Mega Champ

I am a member of a popular freelancing website and whenever i find some free time, i go there to get some projects which inturn increases my programming knowledge and also gives me some extra cash. But even if i can’t pick up any projects due to time constraints i still check out the project listings once in 2 days.

Off lately i am noticing a huge increase of a trend, someone Mr Fraud will come and post a project “i want a clone of website abc.com(gives the name website)” or ” i want a clone of website like abc.com, please go there and register and check out all the functionalties before bidding” etc etc.

And that Mr Fraud will always be new to the freelancing website and wont be having any reviews at all. I am not saying that reviews are very important and every new project publisher is fraud, I am just talking about a breed, who will post the projects like mentioned by me above. And Mr Fraud also gives out a huge budget for the project like for simple website he will put some $1000, which is pretty much tempting for all the programmers. And they keep on coming, visiting the website given by Mr Fraud, registering, placing bids etc.

What these programmers don’t know that all Mr Fraud is doing is just increasing the page views for his new website, or increasing the no. of registered users or even he is increasing the number of leads for some products he is promoting(as he told programmers to register and stuff). So, no programmer is getting that project as Mr Fraud never comes back and moves on to another freelancing website or to some other dirty tricks of his.

And I am not saying all this by looking at a 1-2 projects, i have been around that freelancing website for almost 2 years now, and almost everyday some new Mr Fraud comes up with atleast 5-6 projects on that website alone. And for sure he must be doing this stuff for lots of freelancing sites.

Was I a victim of this, well yes in starting i did get tricked, but with time i learned and today by seeing the project and description I can make out(with 99% hit rate) that Mr Fraud is back with some new scam of his.