A freelancer's guide to spotting trustworthy employers on oDesk. Look for a fully green dollar-sign icon showing verified payment methods, check their star ratings and total hours worked, and use the dispute system if something goes wrong. The platform takes a 10% commission and holds your payment until weekly payouts or milestone completion.
Chapters
How to avoid getting screwed on oDesk. So I got a great question from one of my YouTube viewers, love you guys, BlitzGamer000, who wrote in to say, "I'm new on oDesk and I don't know the payment process and also how will I know if the employer will pay me or not? By the way, nice video." So when I talk about oDesk, I've done some videos from the employer side of it and the employee side of it. And so when you're a contractor, you're the employee going in, here's what you really want to look for, okay? There is a process that the employers go through to verify their payment methods. So with each contract that you look at, you can look at who the employer is and they'll have a little dollar sign in their profile that'll say payment method verified. You want to look for that. If it's grayed out, it'll say payment method not verified. That means that the employer, they haven't verified their payment method. So they still might be a good potential employer, but it's a, it's a bigger risk for you because they haven't verified that they can actually pay. So you want to, you want to watch out. So I'd look for the payment method verified, and there's multiple payment methods they can go through. And so if you look at that little green dollar sign. Some people have a full— it's fully filled in green, and some people will have it somewhere along the way, so it's like 3/4 green and 1/4 gray. That means that they haven't completed all the different methods. So for my account, it's full green. At least it should be. Check that out. But it means that I verified my PayPal account. It's also verified my credit card. And what it does is it When I verify my credit card as an employer, it actually bills me a certain amount. I think it's a dollar or less than a dollar, and that shows that my credit card actually works. Like, I put in a valid credit card. They're actually putting money onto it. And so they'll start to, as I hire you and we work together, they'll take money out of my credit card, and if that doesn't work, they'll take money out of my PayPal. There's backup options to go with there. So definitely by looking at the payment method verified, looking for that green dollar sign, you're much less likely to get screwed. The other thing that happens is, so oDesk will take the money out of employer's account and put it into— they'll take 10% commission and then they'll put it into your account. And there is a method to dispute I mean, that happens automatically, right? You'll either— if you're doing it by the hour, you'll charge your hourly rate and they'll take it out once a week, or if you have a fixed fee. If something goes wrong, if the employer doesn't like what is happening, if they don't want to pay you, there's a dispute method where you can both submit your argument to ODesk and ODesk will review it. Make a claim, make a judgment to see who is right and who is wrong. But your best bet really is to find reputable people. So on top of looking for the payment method verified, you can look at the stars, right? So just like eBay ranks its vendors, you can look at past work, right? If they haven't done any work on oDesk before, then it's riskier for you to take on, right? But if they have hired lots of people before and have over 10,000 hours and have all 5-star reviews, then it's probably a safe bet. And then for the employer side, you know, this is important because you take all of this and put it in reverse where you want to verify your payment methods, right? You want to show that you've included your PayPal and your Visa, not just one, because that's a screening tool. You want to get the best candidates and you want to make sure that you have your payment methods all verified. You want to work hard. Like, I work hard to get all of my reviews 5-star. Everybody who's ever worked for me has left me a 5-star review last time I checked. And so that helps separate me from other employers who, when I put up my next job, I'm going to get better candidates because I've verified my payments and I have great reviews. So that is how to avoid getting screwed on oDesk. For those of you watching, if you like the video, you can subscribe to my channel. You can support me by clicking on the link in the description. And if you have questions or comments, leave it in the comment section below. I love helping people do well in ODesk. It's been a great resource for me. I've met a lot of great people who continue to be on my team, and I'm happy to answer any questions that come up if I can share from my experience. So thank you guys. Believe. And I'll see you soon.
