I hired a Guru free lanser and at the end of the project he said he can't do it. Then I disputed through Guru to get my money back. They took my money and gave it to the free lanser. I just lost $350.00 Please avoid doing business with Guru.

Just wanted to let everyone know we lost 1000.00 on guru.com to a coder that lacked integrity. The most shocking thing was the fact that Guru.com allowed the coder, who they knew failed to uphold the project agreement and lacked integrity. This is the email that was posted by a manager named Stacy Norman.

"Good afternoon. I am the Manager of the Dispute Resolution Department at Guru.com. Stacy Norman is the Manager of User Support & Operations. I understand that you are uncomfortable with the Blocking Power feature on Guru.com and that you would prefer if our review system was more like vWorker's. I do appreciate your thoughts and suggestions on the matter, but we have no plans to alter our feedback system or eliminate the Blocking Power feature from our site. We chose to create a feature that sets us apart from other freelance marketplaces. Based on what we offer, it is up to you to decide if we are the best fit for your outsourcing needs. If we do not fit your needs, I am sorry that we will lose you as customer. If you decide to continue sourcing talent through Guru.com, I would highly recommend that you do not release payment to a Freelancer before receiving work that you are satisfied with in order to avoid a similar dispute in the future."

and another follow up email here.

"Please understand that we have no intention of taking any action against Infinity Mark. As Joe has repeatedly stated, if we see a negative pattern developing with any user, we take action. There is no negative pattern with Infinity Mark. This Freelancer has been with us for more than two years, has conducted roughly $200k in business and has very few complaints.

Please rest assured that we do take the feedback we receive from our users very seriously. It was such feedback that resulted in the creation of the blocking power option. The blocking power has done a lot to protect Freelancers and Employers from one-off negative experiences and unwarranted bad feedback.

Again, if you are not comfortable with how our site functions, you are free to use other venues. We fully understand that our service will not meet the needs of everyone that uses it.

We've repeatedly stated our position on this matter. If you have any other questions, we're happy to answer them. However, any additional communications regarding the feedback issue will be discarded. "

On the surface this may sound resonable, but this coder missed the deadline by more than a month, stood us up four times for scheduled walkthroughs and then delivered a very substandard product at the end in an attempt to keep the 1000.00 we released early. The coder told us over the phone that we would be protected that they would NEVER jeopardize their number #1 ranking with guru or risk a bad review, all the while knowing full well they could block it. The coder basically theived our money and guru stood idly buy and watched it happen, even taking up for the coder after it was done. To me the feedback option was our last bit of leverage to not only hold the coder accountable, but to also warn other consumers that this coder might be prone to doing such things in the future. I do not plan to ever use guru.com again. I thought at one time they had the best system, but it took me a while to figure out that all the coders seem to have 5 star reviews and no reviews that are negative. I think not posting reviews that are unbecoming defeats the purpose of an honest review and does not protect the consumer... gurus system is slanted towards the coder and ensuring that they "prosper" regardless of how they treat consumers in any one individual job. If you use Guru.com do so at your own RISK, if you are after honest reviews on a coder before you hire them, I would recommend going somewhere else, lest you find yourself out of hundreds even thousands of dollars down the road. Guru protects the people that butter their bread, make no mistake about it. The problem with that is we have the projects and the money to pay coders, I will not spend my money with guru.com again.

Same here. A freelancer wouldn't adhere to deadlines multiple times in a row so I left a negative feedback. Of course, they left a negative feedback to me in return. The problem is that I was knew to Guru so I didn't have the "blocking power" yet. The result? I got a negative feedback which was 100% UNDESERVED and they removed my negative feedback which was 100% DESERVED. I still can't understand how something so stupid as "blocking power" could be implemented into what seemed like a "perfect" outsourcing service. Now, the only thing employers ever had such as feedback does not anymore reflect the real quality of freelancers. Be careful about feedback on Guru. I couldn't understand why so many freelancers on the site had such a perfect feedback. Now things make perfect sense...