The beginning
We needed to outsource some of the web development work. After looking around briefly, we came across Elance’s pitch (Elance.com) :
“Elance Online enables businesses to outsource small projects - such as web development, logos, graphic design, writing and more - to a global pool of qualified service providers.Get your projects done quickly, easily and cost-effectively by using the largest online outsourcing service.”
“Perfect!” we said and promptly created an account: santa.zzz
We decided to spend just a bit more and open bidding ONLY to Select Service Providers because accorfing to Elance:
Select Service Providers:
- Pre-screened by third-party verification services.
- Provide customized, detailed bids.
- Professionals committed to customer satisfaction.
- Have agreed to abide by Elance Select Professional Standards.
After posting a project we got a few bids and soon selected service provider
petermor.
Bidder Comments : Dear santa.zzz We can make this site for you. After going through the details we find this project interesting and We have extensive experience of similar projects. It matches with our skill sets and experience we have had in past. We can provide you with an effective solution on a timely basis. We can discuss these details and share our approach to this project via Private Message Board. Our skilled programming team is committed to giving you quality service at a reasonable cost.Please visit our feedback page to see what our customers have to say. We are square trade sealed member and have credentials verified by US search.,WE CAN START RIGHT AWAY AND COMPLETE THIS PROJECT BEFORE DEADLINE.We are 24*7 working company, available 365 days. I would request you to open a private message board to discuss technical details and see samples of our work. Regards Peter, Time to deliver after bid is accepted: Within 1 month • Bid ID: 10152569 • Bid Time: 03/03/05 15:58
"Wow!" we said, "An Elance Select Provider and a SquareTrade Member (see what SquareMember is below) !" We needed no more proof and selected the lucky bidder. According to Elance's rules project owner must first pay a deposit to initiate work. We received an innitial invoice via Elance's interface. Apparently Elance is afraid of being left out in a cold so they require partial payment prior to beginning of the project. Our agreed amount was 30% of project's total, 30% at the BETA delivery and remaining after all the bugs fixed. So far so good.
So as soon as we received the invoice we promptly paid our $630. That was on March 4th, 2005.
This service provider is a certified SquareTrade Seal member and is committed to building trust in transactions, addressing customer
service issues and the SquareTrade Standards. SquareTrade has independently
verified all business and customer service information and backs this service
provider by the SquareTrade Fraud Protection Guarantee. For more information,
click on the SquareTrade seal at the top of this service provider's profile.
19 Comments:
Sorry to hear, that you too, have been screwed over by Naveen. I think I was one of the first to be screwed over. Way back in 2002, or 2003. I just did a page image. He found my name in elance, but contacted me out of elance. I posted a public message in Hikers blog back then to blacklist him. I guess not enough people saw this.
Anyways.. Elance itself.. i was one of the early members (before it went pay) (I am no longer a piad member). Before they had the "select service providers". That in itself was just a money grab. Many of us chose not to "up" our accounts . We already knew that many providers were not skilled, and many of those paid for the upgrade. Elance started as a wonderful place for freelancers to find clients, but it rapidly got taken over by kids and scam artists who knew nothing but would underbid the professionals. And of course, the clients always seemed to go for the lowest bid. There were a few times I got a message to do a project after "some kid" won the bid and messed it. After awhile this got old, and I left Elance. It just wasnt worth the fees to lose to kids and scam artists.
I hadn't realized Naveen was still up to his old tricks. When he scammed me, I did a search on him and at the time, found he was a kid.... a smart kid who would set up deals, and then outsource to get the work elsewhere, then give it to the client. He never paid for the outsource work and then got paid by other companies of the work he passed on to them...
By
Anonymous, at February 09, 2006
The emails source is 59.184.138.254 too.
By
Anonymous, at April 18, 2006
I recently lived in India for two years working in non-coporate IT, and I can tell you the country is full of thieves and liars.
Elance, which I assume is a sincere American business, shouldn't make such claims that "Square Trade Members" are free of potential fraud- especially when dealing with slimy Indians.
I love many Indians by the way- even have an Indian lover (she's divine). But ethics hasn't been taught to 90% of the people there by their parents, and they are simply addicted to lieing. ADDICTED. They lie so much they they don't even consider it lieing.
By
Anonymous, at June 06, 2006
Sorry to hear this about the guy. I actually did have a good experience with his group, found them easy to reach, even spoke with them from CA via a webcam and saw the cubicles where these Indian guys in ties were all sitting and seemingly working on stuff. The made a module for me for a CMS and it worked, it was done on a reasonable schedule, I paid via eLance and was actually happy enough to provide a US-based reference as a client who was happy. I have not spoken to them since the project, so maybe my experience was an early and good one with them. I only found all this stuff when I searched the name on Google, after I went to eLance to list the first project I've had to job-out in a couple of years.
Guess I'm glad I listed there and didn't find them first if this is how things have happened for so many.
By
Anonymous, at July 09, 2006
I'll likely regret posting anything here, but I'm getting more than a little fed up with some of what's going on with this. I'm Kenneth Hirsch, listed on here (and elsewhere) as an alias of Naveen. Nope. I'm an American citizen, a physician, a US Navy captain... and a very satisfied client of Naveen's. Last I checked, I was still living in the US with my family, and have never been to India - though I'd like to go sometime. To the best of my knowledge, I never heard of Matthew Perry, who alleges on this page that I am nothing but a name used by Naveen.
I HAVE, however, heard of Manish Katyan. Back when Katyan worked for Naveen, he was heading up one of the projects for which I contracted with Naveen. Katyan left, and took with him the work in progress, leaving me with a loss of several months of programming effort, and having to restart with another programmer. Naveen absorbed the financial loss without complaint, but Katyan cost me a significant market timing opportunity.
To whatever extent Manish Katyan is making allegations, I must advise caution. I cannot claim to know what the experiences of others have been with Naveen, but my experiences have been very positive, and my experience with Katyan has demonstrated to my satisfaction that it is Katyan who cannot be trusted, either in word or in deed. A minor example... If I had a conflict with someone, I would NEVER post information about that person's family online. I would consider that to be a gross ethical breach even if I had been cheated. Yet Katyan has chosen to do so, listing father, wife, daughter, wife's telephone.
I suspect that it was Katyan, not the (mythical?) Matthew Perry who listed me as one of Naveen's aliases. If I am correct, then he did so KNOWING that he was lying, since we spoke on elance, via email and via IM on many occasions before his unannounced departure.
OK, that's my proverbial "2 cents" worth. Free advice is generally worth what you pay for it, but I'll simply recommend that you take things on a blog with a LARGE grain of salt...
If you have had a bad experience with Naveen, I'm sorry to hear of it. I can only to attest to mine. My experience was excellent. I've recommended him to a number of others, and continue to do so.
By
Ken, at July 11, 2006
I to all
My name is Maurizio, Im a owner of www.e-booking.com. We want write a comment not about elance provider but on elance.com self. This company is a scam. We have too a very negative experience with this thieves of chickens. Last two or three week we want to install a software in our server. A provider make a good offer and we pay with wire transfer. All get ok. After we send to elance 1400$. We want post another job. After money transfer to our account I try to log in my elance account but with my surprise and without notice our account was blocked "expired" we cannot login, post or pay provider. We send 7 email to service@elance.com and marketmaker@elance.com and billing@elance.com. Nobody give us information, no clarification no answer to our email. We try to call elance phone number but nebody take the phone up.
Until today nobody give us answer. ELANCE.COM IS A BIG FRAUD, SCAM ORGANIZATION BEWARE OF THIS. we will take legal action against elance.com.
I hope this shit company will be closed soon.
Maurizio
E-booking.com
By
Anonymous, at July 22, 2006
Elance is a joke. Look who owns it!(ebay) I needed a website built earlier this year. I selected one of the bidders that seemed very experienced, had good ratings, and was very responsive. They required $xxxx.xx (amount withheld) upfront as a deposit to get started. I always use my credit card online just incase there is ever a problem. After I sent the payment, I did not here from my provider for 2 weeks. Eventually, I noticed that it said "user profile is no longer available". Sure enough, they were gone. I contacted Elance for help, which they weren't able to do. I did a little of my own investigation and located a company that this provider worked for and emailed his boss. I got an email right after that. The guy said that elance closed his account because Elance said the credit card he registered with was stolen. He said he couldn't log into elance and that I should do a chargeback to get my money back. Since I had used my credit card I did not think it would be a problem. So I filed the chargeback with my bank. Low & behold Elance refused the chargeback when my bank tried to verify it. Elance said that in the registration terms, it states that they shall not be held financially responsible for any problems that arise between buyers & providers. They said that I don't have a right to request a chargeback and the guy already transferred the $ to his bank account. If that's the case then they shouldn't process payments on behalf of the providers on the site! How the heck is it right that they get to keep my $xxxx and I get NOTHING? How in the world can Elance view that as right and ethical?? I'm forgetting, they are "an ebay company". Screw the little guy is their real motto. So if you pay for anything on elance, say your prayers. I hope you can afford to toss your money down the toilet, because you have a 50% risk of doing just that.
By
Anonymous, at August 28, 2006
Elance was a good idea gone sour. Sorry to hear about all the stories. I think Elance would never refund anyone although I believe they should.
It is amazing that they get paid before the project is over and when it goes sour, like in your case, they not only return the "scam" commission but also do nothing to appologize.
SquareTrade is a fraud in itself. Anyone can put it on their profile for a right price.
By
Anonymous, at September 14, 2006
HI know this bastarted naveen he has been cheating many people in india and abroad he has also cheated me long back in 2001
By
Anonymous, at October 05, 2006
First of all nobody is pointing fingers at Indian people. The crook is a crook no matter where he lives. Also, nobody mentioned anything about Americans. Where did you get that?
Naveen, if that you attempting some reputation management? The thing is in the age of internet, once the word is out about your nasty deeds -- it's out for the rest of your life. Hopefully other will be warned in time.
Think before you steal, not after!
By
Anonymous, at July 07, 2009
Hi,
I've just had problems with the chargeback thing from the other side of the argument.
I'm an Elance provider and I completed a project on time and to specification.
The buyer refused to pay and also refused to use the Elance dispute process. The buyer just waited until I had received my money and spent it then issued a charge back.
Elance then used the same crap mentioned above about them not being financially responsible for disputes and debited the amount I was paid from my account. The real cheek was that they also debited their fee (including the credit card processing fee) as well!
I can't believe that I actually had to pay them for the privilege of working for free!
By
Anonymous, at August 03, 2009
This Elance site is not a real freelancers site…
I have used this site for 1 year and didn’t earn dollars and it was working fine. And I got two jobs last month from the same client and I got arround US$ 500!!! And as soon as I got that money to my Elance account, I got expired my account.
I coudn’t withdraw it as well.
Can anybody think that my account has been hacked by others or by ELANCE??? In this case anyone can directly say it has been hacked by ELANCE.
By
Anonymous, at November 01, 2010
Elance really scam??
Exactly, i'm a newbie provider and registered Membership fee $30 for 2 month and having 2 clients. When i have just completed the second project and having about $2000 then i cannot be logged in their website. It always says "Your Elance account is expired."
Although, i have contacted with supported but never got answers.
This website is an company of scammers .
By
drupal expert, at March 24, 2011
Let's file a law suit against Elance. Mlango
By
Anonymous, at July 23, 2011
Screwed by provider JessiHoffman..i gave her a 1.0 rating and a bad review. A week later and elance changed it to a 5.0. I have it all on screen capture. Is this criminal? or Fraud?
By
The Seduction King, at September 18, 2011
Hi,
I am fully agreed with your comments, Elance is a complete fraud.
I have experience with that, and evidence.
By
Jonny, at May 31, 2012
I have similar situation and create a FB page (https://www.facebook.com/antielance). Please share your case there and we can discuss what we can do!
By
Anonymous, at August 22, 2013
elance.com is scammers!!!!
They block account and not return money! Be careful!
By
Anonymous, at October 29, 2013
ELANCE ITSELF IS A BIG FRAUD WORKPLACE - CHEATING NUMEROUS BUYERS & SELLERS ON DAILY BASIS. BEING A PAID MEMBER FOR LAST 3 YEARS WITH ELANCE, I LOST APPROX $30,000 OF MONEY WITH THEIR FAKE FREELANCERS/PROGRAMMERS.
By
Anonymous, at October 01, 2014
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