CSSAGlobal

CSSAGlobal Scam - Uses holes in GAF Feedback to steal

I run a small online service company. My partner and I decided we wanted to start offering web-based software products in late 07. We settled on using an offshore programming company through Getafreelancer (GAF), and hired a company CSSAGlobal to do out first project. Everything started out fine. They appeared to be working and progressing on our project. This is where their scam began. They'll agree to just about anything in the contract and even sent us a questionaire to fill out. Once they had secured our trust they then required a cash deposit to begin, even though we stipulated using escrow in our agreement. Once the "CASH" deposit was sent we were hooked. Here's how it works. 1... GAF feedback is set up so that only feedback can be left if a job is completed. Not knowing this we believed feedbacks to be a reflection of the comapny. It isn't! These scam companies (CSSAGlobal), set buyers up and if they get busted doing *** work or even flat out not doing the job, you the buyer can't leave any feedback, even if you've paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars! 2... These companies will agree to use escrow but once the agreement is signed they will require a cash deposit. Once you've paid them a deposit they will continue to act as if they are coding the job all while pandering to get more cash without ever delivering anything to you as the buyer. The more cash they get the less chance you have of actualy getting your programming completed. 3... Once a buyer discovers his/her dilema and catches on, all programming, emails, PMs and communications stop. They may try to contact you with a last ditch effort to squeeze whatever they can from you. Once at this stage the scam is complete. Your left with nothing or a garbage cut and paste program that is probably unusable. 4... If there's any possibility you are able to leave some sort of feedback, you will find a quick canned response from the offending company that it was indeed your fault, you asked too much, you were too hard to deal with, you added to the job (programming bloat) and even "Your a Racist"... yes they even play the race card. GAF will simply ignore these bad practices and will actually opt to try and get you to pay off the job so they can get their cut rather than a happy buyer. Amazing! We have learned that these scam companies will create shill accounts and use them to award themselves jobs and to give themselves glowing positive feedbacks. Once this is done and they have invested anywhere from $500 to $1500 in themselves they'll start bidding on jobs. On eLancer we have found a company who appears to have actually invested $1300 in 4 bogus jobs and have harvested over $20,000 from unsuspecting buyers in just the last 4 months alone. You can see a detailed example of this scam here: http://cssaglobal.netshoppers.com This was our first venture into offshore freelancing. I won't be buying anything offshore again. The coin flip of getting a good programmer at a good price isn't worth the frustration. And the fact that these freelance sites are actually partnering with bad companies to get their cut of the booty is unsettling to us. I hope this helps save just few companied/people from making the mistake of trusting a freelance site without completely investigating them first. I hope this keeps just one other person from falling for this trap/scam.