RentACoder Losing Street Cred?

Itninja writes, "Having used RAC several times in the past (as a buyer), I was shocked by a recent experience. I did a bit of looking around to see if I was the only one having problems with Rent-A-Coder. Apparently, I'm not." From the article: "This unfairness of RAC fees motivates the majority of coders to negotiate payment outside the scope of RAC which amounts to you and coder getting a better deal. For example, I have several coders that I fully trust willing to work on projects on a monthly basis because it is easier for him to deal with established clients than to have to bid for projects all the time. It saves me time and trouble because I can work with a person that I trust and he knows what is expected." A comment to this posting links a discussion of RAC at Google Groups, and there the service has its defenders. What has your experience of RAC been, either as a buyer or as a coder?

Comments

Re:Which begs the question

[TigerNut]

From the coders' perspective they would be better served if they could submit sealed bids (or at least, if the bids or statistics were only visible to the organization that posted the job). In that way you wouldn't get people going "$500? I can do that for $400" and progressively undercutting each other right out of existence.