Honesty
Dear All - Hoping your freelance lives go well.
I must confess to a certain anxiety about people/per/hour! I'm looking for proofreading work. How does one know for sure that these 'jobs' that are inviting proposals are genuine? (It's in the interest of P/P/H to have 'traffic' on the website, so there may be a temptation (who knows?) to 'make up' jobs, don't you think?
Some of the jobs seem to have a very long lead-in time, and consequently, dozens of people bid for the work - are they all wasting their time? I've had proposals rejected - no feedback - and proposals simply ignored.
Can someone reassure me that these are not just virtual jobs - that would be a very cruel trick to play on people who really don't have a lot of clout.
All best.
Jonathan Wooding
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I can understand your concern, Jonathan, especially if you are still trying to get that elusive first job. There is no question that a lot of the projects posted are junk, but I can't imagine that PPH are creating fake projects. I get the impression that quite a few projects are not awarded, maybe because the buyer is not happy with the response or because they are simply testing the water to see how much it is likely to cost. The worst experience I had was when a project had a data file posted which supposedly contained information about the project, but after much frustration and arguments with Windows over what to do with the file, it infected my computer with a virus, which meant a new hard disk, several days configuring my system and I very nearly didn't come back to PPH as a result.
There are also projects posted which are clearly not legal or part of a scam, such as "I want a copy of the following website..." and "I want 10,000 fake Twitter accounts". Then there are the projects offered for obscenely low amounts of money. I'm tempted to ask if they accidentally specified a fixed rate when they meant an hourly rate, but it's best not to get involved. I saw one yesterday where a "buyer" was making some very unreasonable demands over budgets, skills and nationality requirements of prospective freelancers and the clarification board had degenerated into abuse.
From my experience, there is some genuine work available through PPH with customers who have a professional attitude to posting and specifying projects and who are prepared to pay an appropriate rate. I have also had experience with buyers who have sent a message when rejecting a proposal, and this has been helpful when submitting proposals for other jobs. I do software development so I don't know how that compares to proofreading. My frustration is simply that there is not enough work to keep me busy.
Simon.
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