Invitation link?

When jobs are added, the client is supposed to be able to mark the job as "invite only" so that only people invited can bid on it. This would solve your problem.

The feature used to be there when adding a job, but it was then taken off. I thought it was added again recently, but I can't see it now. Perhaps someone who's added such a job before could confirm whether the option is still where it used to be?

A couple of my recent clients have also made this comment, there seems to be no option to set the project as "Invite only" but I have seen one or two about, so the problem is that there is no obvious way to do so.

Here's the recent thread about it:
http://www.peopleperhour.com/forum/posting-a-job/1110

The synopsis is that the feature was removed deliberatly by PPH to "improve" the job posting process. DM said that people could contact PPH directly if they wanted to make the job invite-only. There followed lots of posts stating how this was a bad idea.. On 21 April, the feature came back by popular demand, followed by cheers from users congratulating PPH for doing this u-turn.

But now it seems the feature has gone again, as quickly as it went and came back the first time round!

Just my two cents: by the terms and conditions of the service contract which we enter into when a bid is accepted by a client, we are legally bound to invoice through PPH for at least a year after the initial contact between freelancer and client is made. We should at least be granted the right to do this exclusively ie by invite only, if desired.

Apparently, a client can place a 'private bid' through their client account. Give me a min and I will go and check mine and see if it is stil there....

It's not there! I couldn't find it for the last job I posted. When you click on 'post a job' via the client account the form is the same as when you post a job directly from the front page.....pppfftttt.....Not impressed....again.....

The client just told me that he has started looking at other programs than Virtuemart instead of going ahead and escrowing the deposit that we had agreed upon.

It is about a relatively small project (payment method integration for the Venezuela market), I actually do not mind, since I did not lose much money for this otherwise interesting lesson: Never bring any clients to PPH for the escrow service because in the end there may be nothing to escrow. Once bitten, twice shy!

It is otherwise funny how fast the long-term consequences of a short-sighted mentality ends up materializing. For example, yesterday, I got the following email:

My name is Daniel Koch. I came across your profile on an online directory and I would like to invite you to join our community of experts. twago is the European platform for online work ...
Of course, I do not need another e-market where I will just have to spend time declining invitations from bottom feeders who are allowed to bring their ridiculous "job offers"  -- freely and at no charge --  to the attention of the service providers, who in turn are supposed to spend at least one hour per day reading nonsense coming en provenance from what we can designate with authority to be a bunch of imbeciles.

PPH's policies favour too much and cater too much to the contradictory views of a client base which needs the services of people who can do something that they obviously cannot, but who are at the same time convinced that they can still outsmart them. The mentality that exudes from these policies will inevitably end up sinking PPH itself. You cannot beat the laws of nature.

double

It's gone again?!?! 

OMG.

I was outraged the first time, now I'm really, really unimpressed.

This client from Venezuela (137567) eventually started re-negotiating the price, after a mail thread in which we had already agreed to the price before coming to PPH, because another service provider made a cheaper bid. So, I retracted my bid and told him to go to hell. These guys sounded too much like Chavez anyway.

Of course, I have never had this problem with Dutch or French clients whom I send over here to escrow their budgets. It is clearly obvious, however, that I need to find another escrow service for English-language clients. It may soon become quite urgent because I have two other clients, from Mexico, waiting with similar requests. I may deal with these Mexico-based payment methods in June.

Does anybody know of a privacy-respectful escrow service?