Another rant about Freelance Work Exchange

Back in May, I wrote a post about Freelance Work Exchange. The post is about one particular user's complaints about the service, but since posting I have read and heard several other people's issues with the company, ranging from the near-impossibility of canceling their accounts (and stopping the monthly automatic charge from going through) to the fact that most of the jobs found on their site can also be found elsewhere on the Internet - for free.

Today I have a complaint of my own: I'm sick of seeing their ads. If you look for writing jobs on Craigslist, you know the scenario:

Looking through the list of Craigslist jobs, you see one that looks particularly interesting. You click on it, and find that there is no email, only a URL. When you click on the URL, you are directed to yet another site - which turns out to be Freelance Work Exchange. What you thought was a legitamate job ad is actually nothing but an attempt to get you to spend your hard-earned dollars on what some might call a worthless subscription service!

Yesterday I replied to just such an ad - there was an anonymous Craigslist email address, so I clicked on it and sent my cover letter and resume, without first looking at the URL in the ad. (Yeah, I know - stupid.) Today I received a response back from a "J.H." The short email says simply that they found someone for the job already, and then "Here is the site we used..." And that's it. I followed the link and discovered, much to my horror, that the site led to Freelance Work Exchange.

I rather doubt that the people who posted the ad - and responded to my email - were really the employers. More likely they were the FWE folks themselves, using a job posting as a ploy to market their services. If you ask me, that's downright dishonest.

So I would like to make a request of all my readers: next time you are searching for writing jobs and you see one of FWE's fake job ads on Craigslist, PLEASE FLAG IT. Let's send the message that we are sick of following false leads, and that they are no longer welcome on Craigslist!