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Project Scammers

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 1:26 pm
by supermike
Developers -- perhaps I'm going out on a limb, but I'm beginning to suspect that there are project scammers out there who hit the freelance sites, or contact other developers, and they request help on bogus, difficult projects, and ask very low prices. Not to say that these scams all come from one or two well-known country locations with lots of technicians and very low currency costs, but I strongly suspect them. And why do this? They do it, I suspect, to discourage those of us who have realistic timelines and realistic per hour prices. They hate guys like us and want to see us think that the only work out there is to do everything for no more than 40 hours, no matter how hard the project, and charge no more than a paltry $25 per hour.

I mean, if one more person sends me a chat window requesting me to build them a video streaming and ecommerce site for $500, claiming this is a piece of cake, I'm going to go C4 ballistic. Do you know what I'm feeling? Been here before?

Re: Project Scammers

Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 7:03 pm
by rimian
There are bad project managers out there just as there are bad developers.

I frequently get project managers asking me for quotes when I know, they don't want to give me the work. They just want me to help work out their budget and give them some ideas for a pitch. They are very easy to spot from the real deal.

Re: Project Scammers

Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 7:07 pm
by Luke
I think you're trying to compete in a market you just don't have the ability to compete in. Those sites (in my experience) are the bottom of the bucket as far as clients go. Aim higher man.

Re: Project Scammers

Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 7:36 pm
by Christopher
supermike wrote:I mean, if one more person sends me a chat window requesting me to build them a video streaming and ecommerce site for $500, claiming this is a piece of cake, I'm going to go C4 ballistic. Do you know what I'm feeling? Been here before?
If you get lots of them then implement a "video streaming and ecommerce site" and spread the cost across multiple sites. If it costs you $3k to build it then you start making money on the seventh site!