately then? Or is it like that site ummm can't remember, but it sends the coder the money when it's done?
They should give you some or all of your money back if this is the case, or if you haven't paid yet you should get some sort of compensation for it
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