GetACoder - Don't Use Them!

I've been using the website "GetACoder", to provide coding and try to earn some extra cash to pay for the move a head of us, it has been a hit & miss affair.

I've provided, what I thought was good work, to one company and had good feedback and payment from them.  But they've done mysteriously silent on the whole development; considering there were grand designs beyond the basics I'd already given this was a little sad, as I perhaps thought I might have a second quiet little income.

But then I've had lots of silence from the other tenders I've put in, one chap wanted work from me, but then didn't want to pay (despite my having an hourly rate and bidding on his job specifically), hey ho...

I also noted a great trend in visitors to the site are students, from around the world but primarily from the US, whom seem to post their Computing/Programming course work on the site for review.

Now I've liberally read these requests for work, seen what they are, realised they're cheating and reported them to their tutors where I've been able to identify them.  One lot I not only identified it was course work, but I had the course code, the tutor name and the individuals involved.  Of the half dozen professors I contacted about this only one replied, kudos to him, but to the rest of the US Graduate Computer Programming market, be very ware, you maybe hiring people who have done their course work via Calcutta!

Where else did this take me?  Well, frustrated with the site itself I then tried to withdraw the funds I'd earned, I had $100... For putting me in touch with the contract the site had already taken $15, leaving me with $85.

To withdraw it I also have to pay 1.9% PayPal plus $0.15 again to the site, so this is a loosing battle to get your money.

But it's doubly not worth it when you finally get through the withdraw process, only to see it error and tell you withdrawls need to be over $100, and for some payment processes you need to have over 3 completed tasks for people!

It struck me as rather odd, so I took a look, and the site doesn't really have a location, they state on it that it's got UK, US, Hong Kong etc offices, but there are no such offices.  There is an address in portugal linked to the company who owns the copyright of the site, and so I thought I'd give them a shout and see if they could help.

I did get some help, a customer service rep opened a support ticket for me, but they basically said to withdraw my money they would have to lock my account for 2 years... Go a head, lock it, you're going to loose my custom?!?!?!

This simply made no sense, it was utter none-sensical, and then they started to almost threaten me with their sites being under the rule of the laws of Nevis... I'd never heard of Nevis, so I looked it up, and it is not Nevis, their TOS is actually wrong, they're talking about the Isles of St Kitts and Nevis, known commonly here in the UK as St Kitts (no offence to the population of Nevis, it's just St Kitts we know, Nevis not so much, and "Nevis" is the name of the highest mountain here in the UK that's all).

So, I figured I'd askt he government of St Kitts and Nevis themselves how to track this company down, to see if they actually are operated and have holdings on the isle of Nevis, lets face it in the EU; where I performed the work; you can't be based over seas and you can't withhold peoples money, Amazon knows that all too well...

They site, but not the government, got back to me, so I'll chase that up and see if someone wants to talk to me, if it takes a 15 minute internet phone call, I'll make it.

Because this whole system "GetACoder" has is just a bit off, it seems very much as though they want to keep hold of my money, to earn interest on it one would presume "it takes 20 days to perform a withdrawl for you, and we lock your account for 2 years"... Lock it, go a head, you'll just loose my custom!

And why 20 days?... A PayPal transaction takes minutes, they could see from the ticket that a) I have an account b) I had to log onto their site to sent the message c) I exist, they can just look me up online, you see as opposed to the myriad of far east, Indian-subcontinent and other none-descript users of the site I'm in Britain, we have certain standards and are happy to question odd systems.

The system at GetACoder is very odd, the jobs posted are very odd, all in all, I'd have to say now to give it a miss.

I may even come back to this post and let you know if I get my money.