Any Outsourcing Horror Stories?

[Mike39]

Have you ever had a bad experience with hiring a freelancer?

Maybe your pro copywriter delivered a piece with a .0003% CR, maybe someone took your money and disappeared, or your mobile app's development ran 7 months past schedule.

If so:

1) Give a brief summary of the type of project and what went wrong

2) Was the freelancer from hell one the cheapest offers/bids?

3) What did you learn from it?

I'm trying to help a friend develop a short resource for his business so anything you share I'd like to be able to use as an example, we'll remove any names or project specifics from the summary. Be brief with it, no need to write even a full paragraph

Let's try something new, rep points to anyone who helps me/us out

 

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[Dave C]

Sometimes you have good contractors, sometimes you have bad. The biggest lesson is that no hired help will ever put the blood, sweat and tears you would spend on your own business. Often its better to hire contractors to teach you what they know - assuming they're good - get the skill set for yourself and you'll be in a much stronger place.

 

[1step]

I hired for a drupal development job for a website idea I had. I didnt clarify what I was looking for well enough. My outline and specs were not nearly specific enough. For that reason my job cost 2x what I expected and took many months longer than I thought. This was the first job I ever hired for, I am now much much clearer with creating wireframes or specs for my tasks.

As for a story that was more the freelancers fault. I hired someone for a graphic design job, the job was very specific and I made sure to talk with each individual about the specifics to make sure they understood. I ended up hiring the person who was the second cheapest bid, they ensured they knew what I wanted and could do it. After a week they contacted me back with a shit design and told me they are not able to do the job and every times they try they cannot do it. So I lost a week of time with that hiring mistake. The next person I hired I made them send me a progress check after day 1, day 2, etc.

 

[Roland]

After doing my due diligence on a project, I hired a virtual assistant to help me with what I needed to do. It was not the cheapest service I asked information from but it was the quickest in answering my questions before sending the money and the feeling was good. Then I sent the money for a full week worth of work and the VA was supposed to start working the next week.
I spent all my weekend preparing her job, making my instructions clear and simple enough to be understood by a five year old child, I prepared the templates I wanted her to fill in. She only has to research on websites I gave her the list the information and put it in the spreadsheet. The only demand I made was to get a report every morning at 5 am to be able to help her if needed. I was reachable and available from 5 in the morning to 11 at night everyday but couldn't get anything from her, not even the report I wanted every day. I had to sent three or four emails to get a one line report and at the end of the day two lines were put in the spreadsheet saying that the information I requested was not available in the websites (she only has to cluck on the first link I gave her to get tens of lines).

Well, after three days like this and trying to help her, I decided that it was enough. I was spending the money for her services and doing the job myself. I contacted her manager explaining that I wanted to stop the service and to get my money back. They started to tell me that this was not possible because they allocated two people to my task and I should be charged double instead of only paying one week worth of work. I would have accepted to only pay the three days and get a refund for the last two but as they were trying to scam me more, I decided to get it all back and started arguing about the poor quality of the job delivered. If it was true that they allocated two people to my task (which I seriously doubt), the efficiency was even worse!
Long story short, I have had to fight by email during two weeks and escalate my problem to her manager's manager but at the end i got my money back. What saved me is that I cc'd all the manager in any email I sent to my VA.

That's is the only bad experience I have had with outsourcing or at least the most significant one.

Hope this can help people. Don't stop fighting if you have been scammed.

 

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[Jake]

I think you've read my book on it, Mike.

Basically - I hired a programmer for an Android app. The App worked fantastic on my phone and his phone..it absolutely sucked on the majority of phones across the fragmented Android platform.

He was one of the cheapest..but it wasn't an easy task for a highly recommended programmer I had take a look either.

Android Dev's need access to a variety of phones and OS versions.

 

[Bruh]

1) I needed a writer for a short nonfiction ebook. I hired one on Elance. After two weeks of waiting for material, he gave me the first chapter or so. I read it, and it sounded exactly like something I read online. I found the website which he had plagiarized from, and I immediately tried to end the job with him. He said it was not plagiarized. He even showed me on a plagiarism checking website that it was not plagiarized. For some reason, those sites only check for exact matches. Anyways, he agreed to end the job, and I had to start again...

2) No, he was NOT a cheap writer. He was in the mid range.

3) I went with him because he had a great reputation and a great price. His communication was really slow in the beginning, even before I hired him. Always make sure to communicate with the freelancer before hiring them. I knew that I shouldn't have hired him, but I really had my hopes up. I thought that with his great reputation, this must end well. But I broke an important rule: If something doesn't feel right, FIRE FAST. It was such a waste of time - that's what really bothered me.

Edit: It was an agency.

 

[smarty]

What's the point of this post? I don't get it. Srs.

 

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[Jake]

I'm trying to help a friend develop a short resource for his business

 

[Mike39]

What's the point of this post? I don't get it. Srs.

I opened this thread on my phone and it only displayed this^ and Jakes posts, I thought "Shit, this thread tanked". Needless to say it was a pleasant surprise when I logged onto my computer and saw all the other posts, you guy's are awesome!

I'm trying to help a friend develop a short resource for his business

Yep, Smarty if you need the context behind the thread, I'm helping out on an article about freelancing nightmares and it's better to use real world examples than flat out lie to any potential customer. Plus, there's probably a thing or two to be learned about outsourcing in here as well if you would take the time to read all of the responses.

Rep points incoming to all you who have helped so far, thank you!

 

[mememan]

Well, I've had a string of bad outsourcing/offshoring experiences.

First two are US-based.

First time was with a SaaS provider selling a custom solution. I paid a few hundred and was supposed to get a turnkey site. A good month of two later, communication is breaking down, it's taking weeks to get responses to e-mails, etc. I actually ask a few more current customers and like half tell me to stay away. The guy hadn't done any work and was trying to get a thousand or so from me since I signed a contract. I ignored him.

At this point, I started actively looking for someone to build the SaaS app for me as well as another related project that could utilize the dataset I'd be using. I checked the outsourcing sites along with DesignQuote where you can put in your job details and then people can call/get in touch with you. Almost everyone was US-based. Maybe some offshored, but I don't know. I talked to a good 10-15 people maybe 2-3 hours a piece, providing written specs, details, etc. Most were massively overpriced for such small jobs (the range was maybe $7k-$30k). I ended going up with a younger guy who had built a few failed web businesses in the past as well as a site closely related to what I was trying to build. Cost was midrange, and I stupidly paid a 20%-30% on 2 jobs with him since my thinking was that these were easy builds (and I still don't see any reason why they aren't).

Well, I send all my stuff over to this guy, answer all questions promptly, etc. I'm thinking progress is being made and we are nearing two weeks into the job. He starts asking really basic questions, and I get spooked. Find out he's not actually a programmer and just outsources all the work, etc. Takes me months to get my money back, credit card chargebacks don't help, and I'm out maybe a thousand plus my time.

I then try to offshore outsourcing route. I post my job several times, invite people, etc. I also talk to a few more domestic guys, but each say $10k+ for just whipping up a solution in Wordpress. My whole goal during this time is to use preexisting art assets and code whenever possible. I literally have a GitHub that does 90% of what I need and just copy and pasting would be serviceable.

I do hourly with on guy on Odesk. He's in Eastern Europe and has thousands of hours completed and a good feedback. He's also $40/hour. He churns out garbage in a week or two, ignores almost all my materials, and pretty much makes a Wordpress plugin instead of a whole site.

I give it another month or so, cause at this point I'm just pissed at my own stupidity. I try one more time with another Eastern European at $50/hour. This guy has excellent communication. Course, that doesn't matter with frequent breaks on his part and again, me being dumb and doing hourly. At first he offers fixed price and that would put me about $5k-$6k into the job, more than I'd like, but not horribly unreasonable.

All told, I'm probably out maybe $9k-$10k with no finished project. I'm considering redoing it again, but here's what I'd watch out for:

- No hourly
- Fixed price, multiple milestones, don't fund all at once
- Use American Express as the card
- Require sprint of 2-3 weeks on the job (the non-Saas app is pretty simple and a knowledgeable person could get it done in a hackathon)
- No agencies (never actually used one, but I've talked with most of the big ones on eLance and their intake people make no sense when communicating)
- Don't pay more than $15-$20 an hour (Healthstatus has found really good people for even $15; I feel like a fool paying $40-$50 when that's even a good rate in the US, much less Ukraine)
- Have front-end and back-end as separate people, have them communicate
- Find someone willing to use WrapBootstrap, ThemeForest, other art assets (I can understand if the code can get bloated, but there are a lot of design frameworks where you can pick and choose what you need and snap them in; no reason to go custom)

I'm sure I've forgotten something, but if you have any other questions, shoot

 

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[jon.a]

Rep points incoming to all you who have helped so far, thank you!

I just loaded you back up

 

[jon.a]

I just loaded you back up

I just did it again. Sorry it was before I saw your note.

 

[JasonR]

I have worked with quite a few programmers and freelancers/outsourcers. In my experience, they always over-promise and under-deliver. However, the good ones will work until your satisfied, and you have a working, deployable product.

If you are working with a team, it's very important that the company has an excellent project manager, as the project will ride on his shoulders. He also better to speak English fluently, or you're going to have trouble communicating concepts and ideas to the team.

When you find good developers, coders, designers, KEEP their contact info. Add them on Skype, get their phone numbers - whatever you have to do.

I'm currently working with a group of developers in the Philippines. So far, everything is going smoothly, but they did under-estimate the complexity of the project quite a bit. I'll report back when the project is finished.

Edit: Also, as a product owner you need to be able to communicate your vision clearly.

Edit 2: I NEVER pay hourly. Always by the job. Paying hourly has worked out negatively for me the few times I have done. I also purchased a nice Microphone, and use Jing, to record examples for developers (and employees).

 

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[mememan]

I have worked with quite a few programmers and outsources. In my experience, they always over-promise and under-deliver. However, the good ones will work until your satisfied, and you have a working, deployable product.

If you are working with a team, it's very important that the company has an excellent project manager, as the project will ride on his shoulders. He also better to speak English fluently, or you're going to have trouble communicating concepts and ideas to the team.

When you find good developers, coders, designers, KEEP their contact info. Add them on Skype, get their phone numbers - whatever you have to do.

I'm currently working with a group of developers in the Philippines. So far, everything is going smoothly, but they did under-estimate the complexity of the project quite a bit. I'll report back when the project is finished.

Edit: Also, as a product owner you need to be able to communicate your vision clearly.

Yep, this is all true. The problems are even more pronounced when paying hourly. I think the last guy I used would have honestly kept racking up hours forever.

I've talked with 20-30 of the large firms on eLance. They are either overpriced and don't provide a lot of detail or put their absolute worst people on the intake side, meaning the programming side must be even more suspect.

 

[aardvarky]

Oh, sooooo many.
1. Designing a fairly simple website (way back in the day, before I knew anything about websites) - they took almost 2 months, charged several hundred dollars (for what was essentially installing a WP theme), and the total result look like sh*t.
1a. Graphics (banners ads and book cover designs) - took too long, not even close to the samples I'd provided
1b. Content writers - poor quality writing and not meeting deadlines

2. No. Price seems to have little to do with with it. Some of the worst freelancers I've worked with charged more than the industry average and still delivered poor results and some of the best I've worked with charged really, really reasonable rates.

3. Thankfully, I've learned a few things:
- Have good grasp of the job you're outsourcing - I don't have to be an expert at it, but I should at least understand enough to be able to discern if the person(s) I'm hiring knows what they're talking about
- Set hard deadlines. Even with VAs, it's really important to tell them not just the job you want done, but how long it should take them to do it. Otherwise, it's really my own fault if it drags on and on and on.
- Give new people a very short simple task or two to test their ability to follow instructions, communication, their sense of style, etc. Don't hire for a bigger, expensive job until you've done this
- When you find an awesome freelancer who's great at what she/he does - reward them well with praise, bonuses, and more jobs. Hold on to them!
- 95% of poor jobs is my own fault. I either didn't have a clear outline of what I wanted, didn't screen well enough, or didn't communicate expectations or provide a simple enough process for them to follow.

But the most important thing I learned - and am continuing to learn - is that hiring freelancers is really a numbers game. There's going to be both good and bad experiences and the only thing you can do is remember what you messed up on and make sure you don't repeat that same mistake twice. It seems to be an ongoing process of learning and revising and it hasn't gotten easier (yet) but I have big dreams of one day having people manage every aspect of my business, so gotta keep on trucking...