Odesk and elance have wasted my time

I am sure for the majority of people this has worked well. But when I have ever tried to sub out small specialist bits of work from my clients - have been stuffed both times. Odesk developer had a "car accident" and never got any work back or refund. Elance developer lost her status on elance for whatever reason. Painful. At least on Freelance Alliance on this site workers details are very transparent.

Has anyone else had a bad experience to share?

Of course contacting these websites is painful and a waste of time as I found out

 

To be honest I rarely use these sites but have dipped in once or twice. The quality of work was poor and although I never paid in full I still didn't get a refund on my deposit

 

mmmm, there should be a way which protects the buyer - but doesnt seem to be the case at all. Especially Odesk its very frustrating. Also so many of the freelancers are international with poor English which can be a barrier

 

I've usually had good results to be honest. Subbed out a couple of jobs this year and a good way of being able to take on more work and sub it out at profit. I think there is a time and place for these sites, especially if you can win work at £40 per hour and sub it out at £15...

 

In my experience, all bid sites suck. If I need to flag work outside my immediate network, this site has always proved to be pretty good: http://www.freelancers.net/

 

I suppose they can definitely work and well - but is really the process of protecting the buyer from sellers who just do not deliver

 

I prefer to judge the suitability of a supplier based on more than price and a few details that you're largely taking their word on.