Elance - anyone used it?

[one]

Have any of you guys used elance.com for your web projects? I found a company in India to build a fairly complex site for me via Elance, and it was a pretty ordinary experience I must say! The project went way over budget, WAY over time and the final product, although satisfactory at the time, ended up having issues down the track that the company would not fix unless I paid them an exorbitant amount of money!

But a friend of mine recently had another site built through an Elance provider and had a really positive experience.

Just wondering if others have gone through Elance and what their experiences were like?

[LudaKris]

I thought Elance has a built in feedback and review system? Or is it not detailed enough?

Kris

[gerryonline]

I have used elance on a number of occasions and have had mixed results.

The best thing to do is be very thorough with the provider you choose, make sure you see in detail work they have previously done, and ask them what their role was in that work!!

Also, all they want is money, so never pay unless you are happy with the work, Elance is good as it holds the money for you, which means the provider can see the money their they just cant get it until you approve it.

In saying that though, you do get what you pay for .. if you want a top notch site that is done at high quality, I recommend using someone locally that you can chat to in english and voice your concerns.

What was the project you had done?