How to make the freelancers work for free!

Introduction

So, you want to get few websites designed, probably to earn some extra cash through ad networks, or personal website to show off, or a full fledge e-commerce site to sell stuff, or for no valid reason at all. But you don’t want to pay anything for website design and development. I have written this article only for you!

Inspiration

We will use fiverr.com , one of the top ranked pond of cheap online workers, freelancers in a word. In addition, we will take advantage of its intentionally flawed policy to get our job done smoothly. We will follow “Carrot and Stick” method to minimize our cost down to $0. The flawed policy of fiverr.com is-

“Unfortunately, we cannot force a buyer to accept an order that they are not satisfied with. Please continue communicating with the buyer to try and reach an amicable agreement regarding your order.”

As the statement says it aloud, a buyer cannot be forced to accept a project delivery, buyer’s lack of satisfaction is the key to this pandora’s box!

Prerequisites

1. Black in soul- a little will do. If wasting few hours of someone doesn’t bother you, you are in! You may comfort yourself thinking those bustards are stealing your country’s jobs. So, destroy them to bring the jobs back home.
2. Split your project in smaller tasks- The better you are able to split your project, the better you can manage the minions to get the job done in time. You must have clear vision about your project, and only you, nobody else.
3. Create vague requirements- Write few abstract requirements as if you don’t know what you exactly want. Descriptions, such as- I want something like this, or something like that will do. A vague project requirement will keep the minions busy and will help you reject the project delivery indefinitely, until you are satisfied (which is not going to happen anyway.)

The Game of Gigs

The donkey- Search for sellers/experts for your tasks. Have conversation with them about those tasks and ask for custom offer like every gentle buyer does. In another way, you may order simple $5 gigs and start your experiment.

Advice- being polite all along, even when using the stick, helps to receive more for less.

The carrot- You may deposit a specific amount at fiverr.com. Should I remind you, you will not be able to withdraw any deposited money from there, you may only spend for ordering the gigs. So, deposit wisely. If a seller sends you a custom offer for a big number, and you want to hire her, and you don’t want to pay at all, then break the project for her for less project fee.

The stick- Now, that you have ordered the gigs, it is time to utilize your skill in “carrot and stick”. Every time the seller sends you a project delivery, find some issues with it and ask her for revision. Make her to make the work 100% perfect. If her work was perfect, find few more things to add. Her straight refusal might stale this process. So, hold the carrot in front of her in safe distance. Politely tell her how the extra work was actually part of this project, and how you would rate her work with 5 stars, and how you would not accept the delivery until she finishes the add-on task. Use your skill to make her work on the project until she applies for project cancellation out of frustration. You have already got your job done. And the money will be returned to you to use on another gig for your next tasks!

Advice- If this is a website or e-commerce project, get a cheap VPS or shared hosting and ask the seller to setup everything there. Try to use different accounts for different tasks (done by different sellers). And keep backup externally, regularly. Else, an angry and frustrated seller may sabotage all.

Advice- You must refuse project delivery within 72 hours from the time the seller delivers it. Else it will be automatically accepted.

Appendix: Other side of the fence

As a seller (only) myself, I am one of the many victims of this scam. I have wasted several hundred work hours working on Fiverr gigs which never ended with payment. Fiverr takes 20% flat commission which is the highest in the freelance industry. Yet, its dispute mitigation department is a clear joke. Any seller will get the first essence of the mockery at the very first step, at the “Resolution Center” where there is no option to complain against a buyer, nor there is any way to report a buyer breaking T&C. If the seller seeks help through Fiverr’s support ticket, the best possible help they get is the advice (to both buyer and seller) to resolve the issue by contacting the other, no action is taken against buyers. the dispute handling department doesn’t have any skill to judge and respond, they only can advise as per fixed set of rules.