There are a million sordid tales in the wired city. This is one of them.
With the new tech bubble about to expand, I’ve recently had reason to revamp the ol’ résumé and begin looking at various job boards and other online job search tools. While I wish I had better news to report, here’s the basic lowdown: these online tools are still far behind the technology curve. However, that review will have to wait for another day. Today I need to expose the fraudulent practices of one SoloGig.com.
SoloGig bills itself as an online repository of tech jobs for the freelance technology professional, but it is actually an insidious way of getting your hard earned cash out of your wallet and into SoloGig’s pocket. First off, who’s behind SoloGig.com? Well, believe it or not, it’s non other than CareerBuilder.com. My local paper uses CareerBuilder as its sole online source for displaying job-related classifieds, and I have been very pleased with CareerBuilder’s content and services. But free is only nice if it actually delivers, and CareerBuilder has seemed to do that for me. Imagine, then, my surprise as I find out that they’re the ones foisting SoloGig's fraud upon unsuspecting tech pros.
I was looking for some solo gigs and therefore thought SoloGig.com would be a great fit. I signed up and paid for the premium service—yes, paid cold, hard cash. While no one can promise you job listings down the street, or even in your own hometown, I expected to find something in the greater Southern Puget Sound region, and was sorely disappointed. Instead, what I noted was that few, if any, of the listings on SoloGig were actually freelance or contract jobs. Most were retreads of online jobs I’d seen elsewhere, and most of these were pretty old to boot. But as I took a look at these listings, and asked the engine to sort them by their posting date, I noted another anomaly: postings were supposedly taking place mere tenths of a second apart. This was true not just of one or two individual postings, but entire web pages full of listings. How was it possible that job listings I’d seen over a week or two ago elsewhere were supposedly fresh leads posted mere moments before on SoloGig? My contention, and one that was never denied in my correspondence with SoloGig.com, was that someone (or more properly a SQL script of some kind) was freshening the listings to make it look like SoloGig had all kinds of new postings.
Because SoloGig is owned by CareerBuilder, I found it odd that they would lag so far behind them in re-posting this data if they were simply sharing it. I decided it was time to Google SoloGig and see what complaints were out there (something I should have done in the beginning). Lo and behold, others had noticed similar issues, and most reported problems with billing and refunds. Well, eventually I had had enough of my time with SoloGig and asked for a refund. I was ready to duke it out with the billing department, but, to my great relief, my refund was posted within 24-hours of receiving my cancellation notice.
While I never expected SoloGig to be responsible for getting me a job, I did expect them to be honest with their data--especially when you pay them to do so.
Though my tale ends somewhat happily (after all I didn't lose my money), it is still a cautionary tale in the murky ways of the web.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Originally published on my tech blog in 2005, this continues to be the most popular rant I've written to date and continues to garner comments. In starting this new blog I thought it appropriate to begin with something successful from the past.
Posted via web from Will Rant For Food
