Fortunately, we have obtained a few good jobs via this site, but we’ve also worked with some unscrupulous people (I wont say what nationality) who have tried to rip us off on so many levels. That aside, however, what really gets my goat with these people is their payment system… they have a prepaid mastercard to which you can access your funds once you have been paid by a client, yet every time you are to receive funds to this card they find some reason to deactivate your account and make you jump through hoops to get it back. Now security where money is concerned is one thing but this is just outright foolishness!!!

At the same time I see many UK and US businesses who use the site moaning about the poor quality of copy provided by freelancers via the site. Hm. What on earth do they expect if they’re only prepared to pay peanuts? As the saying goes, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.

Getafreelancer would work a lot better if it split sites by region: europe / India / US etc. The concept only makes sense if employees offer the going rate in any particular country.

In the UK a good copywriter will charge between £35 and £45 an hour. About the same as a decent plumber or plasterer. $1 per 300 words is simply unacceptable. And greedy employers who try to save cash by taking advantage of poorer countries’ rates and foreign freelancers’ imperfect english get what they desreve. Poor work.

Most of these guys are working on US $10 an hour so $1000 is going to get you a lot more than 3 days work - it’s going to be more like 3 weeks work. Still it’s hard to see how anyone could clone Google in 3 weeks.

However, these sites all have a long tradition of listing gigs that are both laughable financially ($150 for a MySpace clone?) and sad creatively (you could probably depress yourself by searching for the word “clone”). The cynical viewpoint is that the work is being done by people in other countries for whom $500 is pretty decent pay; alternatively, it could be done by someone who lacks years of experience in a technology (say PHP) but wants to be paid while she gains those skills (which isn’t a bad thing). Neither of which assure the buyer that they’re getting the best quality necessary, but then there’s always someone who imagines that “cheap” is better than “good.”

As a writer, however, I was always amazed at the number of people who wanted a freelancer to write their biography. They assured me that they had a fascinating life, and as soon as I found them a publisher they’d be happy to split the millions they would surely make from the book. Yeah. Great idea. Sure.

I never got a single gig on those sites, back when I was a full time freelancer.

Fortunately, I’m told, there are exceptions. You can find real work on such sites. But then, you can also find great antiques at flea markets. I lack the patience to weed through the junk to find them, however.