Escrow
Hello!
Greetings to all. New to oDesk.
Have question: I work alot with Rentacoder, Elance, now oDesk is really an in-depth marketplace sort of website and contains alot of mechanism and etc. One thing that I am shocked with is no escrow service - there is no posssibility for me as a buyer to guarantee payment with the buyer with a fixed rate project. How do you work like this??
Yes, correct, you can define an advance payment and milestones. True, thats good. What I want to hear is how good (or better) is this rather than a de-facto standard escrow of money upon bid acceptance. Everyone knows, the buyer accepts a specific bid, escrows money and waits for the provider to complete the work. This is impossible here. How do you deal with this? Even with milestones, I CANNOT guarantee myself that the buyer will pay for the last stage (the finishing milestone). To be honest, I am not used to this, and I dont like it and thats why I am writing and opening discussion about this. I want to hear what do you think and how do you cope with this? The approach that you take.
If Iook at the numbers, $50 millions is an excellent number, more over very inspiring. On the other side there is no escrow service! Is it better this way? I can see that the long-term approach is getting lost, if it matters : I mean, we are going to schedule resources for completion of a certain project, do projections, estimate and everything that goes with it, maybe turn down other jobs (unlikely though), and we may end up in a situation: Buyer is willing to stop half-way thru, or stop at milestone 1, or somewhere in between and decides that there will be no payment which obviously hurts.
What do you all think? Please share your food of thought!
Thanks!
Vaidot Inc.
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jpittenger
oDesk has chosen to focus on our unique hourly model. For buyers, that means guaranteed work. For providers, that means guaranteed payment.
As you can see in the oConomy, the majority of the jobs on oDesk utilize this hourly model. Hourly jobs are billed weekly for actual hours worked and therefore do not require an escrow system.
Some users still prefer to work on a fixed price basis, either because they need to pay per deliverable, or don't want to log time using the Team client. For these users, oDesk has enabled a fixed price option (originally, it wasn't even offered), but has not built an escrow infrastructure. Creating a maintaining an escrow system is no small undertaking. It would require a substantial and ongoing investment of time and money. Therefore, the priority has been on creating and improving systems that benefit all, or at least the majority, of oDesk users.
Jacqui Pittenger :: Forum Moderator
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kdarko 3 posts - Macedonia - Joined Nov 02 2008
Benefits:
I hardly see this as a benefit. I simply opened a discussion to other coders, I want to here from your, the providers, rather than oDesk support team.
blogstudios 448 posts - United States - Joined May 20 2008
Jacqui is a provider. She just happens to be one that oDesk contracts out to.
Opening a thread for discussion then quickly rejecting someone's input is not only rude but counterproductive as well.
- Danalyn
Before you complain about rates, read all 4 parts of the oDesk Insider Blog's Make More Money series.
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ravendano 276 posts - Philippines - Joined Mar 16 2008
Have a little humility when posting your message, here or anywhere else for that matter. Jacqui has explained her side in responding to your posting to which I did not see any sign that its a "Providers Only" message.
Jacqui and the oDesk Support Team are the only people who can can answer your question from all angle, the providers can only answer, based on their experience and with different types of fixed-rate jobs, they are the most qualified personnel
Please Play Nice.
kdarko 3 posts - Macedonia - Joined Nov 02 2008
Please! There is absolutely no reason what so ever to be defensive. I am peaceful. And I have the right to ask question and tell who I would like to hear from. I am not interested for statistics, oconomy and anything else which is very accessible from oDesk site, and transparent. I read most if not all of it.
Thanks to oDesk for the great online documentation! So, please bear with me and lets attack my questions and concerns. I want to hear from your own experience, I see the statistics, I see the graphs and charts. The only thing in all the three replies that was worth reading, that the fixed rate was introduced recently.
Try to put in my shoes if you really want to give an advice and tell it. That helps. oDesk created the system for us and generates revenue by having an efficient system. I applaud. I am for business here. Nothing else. Pure and simple, business by following oDesk rules so everyone benefits from that.
So, I kindly ask again, if you do have, please share it. I read many things related to oDesk from odeskinsider blog. Thankyou for that. I want to spend time understand how to fit, then how do I fit this system for my business and make it grow so I can grow. I hope you get to understand. Plain and simple. I do plan that.\
Thanks
doreenmartel
Please understand that the forums are open to everyone. It's highly unusual for *anyone* to specify who should/should not respond to a posting. You were hardly professional in your response to Jacqui and since you've been here less than a month, you've basically set up a profile for the sole purpose of posting in the forums (which I gather from the lack of information in your profile) it's not unusual for people to be defensive.
No-one was doubting your right to ask a question but it's highly irregular to specify who *should* or who is *allowed* to answer your questions. Actually, I thought that Jacquis response was the most pertinent to the comments you made.
Perhaps you should rethink your question if the answer wasn't acceptable!
With that said - since the bulk of jobs that many of us apply to are hourly - and we all understand that fixed rate jobs are not guaranteed then why would oDesk go to the extra expense of managing an escrow? If you search through the forums by using the built in search feature you'll see other discussions about this.
For myself for the few 'fixed' rate jobs that I've accepted I make payment arrangements through oDesk via email with the buyers and they're milestone payments. For my own purposes I often log into oDesk team to track that time so I can show the buyer what I've done but it's not required.
Perhaps if you're more comfortable on fixed rate jobs and need the security blanket that escrow provides then oDesk isn't the right market for your particular needs. But that doesn't negate the value of the system for those of us who take the rare fixed rate job and prefer the hourly model.
Doreen