I have now bid on 15 projects between the two freelance work sites and it’s all very mysterious. My complaint is not that I haven’t received any work, I can accept that, but my real problem is that I don’t know if the jobs were ever awarded.  To back up, I did get one job, which I later had to turn down. And I know one job was actually awarded, I got an e-mail saying that, but for the rest I don’t know. The bid window for the work expires, weeks go by, and I hear nothing further. Often the job description remains on-line, the site says bidding is closed, but, again, nothing more. What, then, are we bidding on? Are these real jobs or not? Or, like always, is it about the money?

Here’s what I think: the employers award work outside of the website to bypass the fees both sites charge. They exchange e-mails at some point and bail out of whatever freelance site they were on. In this manner they no longer have to pay anything to a website. Crooked but that would explain why jobs disappear.  Send me a comment if you know more or if you’d like to venture an opinion.