Gadgetopia

I have done it once successfully. I had to bid on a ton of jobs, and I was always being underbid by somebody. I have learned a couple things from that site...buyers will pay the least amount possible, and some people will work for peanuts. It's always kinda funny to see prospective buyers come back to the site and repost a job because the first coder they hired was worth every penny they paid and either didn't do it right or didn't do it at all. I think if you can get one job, and create a relationship with the buyer it could lead to better things. But with this economy, and the state of IT employment, be prepared to work for nothing.

It's just another way to hire cheap foreigners to do the work. See guys getting the jobs for well under a hundred dollars. I personally would never bid that low on a job that should take over a hundred hours to complete, much less 40. So because I don't bid that low, I don't win bids.

Of bids that I have won, but didn't end up accepting, the buyer always seems to throw much more onto the project than previously stated, but still want you to do the work for same pay.

I cancelled an old account because a buyer had done this and was not going to do 5 times the workload for the same pay (which was already too cheap.) Arbitration was a complete joke, the coder seems to have no input into this. The decision to give the buyer a rating a 10 and me a zero was done almost instantly without hearing me out.

Dont waste you time with Rentacoder! Its a place for undereducated foreigners who simply cut and paste from vbcode, planet-source-code etc. You end up talking to some Yahoo who wants to be the next Bill Gates for the Price of an Eggroll or a Rice Lunch. Or some want-to-be coder from india who copies it from the net and gives it to him. Totally Ridiculas dont waste your time!

Hello!

RentACoder.com is my choice. I can say this as one from RentACoder TopCoders. I have completed projects 150+ Here my brief history: http://www.takereal.com/freelance/rating.asp

This site is eBay for contractors. It has many clones, but original is outstanding one:

1. 800+ open bid requests for today
2. no needs to pay subscription (like at Elance, Contracted Work, Telecommute-Jobs)
3. you can't see strange bids: "I can do it for 3$ in 0 days" (like at Scriptlance)

RentACoder has at least two cool features - protections for software buyer and coder :

1. Arbitration process
2. The "Safe Project Escrow" You may want to read "Software Buyer Frequently Asked Questions" : http://www.takereal.com/freelance/article.asp

-- Sergey.

Rent A Coder is trash. I agree with all the comments above accept for Sergey's (probably because he works for peanuts, check out his account at Rent A Coder). You will spend most of your time bidding on jobs, and in some cases you will win, but you will always work for less than $15/hr I don't care how fast you code, or how much you copy and paste coder.

Stay away from that site.

May "penaults" more real then Jason's billions. If you have "many" you are not happy. But I have enough and I am happy. Look at Top Coders list: http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/TopCoderCompleteList.asp If you know school mathematics - you can calculate gross-profit: divide "Top Coder Score" by 10

No needs to copy-paste code. It's against RACs rules. People who already copy-paste copyrighted code - could (in mistake!) thinking this way: "All coders around me copy-paste code too."

Hi Everybody,

RAC is a free place to work. This is the essence of this site. What may be peanuts to somebody could be an apple for other.

Beside all that RAC rating and ranking procedure makes sure that a person gets what he deserves.

Hi All, I usually dont post much comments this way but after seing Some of "Educated Persons " here , I was forced to do so. I am an Indian Engineer , Just out of college.

Peanuts !!!!!!!!!!!!! Well they are apple to most Indians.

Let me give U some stats :

Average Engineer monthly Pay :Rs 10,000 Which is something like :$ 210

See the basic difference. And people getting Rs 10,000 or $ 210 lead a very prosperous or atleast a high standard of living.

So why not work for 500$ a month online ?? Any oppositons to that. Plzz let me know who has and why ?????????

And not all Indians use copy and paste methods. There are exceptions in every community. Can U gurantee that no European Programmer does that ??

Think about the buyers. Everybody is happy with the system except those who dont get a job in RAC

And being doing cheap doesnt points at low skilled work.

I study around 13-15 hrs a day to just get passing marks in my finals. The toper does around 15-16 hrs of study. So will they be called "Copy and paste followers".

I think all Europians have that mental level too.

Do They have ........

Hi there,

just putting some comments here -

lower bidding is a problem, but think like this - you did a job, of type X - you got a good pay

after some days - you get another job, same type just little modifications in your old program will do.... you put a lower bid

but it works sometime - the buyers are from US/Europe/E-Asia and they are not dumb, apart from the bid amount, they check your profile, your experience and then they decide to award the bid.

think when you get 4/5/6/7 jobs of the same type 'X', to win the bid .. you will put a small bid amount - to win

i hope this happens with everybody...

copy paste codes - every one does a copy paste thing - i hope you refer to books,tutorials, documentation,examples .... you start from examples .... and then your apps

just see the top coders and what they have got, specially the amount as BONUS, if someone pays a bonus of $5k, i hope he does so because he is happy ...

if someone asks $100 for a 20 min program .... is it fair ??

Just to try out Rent-a-coder, I picked a Java programming job that I figured would take about one day to finish. I bid $13 ($10 plus their fee) and I did NOT get the job.

I discovered the site in January (3 months ago) and am already rated in the top 1000 coders out of 70,000. For me, as a recent university graduate with a computer science degree, it's great for keeping myself busy, staying in practice, learning new technologies and making a little cash while I look for a real job. You have to do a couple of jobs for peanuts at first to get a rating, but as someone mentioned above many of the buyers are smart and know that if they accept a bid for peanuts, they will probably get substandard code. Furthermore, if you do a good job there's great potential to make contacts for future work. I doubt you can make a decent living at RAC, but I do recommend it as a source of secondary income, or as a way of acquiring IT experience in this crappy job market. (I'm Canadian by the way; my standard of living is about the same as you Americans, although it is nice to get paid in USD as opposed to my weak CAD.)

Hi All Leave apart other comments from top 10s and top 1000s or anti-RAC group. I'm in Top three and have been for as long as I remember. My average bid size is over $800 and I've done over 60 projects so please calculate yourself. RAC can give a decent life to Indians or all others who are living in developing countries. I generally accepts high quality and technology work like PDA, J2ME, Network security and embedded programming so of course, no point in looking for copy paste thing as there are not much on net itself. I have just one problem, arbitration always favor the buyer. They don't care how much you work, how much buyer lied or how long buyer took to respond to any question asked by the coder and you know what's the criteria? If buyer's specs claimed to put a HOME link on all pages and you by chance write MAIN, you are defaulted and case goes in the favor of the buyer. The same thing happened to me but I somehow escaped and got none rating and zero money.

"RAC can give a decent life to Indians or all others who are living in developing countries."

He makes an interesting point here -- maybe RAC isn't for American programmers who are paid much more than the worldwide average. There are a lot of countries in the world where RAC wages are awfully attractive. In a roundabout way, this comes back to offshore outsourcing again.

arbitration always favor the buyer.

My own statistics: I have been involved into arbitration 12 times. I win 11 times - so, in my case, 92% arbitration favor the coder.

maybe RAC isn't for American programmers.

Let's have a look to RAC Top10 coders: 30% from United States. Yes, there are many coders from India, Romania, etc. Official statistics(pulse of RAC) here: http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/About/ThePulseOfRentACoder.asp

I have been keeping a close eye on Rent-a-coder being a hard up freelance programmer from the UK. I am changing career or trying to because the world seems to be going through this crazy obsession with outsourcing everything. I know that the programmers in India are good, no disputing that but its practically ruined my career as it has done for so many other people in the UK.

Hello there ... its again silkroute..

i feel sad about this theory - "its practically ruined my career as it has done for so many other people in the UK." ..

how does outsourcing is ruining your jobs ?? its beause of you this concept has come into existence !

the guys who come to RAC - 70% of them are subcontracting the works they get .... nice concept you see - Mr. X gets a job for $100 from Mr Y, Mr. X puts this job on RAC ... he gets an avg bid of $30 .... so he just choses a coder who has done simmilar as he needs ... bid settles on $50.

Mr. X earned $50 for doing nothing ... although indians get blamed for this situation.

I have noticed that most of the work at RAC and Elance is done by people from India, is there not any local (in India) computer work for people from India? Why not do work in India rather than the U.S.? It is harmful to the average American programmer since the pay rate competition is too fierce. Does this bother people working out of India on U.S. projects at all? If you claim that India does not pay enough, well that is what you (working in India on U.S. contracts) are doing to programmers living in the U.S. Should we go underbid in another country and continue this cycle?

"Why not do work in India rather than the U.S.? It is harmful to the average American programmer since the pay rate competition is too fierce."

That, my friend, is the BIG change in the "global economy." The fact is, when you're dealing with something that can be done remotely (like coding), the Internet has enabled people to bid on it that haven't been able to in the past, and who are often willing to do it cheaper.

As geographic barriers come down, I see this as balancing out quality of life around the globe. The quality of life for Indians will go up as they're able to tap into our markets, and the quality of life for Americans will probably go down a bit, since we have to compete much more aggressively for work.

Such is life. It's like file sharing -- there's no way to stop it, you just need to accept it and make the best of it. Look at it this way: for every pissed off American programmer, there's one really happy Indian programmer. Thus, the Global Happiness Scale remains in balance.

Deane

Good point, but I am still broke and hungry and living in the U.S. Maybe I should move to India.

"I am still broke and hungry and living in the U.S."

I sympathize, I really do. But look at it this way: you still have a better quality of life than 90% of Indians.

I love rac, haven't had much jobs, but still, keeps me busy programming and learning new stuff while doing so

hi i am a former programmer at rentacoder and i closed my account and setup up a rentacoder clone. it is called rent-a-pro. you can visit it at http://www.rent-a-pro.com/

The reason for quitting rentacoder is that their 15% fee is too high ( for a $1,000 rentacoder rip me off $150. i think this doesn't make sense. )

so quit renracoder and sign up with us because we are supported by donations from satisfactory customers ( buyers and programmers ). you pay nothing to sign up to post work and/or get work. if you are satisfied with your experience, then please give us a small donation.

We are rentacoder, only better!

Quotation from Rent A Pro: "Escrow service costs money for us and we can't offer this service for free. Our service fee is 10% of the bid amount."

So, nothing "pro," but "contro."

I am part of a new generation of coders in the U.S. who are competing with the Indian "low" bids...Simple, I'm young, I have no bills, and C/C++ or Java are offered in high schools across America.

I used RAC to build my portfolio, and now (especially with free long-distance cellular plans in the U.S.) I am especially attractive to American Companies as well as foreign markets.

It’s easy to take Computer Science in high school, study hard for one year, pass, and get an online certification. After that, I found independent contracting more worth my while than RAC. As I gained more experience, my programming skills were able to handle large, complex, job offers. The more complex the job, the more “specialization” it requires; thus, less competition. Other countries outsource me, and local companies in the U.S. frequently hire me based on recommendations from other companies (plus I do advanced, long term projects, for less than the average outsourced programmer – who are usually not competent due language and location barriers.

The global competition in the IT market is on the rise it's just not as "specialized" as it used to be, especially with all the information on the internet. Many of the kids in my grade look at it as an alternative to Mc Donald’s.

I plan to incorporate my current business and make it an IT business-consulting firm, utilizing highly experienced programmers locally (management problems are eliminated that way), and appeal to businesses across the globe.

Hi !

I have cool news from RentACoder: new payment method announced !

Quote from site:

"This proposed payment system would work by mailing you a VISA electron debit card. During the normal RAC payout period (which is as often as every 2 weeks...if you've chosen so), rather than sending you a payment, we would instead electronically credit the card. You could instantly cash it in at any ATM."

rent-a-pro? hehehe. I have been thinking the same thing. 10% and 15% is not much of a difference though and I'm sure there will be low bidders.

PS: I find that most bids are <50$, not 100$ The first job I did was 50$ and it took me 2 weeks, but then things improved. I have stolen a lot of bids from indians, romanians and whatever. You should consider this as extra income and just accept the low bids.

Well I'm one of those "cheap, easter countries" coder...I'm from Romania and I work on RAC. I've been doing this for the past 3 months...up until now I have about 1,000$ earned.

That I think is more than decent considering I am a student and I do the projects out of pleasure and for an extra buck, in my spare time. I also helped me build a portofolio...better than doing free work as portofolio. Also a beer over here is about $0.50-$1 ...so you do the maths :)

But see, the problem is not that we work for peanuts...it's just that most mediu-to-small jobs in IT now can be done by anyone with a decent IQ and some net experience (like students, who would work for peanuts no matter their home country)... The IT industry is getting back to the normal size of an industry - the top coders get sepparated from average..right now I am average, but I'm studying software engineering...

No matter your home country, there will always be a spot for an advanced software engineer...no more medium-coders... and that I think is a good thing...

Just leave the small-medium projects to students like me :)

Cheers.

I am a RAC buyer and coder. I think its an exceptional service. I have no dillusions about being paid the same wage level as a professional coder but as someone who is looking to create a small business on their own its helpful to be able to match up with an often amateur programmer and take the budget approach.

People who dimiss it as "workin for peanuts" are missing the point that it is work and in at least some circumstances its work that wouldn't otherwise get done at all. I don't think professional coders feel threatened at all by the fact they're being underbid by amateurs and coders from countries with much lower IT incomes.

It's like arguing that Yahoo should be destroyed just because Google is better. i.e. a stupid argument.

I have completed 18 successful jobs on RAC and I can say it worths it...

Yes, sure generally the bid amounts are very low, but you have to realize this is a small to medium end service, not a top end one... so don't ask French champagne in a fast food restaurant!

I've seen once an American bidding 5$ (of which 3$ was deducted as a fee !!!) for a C# calculator which parsed arithmetic expressions, and evaluated them . He also promised a nice graphical interface ... my bid was $75 (and other peoples' bids were pretty much the same), and I'm from a country (Romania) where average salary is 5-10% of what an American would get for a similar position ... so don't generalize: underbidding has no nationality.

It's simple if you have a morgage or expenses that averages out at $1000+ a month you can't compete with an Indian programmer who works for $210 and less per month. Looking at the stats of Top Coders on RAC they earn $20 on average. In 3 months they may earn $1000. Sorry, but you can't live on that type of wage.

The US or western programmer has to change. The US programmer is closer to the opportunities than an Indian programmer. I say why build a website for a buyer for $30 when you can create the site for yourself. Why waste time coding the thousandth morgage calculator when you can expand on the theme and bring it to market quicker.

These are exciting times for the coder because an idea is easily coded and put to market and tested. Become business-programmers it's the way ahead.

I'm from Romania and I usually do >100$ project. Take it this way...in my spare time I work on RAC... ONLY in my free time. And this way a 200$ project would take me 1-2 weeks. Let's say 2 weeks. So that would be 400$/month IN MY SPARE TIME (I'm also a student). I think it's more than ok...since I work around about 2 hours/day. Wouldn't you agree?

Even so, I'm going twoards the business-programmer idea too...

Hi everyone:

Im from other "cheap countries", Cuba, and as soon as i can i will begin to work with RAC. I think it is a great opportunity for many people who wants to make some money that cant get it in other ways. Maybe a lot of American programmers are pissed off because of the low bids, but we cant do nothing to change that, cause we have so "fucked" conditions in our countries, and this can be a way to improve our way of living, and dont think we are bad programmers, because we arent. I think that all of us sould pretend to be a better programmer and have more experience making proyects, and at that time everyone sould be able to make a good proyect so nobody can win the bid and take the proyect from him.

im very annoyed with this site, its huge, its massive and its a trade secret kept my thousands of software houses. Cheap labour, u dream it and some nut will build it for u for nothing, i have been developing for seven years now, i am 28 so i have spent most of my important years glued to a computer screen while my friends were screwing all the women, getting pissed and just enjoying life, theres me working my brains out trying hard to be the best, where has it left me out of a bloody job because cheap bloody labour from india, pakistan, russia, slovakia, africa, antartica even the bloody escimos are at it.

We western developers are worth shit, didly squat, nuttin.

Rent a coder has killed western developers.

First of all don't get the impression that we are suppressed here in Romania or that it's a very very poor country...life here is quite good...I've got no real complaints. It's just that, for now, prices are a tad lower than in the rest of the EU (they are now getting them to the EU levels).

But think about the guys in Cuba...or India...or countries much much poorer...you get pissed off because you don't have time to enjoy life and screw women...whilst a guy (yep, just like you; you're nothing better than him) in one of those countries is happy he ca support his family with the money he earns...he doesn't have big expectations except a normal lifestyle (which even as an unemployed person you do have in the US).

I'm sure now you'll say "but what about me?". Well...tough luck. You have to try a bit harder, that's it. Life ain't easy...you'll find a way; just don't expect to get it all as you planned...I know many engineers that in the end started a business of their own (with no relation to their preparation) or started working in a totaly new branch...there's always a way....

We joined RAC about one month ago and we currently have a rating of 6 with one arbitration in progress (the coder wanted to get more than he was willing to pay).

It was our first month so we are hoping our credit rating gets better. I am from pakistan. AND I FEEL LIKE RIPPING THE GUTS OUT OF THE PEOPLE who underbid. You cannot imagine how irritating it is when you bid very low (eg $250) for a project worht $800 and some one wins the project bid for $80.

Rent a coder is full of wannabe developers, they are just one bad ass copy paster, generator pushers. thats all they do, flippin patchwork.

I left Romania a couple of years ago and settled in Canada. I used to work in IT there and do the same here. Since I arrived in Canada I was surprised to notice how much much IT-related talk exists about Romania here in North America, and it's not for no reason as I can see.

Latest news is that my current job is to be outsourced...guess where...to Romania. And - can I blame Romania or Romanians for this? No way. It's just the greed of my employer, nothing else. The same would have been if the job would have gone in India, Cuba, Pakistan, or everywhere.

As you can see, dear Americans, Romanians are good in programming. They speak a good English. They respect deadlines. They produce quality code, whether if copy/pasted or not (who doesn't do that - there is no point to reinvent the wheel - I am sure you agree). The same applies for other countries as well, I am sure. So, why would they work for peanuts and you for apples?

You shouldn't blame Romanians or Indians or Russians or whatever for trying to get a better lifestyle. Instead, if there is somebody to blame, it's the code buyers, who are in their big majority Americans. Why don't they pay their folk? Because they are greedy. They want much for less. And this way, they f* you.

If you don't like it this way, either get another job (there are many well-paying jobs out there, that can't be easily outsourced - like plumber, bus driver, etc.), or prove to be better, or make a public protest, or shut down the Internet, the big toy that now works against you.

No hard feelings!

He's absolutely right. The sad fact (for folks in the U.S. anyway) is that the rise of the Internet and the ease of outsourcing is going to balance out income levels for IT staff around the world.

The downward wage pressure provided by outsourcing is going to cause programmers in the U.S. to make less. The increased opportunity for foreign coders is going to provide upward pressure on their wages. For every U.S. coder that's out of work or has to take a pay cut, there's a guy in India or Romania that can fix up his house or buy a new car.

There's no use complaining about it -- the market is what it is. Any attempt to stem the flow will likely fail since the market always finds ways around these things. This is just the new world, and if you're going to survive in the U.S. you need to find a way to differentiate yourself from your overseas rivals beyond the ability to just crank out rote code.

For a very real example of how this is going to play out, read this:

http://www.gadgetopia.com/2003/12/16/OutsourcingSolutionJustPayProgrammersLess.html

Ask yourself: what can you provide to your employer that someone overseas cannot? In that answer lies job security. (And here's a hint: the answer -- as we've seen -- is NOT "I can write really good code...")

im sad, outsourcing has ruined me.

Rentacoder a liars. I've recently been burned by them, with an unscrupulous buyer. He stuffed me around for months, not answering basic questions, then complained about slipped deadlines. He offered to pay me $300 for work done to date ( we're talking about a months work here ), and I agreed. I posted the code, he never paid., RAC sided with him, I got stolen from.

If you want cheap, crappy code, RAC is the place to get it. If you are a professional developer outside the third world, it's a joke.

Hello friends,

well im very upset with regards to rac, i have been working with a developer for the past 6 weeks, trying very hard to get things developed and to budget, all was perfect until, the wanker developer decided to use my application and market and sell it.

i cannot belive it, i paid him.managed him, and there he is using my app.

Joe Balogna, please, send link to your coder's profile at RentACoder.com I would like to know:

1. about your buyer;
2. about your task; I think - I can get this info from your coder's profile.

As a University Tutor I can now no longer set an assignment for ANY programming language - without having to do periodic progress checks on a large class of students in an attempt to stop students just buying a solution in a private rentacoder bid - and then submitting the code as if it was their own...

Well as with any business conducted online, spreading over hundreds and thousands of miles, there are some risks...you DO have to be caucious and try not to rely on the arbitration too much. Adapt your style to the coder/buyer. You can generally read him wether he is trying to steal from you or if he's straight.

Anyway, I find RAC as a great place to build relationships between coder/buyers for the long term...it's probably one of the best things that happened to me.

I'm a RAC buyer for the last 6 months. I have to say it's a good service since I can get small projects done quickly and relative cheap. I say small projects because I have the same worry as what happened to "RACBUYER". But I have to say that this is not the problem with RAC, this can happen anywhere with any industry too. Both buyer and coder (employer / employee, ebay seller / ebay buyer,...etc) have to be careful and don't put 100% trust just because they sound like a nice guy. Just like what "rocoder" said.

I have had both good and bad coders. I've pick US coders and non-US coders. Yes, bids amount varies A LOT, but I don't pick automatically pick the lowest. Especially all they put down is "I can do the project, check my profile". Whereas the higher bids usually sounds a lot more intelligent and ask relavent questions before placing a bid.

For those coders who are complaining the low wages of foreign country, I have to say that you guys need to adapt. It's happening to all industies. Why do you think you can buy a printer for peanuts? cuz someone is working for peanuts and you're enjoying the benefits of that. And I'm surprise that I don't get any Chinese coder, seems like everything else is made for half a peanut over there.

I have been thinking very hard why non-western countries such as India, Pakistan, and Romania have such a vast array of talent and programming excellence, the reason for this is cheap and readily available software applications, such as Macromedia, Microsoft, Adobe, Ulead, Oracle, E.T.C these are bought from huge shopping mall type market places, I mean approx 500 + shops measuring approx 25ft squared each, they sell every software imaginable and at an average price of 50 cents to a dollar. These are then consequently bought along with DVDs containing 1000s of Software books.

To do the same in a western country, first of the seller will be jailed, the buyer prosecuted and fined, or if the buyer has a couple of thousand handy he could purchase one application such as SQL server. The high price of software deters western developers from getting on that learning ladder and moving forward in there IT career, unfortunately the it industry is changing right before our eyes, its not our market anymore it belongs to the east, with there low prices and talent its all over for us, I guess its time to be a buyer not a coder….weep :-(

Great guess, sherlock. ;) did you get that from "Great contemporary mythology of eastern countries" (available for only .50 up to 1$ at your local convenience store ;) )

Here's how it goes...first of all, VERY VERY few real companies here (Romania) take a chance and try using unlicensed software. There are close to none companies using 50c software...only private simple coders do that (I do it with some software programs too), but they get them from the internet (yes, you could have one of those too)...

I did find your story amusing though... "pprox 500 + shops measuring approx 25ft squared each, they sell every software imaginable and at an average price of 50 cents to a dollar" --> ROFL! My oh my, do you still believe in The Easter Bunny also?

Seriously now, I am not aware of at least ONE shop of that kind, and I live in the highest population city in Romania (Bucharest). But probably you know more than I do about what is happening around here, don't you? There are a few punks selling a couple of CDs at a street corner, but they're not doing so good either :)

And wether you like it or not, it DOES seem that our IT skills and interests are superior to most other countries...and we don't even get access to such cheap technology as you do in the US. You would really be surprised how many foringers there are working in Microsoft, for example, and turning out even more work/day than the regular US counterpart...

ro_Coder

Ok, i applogise with regards to Romania I mentioned that without reasearching that market.

But in India a place called Knauts place in New delhi, and in Pakistan a place called The Rainbow center do exactly what i have mentioned.

Thank you for you comment.

I did a few projects in RAC and here is what I have to say: *you can find project that pay good money, but they are in VERY short supply. I did only four projects since I entered the site (I been there for about a year). They were for about 1000 USD each for a three to five days work. In case you are interested I wrote drivers for those projects. I did a lot of bidding on other type of work, but I was always underbidden. All projects I got were reposts (looks like cheap is seldom good)... *In one of the projects the buyer was adding many features and he want them for the same money: I started arbitration, but the site automaticaly went with the buyer. The arbitrer at RAC didn't do any effort to understand the situtation and arbitration went so long that during that time the buyer give me right; but even then the site arbitrer was more problematic than helpful. Overall I would say that RAC isn't a good idea for a western coder, and I believe that I had the best possible experience.

A.

On the other topic of globalization of the IT market: over here (Germany) a lot of IT jobs wen't to cheaper countries, but even in the very bad times of 1999-2001 I had no problem finding a better paying job. The IT folks of western economies (especialy the US) have to take much of the blame for the current situation. During the golden days of the internet every one completing (or not...) a 2 week MS Word curse called himself a Senior Engineer. Even now the trend continues, where every time you get a business card is from a manager/chief/senior. Trust me, no industry can support an all managment structure. There was a lot of bullsh*t and money spent on nothing during that time. Things exploded and now they came around all the way to the other end: investment people are not that easily sold fancy names, titles and buzz (but they are prone to buy low price tags on man/hour... :) )

But even now, I still have at least two good offers to switch jobs. The key is not selling cr*p. If you can do, you can find a good job. Sure on the low end, where the job can be done anywhere you are competing on a global market. The pople that complain the most where the ones that were grossly overpaid during the .com craze.

The first thing you have to do to solve a problem is understand it: the problem here is that things aren't what they used to be. The explanation: things were wrong a few years ago. You can't expect to return to the 1999 days, because then most of the companies were only leaching from investment (or creative accounting) and not really producing. If you earned what you where paid then, now you should be at least that good.

And another comment regarding the "developing" countries: I worked with outsourcing companies from India, Brazil, Korea and Romunia. They are all different and here are my tougths: India: its a very poor country and you notice everywhere. The people that makes it thru college are a little above the average. As everywhere there are exceptions. Brazil: also a very poor country. A lot of people. They live in a divided society with a lot of very poor people and some rich people. But the ones that are good enough to produce quality work are part of the elite and are neither cheap nor numerous. Korea: if we leave price and quality to the side: You have a hard time understanding each other :) is not only lenguage but also culture. Romunia: being from Germany this is the country I think I understand better: the "socialist" way of life is still very much present there and people are not strugling to eat every day (like in other "developing" countries) and other basic services are more or less covered (health care even better than US if you lack insurance). People than can focus on an education and then be good professionals. The catch is that their prices are raising very fast and soon it won't be cheaper to outsource there.

For how I see it there isn't a magical destination for companies wanting to outsource neither an evil from which IT people should be afraid.

My 2c.

Nice review "German coder" :) Just a few thoughts:

• first of all, it's ROMANIA (or, the name used by some foreing countries 50years ago, rumania, with the alternative combination roumania; but nowadays it's Romania all the way...), not romUnia... hmmm...
• next, I don't know when you worked last with romanian folks, but the "socialist" way of life is gone for quite a few years now..you might find more US influence here in the lifestyle than you have in germany...anyway, you might consider taking a trip, a vacation around here and see how life really is (we have some great relaxation places - like the moutains or countyside -> very refreshing)

But you do have a very good point. Simple jobs especially oriented on the internet DO compete on a global market (which is also good - buyers can opt for price or quality with very much ease). However highend jobs will always be well payed. Like on RAC, were from the 90,000+ coders, only a few can really be called professionals. Anyway, it's a great place, for example, for people like me. I'm a student -> I'm studying Software Engineering in the best university around here; I'm working 5 years for this degree, but I think it's worth it since most real managers nowadays know what it means and do no compare it to other, easier to obtain degrees. I like this university because you do get to study a lot of areas (in the vicinity of the software industry) which helps you get the big picture about things. Also you get to have a general culture superior to most other places... In my spare time I do some RAC jobs. Great way to earn some money in my spare time, basicly only when I feel like it.

As for the next outsourcing heaven (since such a place always existed)...I think it'll be China. Things are developing fast there, their prices are low and, best of all, there are hundreds of milions of them! :)

My company in the US has contracted > $35,000 at RAC last year.

My experience:

1. RAC is slow to pay the coder, slow to escrow money. They look at the "float" of millions as part of their revenue model.
2. Evaluations are a joke. a. Buyers hold off and often hold coders hostage. b. Coders hold off and often hold buyers hostage. (I"m being held hostage by two coders right now.)
3. Rateing is 0-10 simple average. Should be weighted with dollar amount.
4. RAC rapes the coder 15% + depending on method of payment.
5. RAC supports "Certification" and affiliate marketing "certification" scams.
6. I've saved a lot of money using RAC.

7. I"ve lost a lot more money than I've saved using RAC. a. Partly my fault for not adhering to their rules, most notable: * Never, never, never pay a coder untily you have what you agreed on. * They'll beg, plead, squeel, lie ...anything to get early pay.
   If you do, they're gone and you have nothing but your ass to hold.

   b. Herein is a catch 22. You write specs (hopefully). You spend as much time explaining the project, asking for revisions, changes, etc than you'd spend doing it yourself. I mean this, I have spent more time discussing what should be obvious than it would take me to do it myself.

   c. There comes a time when the average Westerner will be worn down buy the continual question-answer-try again cycle that is so common with Indian coders. Chineese are beyond belief in this category. I believe it's a cultural thing perhaps and perhaps just a stalling technique by some coders. I KNOW it is a tactic used by both Japan and China coders.

8. There are some KILLER developers on RAC. Once you find them, they're great. But you will have lost a great deal of time and invested much to find them.

9. "Certifications" are meaningless. Don't even waste time discussing "Certifications".

10. At RAC there is nothing you can do about being ripped off. Once you make your evaluation, you're done. So, if you've given a bonus, released early funds, opened up your servers and sites, passwords, etc, any you do not have the SOURCE for your project in your hands, you're in jeopardy. Your balls are in someone elses' hands.

11. Never, Never, Never do business with Itstudio on RAC. You'll get your clock cleaned.

12. It is sad that our US government and our wonderful technical community, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, HP, etc. etc. have taken much development offshore to India and China. The trend will not change. You will not be able to make a living in the USA as a programmer for very long if at all. Our country is focusing on the dollar and not the cost. The cost?? The transfer of this sector of our economy will make China and India rich and the US will become a third world nation in 30 years....not my opinion. Brookings Institute.

It sucks.

I didn't like the 15% either. I use Exlow.com (5%) now and thus far a good improvement.

RAC Has done a runner they are off line, all exhdra sites have done a runner, oh nooooooooo my escrowed money, coders are gay bums, they hold me hostage for months say need extension

Rentacoder are bunch of crooks. They changed their rating system causing to the coders to work virtually for free. Earlier it was possible to get good rating and thus good prices. Now it is nearly impossible for coders. As many people mentioned here for such price you will get piece of junk copied from the web. Also their new system gives indulgency for crappy coders that cheated their customers. Now they have about 100000 coders for about 1000 jobs a day, guess what price the developer should give to win the bid and what quality of code the buyer will get for such price. So, no matter who you are, professional developer or potential buyer stay away of them.

Aim to build long term relationships. Buyer beware. Only outsource projects which you can spec out clearly and the requirements won't change regularly. Protect your IP by "componentizing" your product and only allowing each developer access to that component. You perform integration. Unit tests must be provided with the code, once all tests pass the work is done. Use internet facing version control, issue tracking and discussion forums to manage your software projects. Be prepared for your role to change from being the developer to the project manager, analyst & domain specialist. Write good clear specifications, plan, prioritize, lead.

http://www.Projxpert.com/ - Professional Software Project Hosting

Hello everybody,

I just started to work with RAC and I think you guys should stop talking about underbidding and easy to get software or graphics. I only work graphic design and in about 20 day I won 3 job and have completed all of them with the highest rating. I'm from Romania and I have a strong background as a graphic designer. Of course I lost some bids but I prefer to think that I lost them becose other guys were better than me and not becose they underbid. I also won projects where my bid was indeed much higher than other bids. I never post my bid without a sample of my previous work or a watermarked sample of the project. I just want to say that the USA or Canada coders should work more and complain less about us, the guys from Romania or India etc. This month I doubled my income becose of RAC and I worked only for a few hours in my spare time. So work more and you'll be rewarded. Good luck !

Well, graphic design is probably a different animal than programming in terms of things that can go wrong and misunderstandings that can arise. When you're programming a system, there are eight million things that can be variable.

I don't know that graphic design has the same kind of stakes, which means it's probably a great business to do over RAC.

I feel the need to comment here.

I am a formidable opponent in the field of C# and AS2.0. However databases I knew nothing about. I heard about rentacoder.com and thought it would be a good way to get some good example code that was commented for learning purposes. I placed my offer, I wanted a CMS in a basic form, all w3c compliant x/html and css. I also requested that ALL code be commented and documented.

I recieved several bids, first one was 1000 usd (I am american) from a US company who had nothing to say except "we are waiting to work". The second was a modest 300$ from an american as well. The third was from a Romanian programmer who had alot of formal schooling. He offered 100$. I feel that the requested code was worth approx 300 or so. But its the american way to go cheap. I am glad I did. In 1/2 the estimated deadline this guy supplied the code. Entirely original (I watched it progress from a simple php page, also did searches for similar code). He explained everything as he did it. The code was all in great clean syntax and properly labeled in perfect english. I learned alot reading through it. I had some last minute details I forgot until 6 hours before the agreement was closed. He was pretty much already paid, Yet still added my custom additions and emailed me the code. I found no errors or anything.

I almost feel bad as the code is approx 10 letter size pages. Which I feel is well worth the 100. It was a great experience, I have code that I can use however I see fit, I have pretty much re-wrote it now, but it was much easier to read through his code than to create my own database connections.

I recommend giving it a shot once or twice and get a relationship with a knowledgable coder, because face it, at some time we all need help.

In design there are a million things that can go wrong, and the eventual dispute is difficult to mediate (it's art after all, not an exact science)...can't be copied from the web, true, an advantage to programming...

James...maybe this time the cheap way ended up to be the good way, but don't make that a rule...true, your project was not quite time-sensitive, but if you truly want a well done piece of code, you shouldn't choose the cheapest solution - you can tell from his portofolio and/or way of talking if he truly knows what he is talking about....

there is be an advantage we romanians have over the indians or even russian-related countries...we have a culture that is quite close to the western culture...that means we understand much easier tasks and we can accomplish things closer to what you wanted...

I would like to talk about Exlow.com if I may and do a little Venting because they did something horrible to me, and no one will help me. I am not sure if I am in the wrong or right, but I do want to hear other peoples comments on it. I am trying to keep information to a minimum.

Exlow.com is a site that allows individuals to seek or provide IT service. Programmers bid on requests by webmasters. Upon agreeing on a set fee, webmasters choose their programmers, and then submit escrow payment. Escrow payment is made via deposits made into their accounts. This can be done via a credit card or paypal. An escrow payment exists between the Programmer and Webmaster only. Upon completion of the project, the webmasters then submit escrow to the programmer.

I had used the site on 3 occasions using 3 different programmers. The last time, the programmer decided that he did not want to pursue the project anymore, so he Cancelled Escrow. Programmers are the only ones allowed to cancel escrow; webmasters are the only ones that can submit escrow.

On March 5th, 2 previous programmers I had employed services from, informed me that Exlow had canceled their account and frozen all funds. On emailing Exlow, they were informed them that the funds they received were derived by fraudulent means.

This later is proven false, and Exlow did issue an apology to me for sending such an email before investigating: On a personal note I do apologize for being hasty to e-mail the others involved but it seemed appropriate at the time.

Nevertheless I immediately contacted Exlow on March 5th. Exlow requested that I give them 2 weeks to investigate the matter. After not hearing from them after 2 weeks, I contacted them. I provided them with Paypal transaction numbers and dates when deposits were made.

Aftear a while, I filed a claim with Paypal. When I did so, I was told: "I request you cancel your paypal dispute for the time being This would be much appreciated and best for all parties. Please give us the necessary time so all parties will be happy."

Upon hearing that, I believed that they were open to an amicable resolution. I informed them that my only intent was that they give the programmers their funds back, and if they needed bank statements to prove that I did not commit any fraudulent activity, I would be more than happy to provide them. Furthermore, if Exlow acquired any loss, I would be more than willing to replace the funds.

Exlow danced me around till April 24th, when they finally became extremely rude and belligerent. They found out that there was a surplus in my account due to a programming error made by their previous programmer. An email from Exlow wrote: "At the time this system was new and so was our protocol. I sent out e-mails because I was assure out system was foul proof and it was positive that this user was a fraud". We have an idea but it's nothing you would want to hear. It looks as though upon an escrow cancellation the funds were not only reverted back to the original possessor but AGAIN credited to their account.

Exlow then requested that I contact that programmer instead. Their email to me stated: "If you wish to speak to the programmer please send your contact info and it will be forwarded to the required party." I tried obtaining Exlow's contact information, especially their attorneys, and till date, they have refused to give me anything. They began to state that even though "The money wasn't released. It was escrowed then cancelled" I was in breach of their terms for not reporting the error made by their site. They wrote to me: "Funds WERE falsely gained. You recieved them by not having legal tender to support them thus you should not have it. Again, you deny having neglated to report the error. You did not report it thus it was neglected. Exlow will not take responsibilty for this matter"

According to Exlow.com, because I received funds due to * their programming error * I committed fraud. And because I did not contact them they have a right to keep the funds. (Even though * I was the first person to get in touch with them *.

Funds were "falsely gained" through the fault of Exlow themselves! I could not anticipate that such an error could occur, and was not aware of it. It is also apparent from their email that this is impossible as they receive notice of the error first: ".nor does the original programmer work with/for Exlow. Thus the means our system filters cases is difficult to determine. I remember the day well. In my moderation control panel there was large red text indicating there was something wrong"

I met my responsibilities by contacting Exlow as soon as I was aware of an error. Even after, Exlow till to date has been calling me fraudulent. Due to a business error and miscalculations by their web programmer, Exlow has stolen funds from me, defamed my character, and have failed to ensure that their site is in good working condition for all webmasters and programmers alike.

I say sue them! Of what you say they did not appear to try at least to be cooperative. Thanks for the info; I'll stay away from that site!

Im a buyer and seller on RAC. I live in a 'first world' country, NZ. I have always paid a reasonable wage for a reasonable job. RAC allows me to outsource work I cant get skills for in my city, expecially when I have too much. I also sell my services on RAC. My average bid os over $5000. I have received two jobs so far. Sure I bid on the lower priced jobs but if you have average skills doing the same stuff everyone else is doing you wont earn much. It is a natural law of commerce and competition. If you aren't earning much then stop whinging, upgrade your skills. We don't need more dumb ass VB coders with no experience, we need decent coders who can take on reasonable jobs. People like that get paid what they deserve.

As for Indians and others undser bidding ... good on em. We in the west have been sucking the world dry for too long, living high while other starve. In the US an average line of code written on 1999 cost $US100 ... in india $1. The US uses more energy than the rest of the world combined. they suffer obesity while others starve. Now people are whinging that democratic free trade and freedom of choice sucks. Get a life, harden up and work harder, the indians sure have. They now turn out more code than any other country except the USA.

As for me, RAC is excellent. I make money, people in 'poor' countries can make money. What is wrong with that.

Hello ,

I am mainly a PHP/MySQL coder based in Romania . I have been working as a web developer for 5 years.

I surely have some things to say about RAC ...

First of all , as many of you know , Romania isn't one of the countries where the average pay is high .. in fact , it is quite low ... when i first opened my eyes towards Rent-a-Coder , i was still a newbie and i didn't have much experience ... RAC helped me gain a lot experience throughout the 50+ projects i've done on the site .. at first , it was hard indeed to land on any project , but in time i learned also how to bid and most importantly what to write in my bid comments so i could get the job. Currently , i usually make about 2K $ a month ...

Now , i personally have a bone to pick with these fat and stupid americans , so called "coders" ... first of all , most of them are lame coders , that are not very well skilled and what is even more intriguing for their skills , they demand an enourmous high pay for they're poor quality work , just because they live in America ...

The real problem with americans is they can't stand the competition from countries like Romania or India because they know coders from these countries are better than them. Also , their educational system is very poor .. for example , what they are tought in the 8th grade is tought in countries like Romania in the 3 or 4th grade ... they are usually raised in a stupid environment and they have everything they desire when they're young , so they expect to be the greatest when they grow up ... but that is not the case , especially where coding is concerned ...

Like one of the previous posters said , get a life and start admitting there may be better coders than you out there ... which there certainly are :)) Why do you think so many programming jobs from America are occupied by immigrants ? i think because they are much better ... also , most of the valuable people they have were not born in America , but they have come there hoping to live a better life from the financial point of view ...

Hi there,

I am a solo programmer at RAC with 3 successful projects and an average rating of 9/10. I think RAC is a..... Bull Shit !!!!. Surprised? ... well you wont be if you have some experience over there either as a buyer or a coder.

Buyers are gien full independance to put any requirement on the project even if it is handing over the source code to them!.. and most of them asks or it and never refers to you back and try to find even more cheaper coders. The deadlines are short enough to make programmers dead!

Buyers are not answerable if they put action of thier project post, leaving a time wastage for bidders if buyer dont take action on his bid post.

There is oppertunity for the new comers as the old developers have FIXED thier seats with high ratings and project coounts. Only they are clicked and new talent is not given a chance.

Thier money transfer is even more stupid. I earned130$ there with all RAC profits deducted, but recieved 95$ in total involving a bank for money transaction!

RAC.... you are making a programmer's life miserable. There is some better communicarion medium needed!

Hello, I found out about RAC couple of days back...when I was browsing for any other website, I came across this website... I didn't really liked the comments on Indian programmers. 1)Not all the programmers cut & paste..dont make it a common comment 2) If they does cut & paste also nothing harm in that...there is no rule that it should be written by you...and also since buyers cant do the cut & paste they are giving that work with less bid rate. whats wrong in doing this. With this if someone get some money thats good.... 3) about indian programmers taking work from other country programmers....this is a competetive world...you should be ready to do anything...many of them may not be working for so less money...they may work on the project to get some experience... If you guys dont get the project thats not because of indian programmers....its because you are not competetive.. I would appreciate if people dont blame on Indian programmers for this.

-An indian living in US

It's simple, globalizm sucks. But capitalism can't live without globalism. I think US has hit itself from its foot. Before on east nobody could affort a PC while west had colleges and lots of market for PCs or in general IT related jobs. Goods were produced in west so they were using their work there. But today goods are mostly produced in Eest, and there's also mass production. Today in east people can afford gettng a PC and internet connection. It's no suprise that they will be share to service market in US or Europe. Though it's nothing to do with skills. It's just the problem of globalisation.

well i read all the comments above.i am a coder on rac and i think sometime u get very nice byer while some are the byers who's only aim is to kick ur Ass.first they hire u becuase of there greedy nature then allthough they dont have much technical experiance they try to show u tht they are the experts in this field. and regarding the dicussions abt indian coder just take a look at number one company Mirosoft. more then 30% of coders are indian in ur famus redmond office.they created the technology standards from SOAP to .NET.if americans are such an intelligent,etraordinary person then i hope tht 100% of worker in microsoft may be from USA.huh but they are not.just open ur eyes its the globlization and its only ur frustation.and also one thing i noticed is tht the most of the byers are act like BROKERS.they take project from someone else on a very highr rate then post it on the rac for a few bucks.then they higher the lowes bid.so wht u get in end is bullshit.alywas remmber if u go for loq then u can get good coding.and regarding the coding standrard see the linux source code it is full of gotos.all those who need a coding statndard just take a look at linux source code. and pls no offense mean't o any USA person.jsut a reply to some of the stupid questions and comments posted here.

All Americans, get quickly over here and SUCK MY XXXX !!!!!! You are so stupid you think India or Romania are some kind of food !!!! I've seen it on TV with my own eyes !!! I can't wait to came to your XXXIN COUNTRY and take your jobs and XXXX ALL YOUR OVER 50 STATES and maybe kill some of you, motherxxxxers, cos' you're so many and so fat and so XXXXIN STUPID !!!! XXXX AMERICA FOREVER !!! LONG LIVE BIN-LADEN and others like him !!!

Well. I guess he told us, eh?

So, Mr. XXXX YOU, you know that everyone in the US is fat and stupid because you've "seen it on TV", and with your own eyes, no less.

I thought to delete your message for all the profanity, but I thought you did such a good job of demonstrating your intelligence, I thought I'd leave it up.

Well.....let's say only this....you wrote a two-line phrase in wich you use 3 times the words "I thought".......how smart is that..??? It seems that your IQ is cooler than ice (it's below 0) and that your language has only 10 words or so....or maybe you know just 3 of them....anyway, let me tell you two more : F__K YOU !!!

RAC is 120% crap! They are selling all the U.S. coder out big time! All the jobs there go straight to coders from India. If we are going to do that why don't we just bring back the slave days too. Its the exact same thing only in a digital word. Stupid arabs... I am tired of them all!

I am on my 4th project on RAC, and while I am working below "market" prices, it has put some good cash in my pocket (for a college student, $500/mo. is decent enough). I do find it exceptionally annoying that foriegn coders bid exceptionally low amounts on projects that are worth far more here in the USA, but that is why I stay away from anything that does not have a minimum bid of $100. An guess what? Outsourcing is real, and it is not RAC's fault. You want somebody to point fingers at? Point them at the Bush administration and the completely inept manner in which they have handled the problem.

Why attack the coders in developing nations? They want to make a living too, and RAC is giving them that. To claim that they only "copy and paste" code is obsurd -- what difference does your homeland make in how well you can code? I have seen code produced right here in America that is bug-ridden, unreliable, and useless, and I have seen code produced in foriegn countries that is bullet-proof.

I can say that personally, not only have I earned some cash from RAC, but I have learned real-world skills that my teachers could not possibly give me.

Hi there,

I'm subscribed as a coder in RAC for over a year now, and I can decline most of the claims you people raised. True, there are those coders with below standard coding, bad attitude or lmos, but it has nothing to do with developing coutries. I am assisting a collegue with managing another project through RAC, and the guy we chose is Indian. He isn't a KILLER, but he is very good at what he does, and tolerates our nags (which was all speced beforehand, so it is quite his fault). The problem is not with RAC - it is mainly with the people participating within this trade-market. From many buyers I've worked with via RAC, those who gave me the most hardtime, or "kept me in prison" were americans. I worked with ppl from the UK, Belgium and France, and with many from America, and half of those gave me headaches and one of the even stretched the deadline to be almost 1 year instead of 1 month (I had part in this too, but it all started because he had "Hell weeks", as he called them, with no communications, of which he 'forgot' to mention before bid acceptance). With such buyers, American buyers, how would you expect serious coders to show what they have got? I live in Israel, which is a Western country overall. I do mostly WebDev/Databases, although I've recently started working on desktop apps too. I'm sure if you'll look on my resume (on my nick in the bottom of this post) you'll see I've made quite a good money out of RAC. I don't do it for a living - I do it for extra money, and for such porpuse, as long as you know how to work and how to do business,, RAC worths it. I started with charging 'peanuts' for my work so I will get good ratings, and within a few months I already worked for larger amounts of money, and I have more then 5 constant buyers I work with also outside RAC (we trust each other, and do not need the protection RAC provides anymore).

So, use this service wisely, and notice that you only have a chance of succeeding if you know how to work and how to do business.

Stilgar.

This is a bad place to go for both buyers & coders. The coders are of sub-standard quality. In most cases they will miss the deadline & lead you into an arbitration. The arbitrators are just as bad. They do not understand their own rules and can be biased towards a buyer who has got high ratings.

Oh my God, my experience here as a coder & buyer was a nightmare!

Mike De Souza

Mr. Mike De Souza, what is your RentACoder's profile or nickname? I would like to read about your arbitrations. I think - your arbiter has other than "high ratings" reasons. I have been involved into arbitrations and mediations many times. RentACoder protect me against bad guys. Examples (you can find more via google.com):

_Example1: The buyer alleges “we just cant get it to work for some odd reason, we pretty much tried everything”. Both parties agreed to a 60% payment to the coder, and the 40% refund to the buyer.

_Example2: The buyer stopped responding to arbitration. Testing showed that 69% of the work was complete. The coder was paid that amount of the bid. The buyer’s remaining funds were refunded.

Hi read a lot about cut and paste code. And let me ask whats wrong with it ? as long as you know what you are talking about. Maybe you never eard of code reusability...no wonder american coders are so expensive...they keep reinventig the weel....

Mr Sergey, I have already closed my account so there is nothing for you to check. Anyway, even if my account was still open, you will not be able to investigate much because RAC writes very brief comments about what actually transpired. You should know how RAC writes their comments, so why do you ask? For your information, my last rating before I closed my account was 8(eight).

I noticed that you have placed dead links in other forums with regards to your track record. You seem to know TOO much about the inner workings of RAC which is quite abnormal even for experienced coders. You always get defensive when someone criticizes RAC. This is weird...

Good luck to you in your defence of RAC :-)

Mr. Mike De Souza,

"I have already closed my account so there is nothing for you to check."

OK, you - close. But your buyers and coders are not. I can read arbitration response from their leave profiles. Also - all RAC projects are still exists and available for examination. But I don't know how to recognize your buyer, your coder and your project if you don't want to give me your RentACoder’s profile or nickname.

This is example of "RAC writes very brief comments about what actually transpired" : http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/SoftwareBuyers/showBuyerInfo.asp?lngAuthorId=676773 (Arbitration/mediation result): Sixth Sense (the seller) alleged that they had completed 2/3 of the project and the remaining part of the project was impossible to do. RAC investigated and determined that Yahoo server did not support Asp.net and RonnieO (the buyer) had given Sixth sense an impression that Yahoo does support ASP.net. Hence Sixth Sense was not held responsible of the last 1/3 of the project. RonnieO alleged that they had completed less that 1/3 project. While determining the percentage Sixth sense should be paid, RAC determined that they had not uploaded any deliverables on the RAC website. Sixth Sense agreed in their Seller Contract to upload all deliverables to the site by the deadline or they would forfeit the project. Sixth Sense did not do so. All funds in escrow were returned to RonnieO.

Yes, I "know how RAC writes their comments" and therefore - I ask. For your information, my current rating 9.92. I don't work for Rent-A-Coder, but I work with Rent-A-Coder on my own. It is my favorite workplace. I have success with RAC and I don't want to hide my experience. My knowledge about RAC is adequate for 515 projects, completed by me.

RAC allowed my projects to be indexed by Google. This is bad security because now my competitors know all my trade secrets. I prefer www.getafreelancer.com because they can prevent search engines from indexing their pages for an additional $3. I'll never go to RAC again.

If you have trade secrets - you may want to ask coder to sign NDA before get into details. How? When you post project - you can see checkbox "I cannot describe my project without disclosing trade secrets, so I require all coders to sign a non-disclosure agreement and be approved by me, before they can see my confidential bid request information." You don't check this checkbox, so you haven't "confidential bid request information". Why you complain ?

Google can't index RAC's project where NDA required. No needs to pay even $3 when you can get the same result for free.

Hello Mr Sergey, You seem to be the only one defending RAC here. I trust you are aware that RAC clearly states that if an NDA is required, it will significantly reduce the number of bids placed by coders. As such, I'd rather pay $3 for confidentiality than to reduce the number of bids.

For a newbie like me, the word 'confidential bid request' or NDA does not make any sense. However in getafreelancer.com, it is clearly stated that the $3 paid is to prevent search engines from indexing our pages. Even a stupid fella like me can understand that.

I see the problem as being with the idiot buyers that either have no money to spend or expect people to work for nothing.

example.

ONe guy posted a bid request for a cctv system advertised at $500.

My last job was developing from the ground a £60K (about $100K) CCTV system through installation in two test sites and being involved through to client is happy stage.

I kind of knew he was taking the p*ss but I pursued the job without making a bid. (reaching the point where I had pursuaded him that it was necesary to have a full spec)

Finally he asked what sort of rates I charged (and I'm quite cheap actually)

then he ran.

All I see on RAC are idiot buyers that expect the world for nothing (and then complain when their peanuts coder cant actually do the job)

Mr. Abdulla Breznev, you are right about "if an NDA is required, it will significantly reduce the number of bids placed by coders". Please, don't miss another way to protect your trade secrets: you can "privatize" or "auto-privatize" your bid requests. RentACoder states: "Certain information is made public after you select a coder on an open auction (click here for more details). If you wish to keep your bid request details private, select this feature, and all open-auctions will automatically switch to the more protected private auction, once you select a coder. " More info here: https://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/SoftwareBuyers/FAQ.asp#PrivatizeOpenBidRequest

another example....

Someone posted a job for a crawling keyword finder/searcher ( a mini google)

I tentativly bid 10K

get an email saying that he has accepted a bid for $200

Its criminally comic.

Surely this bid request is joke lol

http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/BidRequests/ShowBidRequest.asp?lngBidRequestId=356096 Background

Interoperability in the context of distributed database systems, multi-databases and legacy systems implies both schema homogenisation and semantic integration of information distributed over numerous heterogeneous data sources in a dynamic environment. Over the last decade, many systems, e.g. InfoSleuth (Bayardo, et. al, 1997), TSIMMIS (Garcia-Molina, et. al, 1997) and OBSERVER (Mena, et. al, 1996), were developed to provide interoperability between heterogeneous information systems. In the recent years, the emergence of XML (eXtensible Markup Language)1 as a new standard for data exchange has enhanced not only the interoperability between Web-based data-intensive applications, but also has been an enabling standard for interoperability between heterogeneous database systems.

Surely this bid request is joke lol

No, I'm quite sure it's serious. Someone wants you to write them a term paper for school. Read the section below it -- they even give the grading weight for the different sections.

Hi All I am an indian professional with most of my work experience in quality assurance and ERP workflows, I bid on certain projects, but I lost them to some company, is it truely freelancing? Coders here don't seem to have any full time professional experience, I too beileve that buyers are looking for the cheapest solution available, and have little regard for either professional or freelancing experience. Most of coders here are those who never had any half a decent job, or work history, they just happened to be here first, and got themselves some ratings with whatsoever means. My experience says that a project that should priced around a million US dollor, can be seen under $500 category @RAC. I bid as low as $80 for assessing a financial trading project, buyer asked me lower my bid, obviously ludicrous. Only if you have never worked anywhere in your whole life you can entertain such a request.

I noticed that most of the postings about RAC on here are in regards to money. I have to disagree. Money is good for some but not for others. My biggest complaint is their arbitration response. For instance, I had an arbitration where the buyer didn't respond in 4 days then said they were sorry. A second arbitration where i responded the day before the due date and was told I was at fault because of my response time. However, A third arbitration I had another bid where a buyer did the same and was given a warning.

When I questioned the arbitrator and pointed out the obvious, being the the same arbitrator was over two of these, I was told that I shouldn't question them and just accept it basically.

I wrote Ian and mentioned the comments. I found my account cancelled, my buyer and coder credits deleted and no responses.

THe money in my account, some 20 bucks probably, wasn't the problem. The problem is that I had been with this site since it started. It was something that kept me busy. HOwever, now that they have grown they think they are all big and bad. It is funny how such a small business can get corrupted by the greedy lifestyle.

They only thing I have to add to this is that I dont think it is worth their while to upset those who code for little to nothing and do good jobs. You never know, a site might just pop up that competes and beats the greedy. :) (Details to come soon)

Not a good site to go to.

All my jobs were spidered by http://www.archive.org/web/web.php for the whole world to see. When I requested for these archives to be removed, they said that only RAC could make such a request. I wrote to RAC & they(RAC) blamed me for not requesting for an NDA(Non Disclosure Agreement) when I placed my bid. Furthermore since I had already closed my account with RAC, they(RAC) said that they could not do anything.

How irresponsible!

You americans... always complaining about something! Perhaps you should know how others see you as a nation: THIEVES, KILLERS and UNDERCULTURED! I come from Romania and YES, we are a poor country and everybody f* us, but we never went to Irak just to steal their oil riggs nor to Vietnam to impose our corrupt system. No wonder that things like the WTC dissaster happen all the time in America! You f others and think you're indistructable. Appearently you're not! If you think your strenght comes from a sick, drugged and crocked politician that keeps his thumb on the red button at all times then you are wrong. Your entire American Dream is based on people like us, people that will work for nothing because they NEED to.

The average salary in Romania is somewhere around 200$/month. That's 10 times less then the one in US I believe. Well, I earned a month's salary in two days because I charged less then yo, arogants, and because I write better then the indians that underbidded me. We deserve a chance as not only America is a free place. We work better and cheaper then you. Just take a look at our ratings. 20% of the bid requests in October were won by Romanians; 2 Romanians are in the top 10 coders list with clean, 10 average ratings.

COMPLAIN LESS AND WORK MORE FOR YOUR PRETENDED FEES! PROVE THE BUYERS THAT YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME OR THAT INDIAN GUY THAT CHARGES 1$/ARTICLE!

Hi

Just a brief comment. I read a comment by someone from US suggesting that the Indian programmers should try to find work in their own country instead of working on US projects, thus depriving the American coders of opportunities. Well, I would suggest that you should instead ask the buyers from US to stop outsourcing their work to India or other countries because of lower cost.

But I guess these are the hazards of globalization and me or you cannot do anything about that.

Regards

"The average salary in Romania is somewhere around 200$/month."

is the fundamental problem. RAC (and other corperation for that matter) clearly takes advantage of that fact.

Look at this win-win-win (!) situation here.

Assume your bad was accepted at $100 for a web site.

• RAC takes 15% of your bid.

• Most of the time, the clever guys in US or other countries where the costs are much higer are the "middle man". Which means, they hire you for $100 and once the job is complete they turn around and sell the web site to $500 to their customers in US because 500 for a web site is normal there.

• Assume rac sends the payment via Western Union. They cut about 10%

• and the romanian or ukranian or paki or indian guy is happy with the about $80 they make. And they are very devoted and happy to work a whole 2 weeks for your web site day and night.

THE CONCLUSION:

While the Romanian guy above is very proud of his work and his fees, he doesn't understand the fact that he is screwed by the same corporate system that he is so frustrated about.

• The middle man just made $400 by doing nothing.

• RAC makes tens of thousands of dollars each month with the 15% they get from each project.

• The Romanian? He is happy with his $80, he worked hard and he is proud.

This is the bottom line ladies and gents... you are getting fucked one way or the other.

Happy Bidding

I used to play around with a couple of those sites, but always got ripped off. I heard some talk about www.progfessionals.com suppositly made by freelancers for us. They have a forum, so maybe when it picks up it will do well. who knows.

Hello Coders,

I wish to know the best way to be paid by RAC for someone living in India.

RAC says that Indian laws do not allow Western Union transfers from foreign businesses, and bank transfer seems to be VERY expensive.

Thanks.

I used to play a lot of games using play money at Golden Casino. But I don't learn a lot from playing because maniacs will call all in on every hand. I don't get to improve my games that much when I play with pratise money in games. As a matter of fact, I'm not even enjoying myself when I play games with manics using practise money.

When I actually move to a real money game, I found the games to be more enjoyable, as I am playing against much more better players and I am slowly improving on my game.

I am going to outsource my project.

To American Coder: Shut the fuck up u fuckin nazy!

Hello All,

Have read all most all the comments, and seems this discussion is lead by 4 types of people, 1) RAC Fan's, 2) RAC Criticizer, 3) New Bee or Average Joe, 4) Anti Outsourcing

I’ll say RAC is a good place to start if and when you are a new bee, inspired to setup your own business and everything but need a jump start, need projects to build your portfolio, but be warned, RAC can just give you a jump start but will not help you earn profits.

I use to be on RAC, handled couple of projects, and had a few Arbitration too, funny part is the only Client I had Arbitration and where he lost, still today is my client, my Quality of work is good and he knows it & pays high price for the services he gets. I charge 30$ per hour

My self being an Indian, and desperate to find business back then, I still don’t remember under selling my self just get a project, its killing your own market, to guys sitting in US blaming Indians, well may be you could not convince the client that you are worth the money you are asking for as simple as that.

I hear people say left and right, outsourcing ruined me, I lost my career I mean what the hell where you doing, thinking that your job will be safe for ever, no one can take over it ? and out sourcing is nothing new, remember when GM shifted their production plants from US to Mexico and to AISA where they found its cheaper to manufacture and ship this goods, there was a huge cry on job cuts and all but as time changes need and requirement changes you have to shift with the time, be innovative.

Also it was you guys who refused to work for cheap, when the economy was going down in US, u wanted to stick by your 60$ per hour pay check, what can the owners of the company do, find a Quality & less expensive staff to work with.

Anyways I’ll end it with just one comment “You can not clap with one hand “

hemal

This has been an informative thread. I know what to expect from rent-a-coder now, and I see some other sites to look into. Thanks to the informative posters.

I worked along-side foreign programmers for 15 years in large companies. When I left, I was the only American in 30 engineers. Even the management was Australian and Chinese. The worker visa limit was raised each year by Congress until it was profitable for large, efficient labor companies to import large groups of engineers from other countries. They replaced entire departments in large companies. And still companies like Microsoft pressure Congress each year to raise the quotas even further.

There seems to be an agenda for globalization. The US government is gradually allowing other nations more and more equal footing in the US market. I agree that this is a good plan in the long run. US will have wealthier customers, the political stability of a large middle class will spread further around the world, population growth slows with wealth, and we'll get to keep some of that cash we hand out in aid and spend on defense.

Meanwhile, I'm jobless and seriously considering one of those $80 RAC projects.

By the way, I did notice cultural differences among the nationalities I worked with. Several Asians could be stubborn or otherwise uncooperative. Russians, however, were can-do types. Management seemed to agree; they replaced Asians with Russians whenever someone quit.