Thanks for your prompt response! Get Friday continues to baffle me with their assumption that I should trust them. After a promised refund on 3/17, which I never got, I started chargeback procedures with my credit card. Here is the response I got from Get Friday today:

Dear Stephanie,

We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to you.

Our quality team has check and analyzed the work done by your assistant. We do understand that the work done was not up to your expectation and we have charged a wrong amount to your account in the month of March. We will refund the entire amount of $ 118.75 to your account by next week. However we kindly request you to withdraw the charge back request and confirm us the same, so that we can proceed with the refund immediately.

We apologize for all the inconvenience caused to you due to this.

Regards,
Billing
Get Friday

So after no refund after almost 2 months they want me to “trust” them all of sudden to process that refund. Called my credit card company and they said “no way, don’t trust them.” The case remains open and I’m letting the card company handle it. Not professional by any standards. In a small business,. $118 goes a long way and I don’t appreciate them tying up my capital, small as it is, for 2 months and then asking me to trust them. Elance has methods for addressing poor service, such as cancelling the job or the escrow service,which I truly appreciate. I am a vendor and user of Elance and I recommend it highly. Just more feedback. Appreciate your personal feedback and LOVE YOUR BOOK. Keep up the great work!

Cheers, Stephanie

Thanks for your feedback. As of this writing, I’m planning on removing GetFriday from upcoming editions when I have a chance to add some more. Thanks for your candid comment!

They might be victims of success, but that excuse only goes so far. Agreed.

All the best :) Tim

I have to add my negative commentary here about your recommended resource Get Friday. I have been thoroughly unhappy with their service for the following reasons:

1. I sent an email requesting a task that would have taken me about 30 minutes. I was generous and outlined a time frame of 1 hour, and, as per your book, requested a response as to whether this was a reasonable amount of time. I also outlined the specifics of the results I wanted, namely a number article directories that allowed article submissions for home based businesses. I got back in response a spreadsheet not matching the requested number, with many that did NOT accept article submissions and many that were off topic of home based business. I never heard back whether 1 hour was sufficient time.

2. I requested a redo and explained why. I asked whether the redo would still be within the 1 hour, since they screwed up. Got some more listings, about 50% of which matched my requirements. No response on whether the redo would be included in the 1 hour of service.

3. Got a bill for $117.98. Hello, 1 hour? Spent the next 2 months disputing this charge, with 2 hours on the phone and various emails. Still disputing the charge, mind you. And today got an email from my credit card saying that the merchant would not refund the charge EVEN THOUGH I HAVE AN EMAIL SAYING IT WOULD BE TAKEN CARE OF IN 100 BUSINESS DAYS.

I have now spent about 10 hours dealing with this company’s SCREW UPS. I will never ever use them again. I recommend no one touch them with a ten foot pole for you will never get unstuck from the tar baby.

I have been using Elance for over a year now and their service … baby, no comparison! Love your book, hate this recommendation of yours. No matter what Get Friday dude’s response up top to all the negative feedback, I can say that my personal rep and team leader fell down big on the job. BIG. Got no problem with outsourcing but I do when it takes me more time and money with work with someone on a 30 minute project than it would take me to do 100 of those little projects myself. Me, I’m off to Elance again.

Honestly,
Stephanie

###

Hi Stephanie,

Thanks for your feedback. As of this writing, I’m planning on removing GetFriday from upcoming editions when I have a chance to add some more. Thanks for your candid comment!

They might be victims of success, but that excuse only goes so far. Agreed.

All the best, Tim

The main advantage of Philippines is that the work force grew up in American culture, mostly through movies and books. Everyone speaks English as their second language, familiar with US consumer products and all that. Accent is quite close to Americans’ although professionals are sometimes trained to sound even more informal and dull certain consonants. As to work attitude, given the right training, generally Filipinos are excellent in customer service when they relate with foreigners. It probably stems from them being very innately sociable.

In call centers I’ve work in, I’ve seen how Indians and Filipinos complement each other. One side enhances the other’s professional/technical skills and the other enhances interpersonal skills…

The following are all “power uses” of your time:

1. When I was >very< young in 1989, I learnt from Brian Tracy that reading in your chosen subject for just 15 minutes a day will make you an international expert in 7 years (i.e you will be in the top 20% of the top 20% - that is the top 4%) and he was right with no further qualifications and no degree I was consulting internationally before the end of 1997.

2. Also from Brian Tracy that taking 1 hour per week to sit quietly and without distraction. Call it meditating if you will, but its not what most people would call meditating. Sit in a comfortable chair in a quiet room (NO TV, Radio or Music), or in a field or a forrest, or a view with no or few other people about and wait for your internal dialog to go quiet. This is probably one of the most important “spiritual” tasks that you can schedule each week to help clear your mind of clutter and give clarity of thought. You will be very surprised at the insights you wil gain by just doing this one simple task each week.

3. Join a master mind group, that is join with a group of people who are in non competing markets/groups and spend 1-2 hours every fortnight discussing with them what works for them and what doesn’t. Remember a problem shared is a problem halved – why spin your wheels when you could have help at hand from a bunch of people who WANT to support you in your endevors.

4. Even if you don’t agree with it, read Napolean Hills “Think and Grow Rich”. Its an oldie but a goodie, if nothing else it will challenge your field of thought and may help you get of your ass and outsourcing some of your tasks.

5. Oh one last thing, if you can buy your way out of a problem – YOU HAVN’T GOT A PROBLEM!! In our society solutions to most common problems are for sale (for an example — we have viagra for god sake….), life is too short to spend your life worrying about meaningless shit, fix it or forget about it.

When I first read the book I immediately contacted Brickwork/ Get Friday and Your Man In India. Initially their response times were slow and prices were huge in comparison to some of the other operators on http://www.elance.com.

I hired a company called softwebwork (Sandip Saini) and these guys researched over 7000 websites and provided me with up to date leads for my independent record label. Of these 7000 sites around 2500 are compatible with my business plan. This process took around 5 weeks and cost me a whopping $400US :).

I highly recommend elnace to anybody looking to outsource as there is a huge variety of providers. Also Tim in your book you had a section where you mentioned giving clear and direct instruction. My first round of offers came back at $3000 and with a little refinement and clearer directions I saved $2600.

There is no way I could have completed this work myself in the time provided and at my hourly rate it would have cost me over $10,000.

I would recommend outsourcing to anybody who has got tedious AND SIMPLE assignments that can easily be completed with one or two pages of instructions,

Cheers, Dave