Important alert: Jan 27, 2012 1:22:08 PM EDT.

Dismiss this alert

We have rolled out another round of enhancements and bug fixes, including: changes to the posting policy, enhancements for on-the-job trials (crowdsouring/trialsourcing) and to the project pages, updates to Skrill payment information and the browse/search worker pages, and various other bug fixes. View the Site Improvements Blog for the complete list of changes. UPDATE January 20th on phishing scam: We've received new reports of a second phishing email (claiming to be a prize from vWorker and Julia Robertson). Click here for full information. We have published another story in our case study series, provided by employer Marco-Hans Van Der Willik (Zoe-X). Click here to read about his story.

Contact information in bids

     The site provides Employers and Workers contact with the other party in 2 ways.  First there is a site bidding system, which allows both parties to post responses back and forth.  The system automatically emails the other party each time a new bid/comment is placed, and also notifies them in their 'to do' list.  Second, there is a chat room that is on each project that allows real-time communication. 

     To protect our fee, direct contact information is not allowed to be posted in any bid before funds are escrowed and doing so violates both the employer and worker agreements.   As we routinely monitor all bids, such activity can result in immediate dismissal. 

     However, once funds are escrowed, this rule of course, no longer applies.   After successful escrowing, we actually release the email addresses of both parties to each other.  You can then decide on your own, whether you wish to share additional contact information with the other party or not.  Please note, that we still highly recommend that you continue to communicate through the site bidding system as it documents the project and protects you in case a dispute should arise.

    However, on larger projects, sometimes more direct communication (such as phone, IM, etc.) is useful even before the funds are escrowed.  To do this, the worker simply fills out the contact information they wish to release to the employer in the 'my alerts/info release' section of their account and the information is automatically released to the employer.  Please note, that contact information is still never allowed on any bid.  The "information release" system does it automatically...making contact information unnecessary.

    Here is how it works:

1)The worker fills out the contact information that they wish to release to potential employers under the 'my alerts/info release' section of their account:



2) When they place a bid on a project that allows contact (projects in either the "medium business project-$500+" category or the "large business project-$5000+" category), the employer will see an extra link that does not normally appear:

3) Using this link, the employer can then obtain the information that the worker has chosen to release.  Below  is the page that the link goes to.