Protect Yourself from Shady ODesk Buyers

Although oDesk is a legitimate way to earn some extra money as a freelancer, unfortunately, there are people who will use oDesk as a way to get people to work for them for free. This would be what many would refer to as an oDesk scam. Sometimes, you won't even know you are being scammed. Follow these guidelines to avoid being scammed on oDesk.

Before writing an oDesk cover letter, make sure you look at the history of the buyer. If there is a lot of negative feedback from prior providers, steer clear. If they have no history, you want to make sure that their payment method is verified. What this means is they have provided oDesk with a credit card number or bank information to pay their providers with. Chances are, if they haven't bothered to go through this process, they're probably not serious about the job they have listed. This information will show up when you click on the job details.

If their payment method is not verified and it is a fixed price job, ask for 100% upfront payment in your proposal. This will ensure you will get paid for the work you do. If it's an hourly job, wait until the payment method is verified before doing any work. Once you log your hours, they will be charged and there is no way for them to stop it unless they file a dispute against you with oDesk. Chances are, they're not going to win the dispute if you have carried out the requirements for the job.

Of course, if you have no history on oDesk, they may be leery of you as well, so keep that in mind. Buyers may not feel comfortable with paying 100% up front to somebody who has no history. So, if you are new to oDesk, you should probably do a few small jobs to get some history before you go asking for 100% payment or you can try asking for 50% and split the risk with the buyer.

Be leery of buyers who want you to complete a small amount of work for them so they can determine if you're able to do the job. Your prior work samples you provide to them in addition to your feedback should be enough proof you are capable of handling the work.

What some shady buyers will do is ask each person for a sample of work, go ahead and use the samples, hire one person for the job (or even just close it out without hiring anyone) and use everyone's "sample" as completed work.

For example, they may ask you to write an article for them to prove you can do the job. Then, they'll ask 20 other applicants to do the same. They hire one person and get 21 articles, but pay only one person. You should have an example of articles you've written already and tell the buyer you'd be happy to do one paid article for them when they hire you. If they like your work, then they can hire you for the rest of the work.

They may also ask for the provider to transcribe a 10 minute sample for them so they can see quality. But, if they ask eight other providers to do the same, all they have to do is piece together each 15 minute portion and they just got a two hour piece of audio transcribed for free. A compromise would be transcribing a 2-5 minute sample for them instead. It doesn't matter which category. You should never do any work for a buyer as a sample unless they have hired you for the job.

Never start or deliver any work until the buyer has selected you. If they tell you you're hired, politely ask them to activate the assignment. This way, the job is "official" through oDesk. If you have an issue, there's not much oDesk can do for you unless the job is active.

Communicate with your buyer through the oDesk messaging system. If you are communicating through your private email, you won't have any proof of what the buyer promised or did not promise.

And most importantly, if a buyer wants to hire you outside of oDesk and pay you through PayPal instead so they can avoid the fee, decline. First of all, you can get banned from oDesk for doing this. Secondly, oDesk does not cost you, the provider, any money, so by agreeing to be paid via PayPal, all you are doing is putting yourself at risk to be scammed and not paid