Internet Fraud by Freelance Websites
Date: January 30, 2005Source: W3Reports
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This is the latest form of internet frauds. Many offshore projects are being executed via freelance websites where buyers and coders get together for conducing offshore software development or outsoucing any other kind of work. Lately, there have been many complaints especially by the coders from South Asia of being mis-treated, money not being paid even they delivered the projects online. Majority of them sign up by seeing BBB.org or SquareTrade.com logos displayed on these websites only to find out later that these two trust organizations are merely for "display" purpose, and none of them can help in any way to the victims of such internet fraud.
A typical internet fraud takes place like this. A coder from a poor country signs up with a USA based free offshore projects website like rentacoder.com with a hope to earn a decent living by delivering projects. The buyers get benefit of offshore outsourcing by paying one tenth of the same project that they would have paid to their local provider instead. Another breed of buyers has started to take advantage of the faulty and in-house arbitration process by rentacoder.com which is made available to anyone who got complaint. There were many coder complaints of the preferential treatment of buyers on this particular website as compared to giving justice to coders. Since the website rentacoder.com charges almost 40% or even more in shape of fees, processing, payment and what not. But still there are many complaints of website coders that they were NOT paid due to unfair arbitration process being mishandled and misuesed by the so-called arbitrators or buyers.
This has led to many criminal cases being registered against this website and we have heard many stories from coders especially from the area of Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka of them being exploited by the buyers via unfair arbitration processes being taken place at those sites. A caution is advised for anyone trying to singup or use freelance websites. Whenever you are caught in such an internet fraud, you are advised to contact law authorities via phone or in person if you are located within USA. If outside, you can send them an email or fax at the various contact information made available by the USA Government.
Wishing you a safe and secure freelance career without hassles of internet fraud via such sites.
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