Elance dispute management

[Keep a Movin' Dan]

I recently hired a professional over Elance for graphic design related to my muse, and I made the mistake of going for a low bidder without many reviews on Elance. The results were (1) ugly (2) didn't look like what I had described. I've worked with two other graphic designers so far, giving me somewhat of a bar to judge with, and this was way below that bar. The Elance FAQ explains that it is possible to get your escrow refunded for canceled jobs, but the designer does not want to give me a complete refund. What percent of the escrow is reasonable to expect to have refunded in this case? How do I go about handling it?

[kamakiri]

They did work, and you evidently were not clear enough. Logo work really is not that expensive, how much money are we talking about? A far more pro-active action is probably writing it off as a paid for learning experience and move on to the next step in your muse.

[webgal]

Well, anyone here wants a nice logo I do use a graphic designer that does a great job for $500-$600 depending on whether you want stationary and biz card. Usually three ideas, all pretty different. He does web graphics as well. I call on him most of the time.

[Live Free]

I used Elance for my Logo design (I paid $85) and 4 x banners + 2 x e-book covers for $90. It does not have to be expensive to be good. I used the same designer both times. I had to go back with a few revision requests, and the guy obviously had a poor grasp of English. However, by being persistent, I got what I needed.

In your case, I would recommend getting as much back as you can - minimum 50%. Sure, you could write it off as a learning experience, but if there is a chance to get cash back in your pocket instead of his - take it. Never write off money unless you absolutely have to! Regardless of how good your instructions are, sometimes you get people who just don't know what they are doing, and will always give a bad result. I would stick to providers with a good work history.

Another tip for getting cheap work - when writing your proposals, keep them as brief as possible (and then be specific as you can in PMB before awarding). I posted two jobs for the same thing. One, I included as much information as I could think of. Total bids = 35, average bids $445. The second, I was very brief, only the bare bones of the job = 25 bids, average $125.

[Marcie]

I had someone on elance take my deposit and do zero work, I had absolutely no luck getting them to help me get it back, even though I used the escrow service. They actually told me to use a collection agency. I'll be curious to see if you get any help.

[dnic24]

I like to use 99designs for any logo and graphics work i been. It is a contest where people submit thier work and you get to choose the winner. I have run many successful contests for less than 200 bucks

[elmer328]

I've used classicreappear on elance several times. I believe that's their dot com address too.

Jenny is great.

I can be a difficult person to work with on graphic design projects because I'm incredibly particular. They will usually do a logo for less than $75 with unlimited revisions....and believe me, I had to test the unlimited provision once with a very complicated project. :)