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Sunday, June 11, 2006

Freelance 'Bot Exchange? 

Aaaaahhhh the dream work-at-home job. All I have to do is find you. Thankfully there's a service that will find me all the work I need. Unfortunately the work seems to be digging myself out from under all the hype.

After signing up for Freelance Work Exchange (FWE) I was automatically put on a newsletter subscription. I'm careful about looking for those things and opting out so I'm pretty sure FWE didn't ask me.

The newsletter pitches me for something I've already signed up for by offering me "tips" like sign up for our service OOOORRRRR sign up for our service. FWE doesn't even bother to think up real freelancer tips. Pretty sad.

When I reply to the newsletter to ask why I'm being pitched on a service I'm already trialling the auto-responder bounces back with a message that greets me with "Hi Fellow Freelancer."

"Hi Fellow Freelancer." From a bot.

You'll have to go a long way to convince me that;

a) I'm a bot

b) the bot's a freelancer

c) the people that work at FWE are either bots _or_ freelancers.

I imagine there's one human in there somewhere.

I gave FWE US$3 to try the service for a week. There were a few current writing gigs that I applied for to give it an honest effort.

My expectations are very low.

I actually expect to hear nothing from the employers and get mailbombed by the cousin of my fellow freelancer, the FWE collections bot when I try to cancel without paying at least one month's fee. Stayed tuned and/or add your FWE to the comments section.

--PB--


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