Need to roll out a PayPal like app with 300 bucks (fixed price) | Hacker News Reader

Need to roll out a PayPal like app with 300 bucks (fixed price)

odesk.com

I followed the link thinking of some kind of challenge, what can I actually ship for 300 USD? That idea actually triggered a lot of thinking in my mind. - What would I do with that money and just a few days.

Then saw that it was just a poorly redacted (3 lines) cheap job post.

This is neither new to me or out of ordinary. I've been using elance.com for a while and the bogus things I see amaze me to the point where I can't figure out whether the project posts are true or a joke. Which brings me to ask whether elance, odesk and the rest of these are the best grounds for finding contract work. There's just so much low quality noise on these sites

I don't think the noise matters. Just the signal.

There are a lot of impossible projects, on impossible budgets, for impossible clients on these sites. There are also projects that are cool in all three categories. You sometimes have to dig through three pages of results to find them, but is that so much different from finding work elsewhere?

I have done some work on odesk and other similar sites. The big problem for me is that almost none of them have real budgets and I live in the United States. Real meaning, money that will pay for people to live in the United States. While working for someone on odesk or vworker or something, at those times, I was barely able to pay my half of the rent.

We've had different experiences, then. I've done work through vworker -- now freelancer -- for the last couple years, and at no time have I had trouble getting work at my target rate.

Sure, I pass a lot of projects that can't afford my work on the way to the ones that can. It's only the ones you say 'yes' to that matter, though.

There was a similarly outrageous listing on Elance a few months back: 'A website like Amazon but better' for $750-1000

https://www.elance.com/j/website-like-amazon/37294947/

This guy is not even one of the really bad ones. He has a 4.74 star rating. Heh.

About the Client

OpenGTS with Android clients No feedback given

To contractor: Usman A. May 2011 - Feb 2013 Fixed Price: $15.00 PhoneGap developer 2 stars

To contractor: Goutom Roy No feedback given Sep 2011 - Feb 2013 Fixed Price: $150.00 Facebook App developer 5 stars Nice provider. Very co-operative. Would like to have future work.

To contractor: Sukesh R. will work again Jul 2011 - Aug 2011 28 hrs @ $7.78/hr Billed: $216.54 Multi-Level Marketing MLM software program 5 stars Would like to work with him again. Nice Buyer!

To contractor: Annadurai M. Well done , will work again !

May 2011 - Aug 2011 Fixed Price: $666.67 Integrate with Facebook and Foursquare API 5 stars Excellent experience with the client. Very co-operative and supportive in explaining the flow. Timely payments for all the work done. Would love to work again in future.

Making an app that opens the PayPal.com or Dwolla.com homepage shouldn't be that hard. /s

Not that unusual. People just don't know what things cost.

I find it even more tragic to see situations like this:

https://www.freelancer.com/projects/PHP-Android/LOOKING-FOR-...

Here's a fellow who wants to build something difficult. He knows he needs an expert. He is on no account willing to pay for one.

Reading between the lines, I always suspect things like this arise from having been burned in the past. Looking at the several bids (none of which follow his instructions), I suspect he's about to get burned again.

For $300 I could make a front-end to PayPal’s API, which is kind of like PayPal.

First of all, this isn't really surprising considering if you spend any time (more than 20 seconds) on any Freelance sites you'll see that people want something creating for a price that, the majority of people in here will consider ridiculous.

Anyway someone should just sell them: http://www.alstrasoft.com/epay_enterprise.htm

I'm surprised there are no bids yet. There's always someone willing to take these things on, impossible as they obviously are.

Planned Start Feb. 28 2013 Delivery Date March 31 2013

BECAUSE PAYPAL WAS MADE IN 1 MONTH BY 1 PERSON RIGHT ?

Hahhaha that's really hilarious.

Yeah, some other day this other guy wanted to build an "Amazon.com like app". I think it's becoming a trend in oDesk.

Not a new trend. At least 5 years ago, people were asking for full functioning clones of X where X is myspace, paypal, ebay, whatever.

Here's one for $200 the user wants a full-functioning subscription sports betting site: https://www.odesk.com/o/jobs/job/_~013f05764dbe28e7e8/

I wonder if any of these requests find a) any bidders b) get a functioning site at the end...

For some types of requests there might be existing scripts that someone will thinly disguise and flog to them.

Anotherstory like this one: http://www.webakery.asia/web-business-and-resources/

You could very easily get a paypal app built with a $300 budget. Of course, it wouldn't have any features, would be insecure, have a terrible design, etc.

"Security is highly concern."

Looking forward to his Joomla based Texas Poker app also :-/

Gigantic security breach in 3.. 2.. 1

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