January 13, 2010

Letters To The Editor For January 13th
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Complaints Received About Shannon Ferguson / Words By Keystroke / wordsbykeystroke.com

Greetings Angela,

I enjoy the WritersWeekly newsletter and all that comes with it!

I have a comment on the "2 COMPLAINTS about Shannon Ferguson / Words By Keystroke". At the very beginning of the first complaint, TL mentions that she originally bid on a project at oDesk, but that she and Ms. Ferguson agreed to contract the project outside of oDesk.

My comment: you are probably already aware, but websites like Elance, Guru, and oDesk have clear policies (to which providers are required to agree) regarding projects/providers acquired through their websites. Each of these businesses have their own regulations requiring employers/providers to keep their business within the website’s payment system. To do otherwise without compensating these websites according to their Terms or “buy-out options” is a violation of their Terms of Service (because it eliminates the fees which would normally be paid to these websites). Worse still for the freelancer, taking business outside of these services circumvents any possibility of arbitration already offered by these websites.

I have sincere empathy for every freelance provider who has not been compensated for their work. That said, anyone doing business through Elance, Guru, oDesk, etc. who encounters an employer which requests to take things "off board" should probably see that as their first red flag. (I can also say this because I once made this mistake. Once. Some of us still learn things the hard way I suppose!)

Thank you for all that you do for the professional writing community, and best wishes for a productive and creative 2010!

-Name not published on request