Unfortunately there are crooks, con artists and scammers in abundance wherever money exchanges hands. In the area of micro jobs it’s no different. The majority of the scams are sellers tricking buyers into accepting unfinished or poor work as completed to their satisfaction, which I outline in What Are Micro-Jobs. However, with the advent of cheap scripts to set up micro job sites, the prevalence of entire websites being launched to defraud buyers and sellers alike is on the rise.
Here I will highlight current scams that have come to my attention. If the information is from someone else I’ll include a link to their blog post, forum or chat room comments, etc. If I personally think a micro job site is a scam I’ll give details of my own experiences.
Just A Five
This is a well established and widely known micro job site owned by Lawrence Sykes, Emarketing Excellence Ltd. of the UK and advertised online a lot. However, it doesn’t surprise me that recently it’s being reported as a scam, and is appearing as a common subject of forum and chat room rants. I had an account with this site and the number of times I was unable to access even the home page, let alone my account, resulted in me pulling down all of the links I had promoting my gigs. In fact, I can only access the home page sometimes, but so far never get further into the site. Usually not even the home page will load. The site is not down completely, but appears to have one foot in the grave.
I was first alerted to the fact I was not alone in my frustration with this site when I came across this review: JustAFive (justafive.com) – SCAM.
Scam Adviser has downgraded the site’s trustworthiness and reliability rating as well.
I strongly recommend that no one sign up to be a buyer or seller with this micro-job site. If you’re already a Just A Five micro jobber and still promoting your gigs, I suggest you pull them down.
Microworkers Fiverr Ebazar
This micro job site appears to have been set up by the website owner of record, Nasr Habib of Yemen, as a scam right from the get go. It has gone offline and been resurrected a couple of times since April of 2012, which is when the domain was first registered. The same owner is listed as contact still.
I remember getting messages in my inboxes on other micro job sites, like my fiverr.com account from this guy. He suggested if I signed up and offered gigs through Microworkers Fiverr EBazar I’d be very pleased. My take on micro job sites that promote their service by spamming sellers on competing sites is that they’re on a social ladder rung just above child molesters, so of course I ignored the offer. I’m glad I did.
There is little more I can add that isn’t already said here: Microworkers Fiverr Ebazar (microworkers-fiverr-ebazar.com) – SCAM
I will continue to add warnings about scamming micro job sites as I learn of them, or fall victim to them myself. If you want to be updated about the good and the bad of micro job sites, as well as great micro job ideas and top notch sellers, just subscribe.
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