What: Guru helps find work for a wide array of professional freelance positions, from architechts to writers, but getting paid is another story,

Expected pay: varies

Husl$core: $$

Commissions & fees:  9% of wages, plus membership fees.

Where: Nationwide (worldwide)

Requirements: vary by job

Review:

Guru gets a low SideHusl rating for two compelling reasons: The site charges workers to use it at anything other than a basic level. And both employers and employees say that they regularly get ripped off.

Employers say that scam workers pretend they’ll do a job, get an upfront payment and then disappear. Workers say they do huge jobs and don’t get paid and that the site does little to prevent it.

Guru’s own terms explain that you should use the site’s “SafePay” option, but changes to that system appear to make payments less safe…so that’s a problem. Meanwhile, to “bid” on more than a 10 projects per month requires a membership fee. 

Better broad-based job sites to consider: Upwork, Belay or Remote.

What their workers say: (These reviews from SiteJabber)

“I wrote 50+ articles for a client, and when it was time for my weekly payment I never received it. The client was Joan Kimberly with Skype name: Joan.Kimberly4 from Sarasota United States. I’m never going to be using Guru.com ever again. Highly unreliable and unsafe.”

“Many clients take work without paying for it and Guru.com does NOT help at all. I am a professional writer and technical consultant and feel a responsibility to warn others about the site.””I wrote a 42,000 word book for a client, Rebecca Farlene on guru.com. She took my work without paying and the site was less than helpful. Do not waste your time or effort on Guru.com. Besides facilitating theft of intellectual property, they are rude and disgraceful.”

“Johnson 51 is his guru.com name (as employer) then with skype id as: wyatt.collett1he is a total scammer. made me write so many articles and when it’s payday time, did not bother to respond anymore. his job post is titled as “advanced writer needed” and he had many postings about it. be very wary with these kind of people!”

“Never ever trust this site especially if you are looking for a freelance job. I worked for this person named “Precious Hudson” with skype details: precious.hudson62 who I can say is a TOTAL SCAMMER. Made me write around 100 articles and promised to pay me a good sum of 3$ per article. Seemed legit at first since she offered plenty of tasks after the other. However, when pay time came, she had plenty of excuses until one day she went offline in Skype! So disappointing! And I saw my works posted online. If you happen to be employed to this person, never ever trust her! The same goes for those who only have Skype as a means of communicating with spammer employees trying to rip you off from all your efforts!”

“After reading all the reviews on this site (SiteJabber), including the most recent one by Andrew which definitely sounds like a planted review, I have to concur with others that this site is pretty much full of scammers and fake jobs. If you do find a decent paying job, chances are the posting will be deleted within a day or two after it’s listed. Their fees are high, not low – 8.95% of the project cost. Most of the postings aren’t worth bidding on. Asking for expert writers with top notch skills and the offer of $4-5 per hour? It’s gone downhill in other ways too since they changed their format, such as the algorithms that you can’t change for employers to find you. For example, the main algorithm they set for me is writing articles. There’s absolutely nothing on my profile that says I write articles! Nothing! It’s really annoying because content warehouses invite you to apply for their jobs of writing 25 to 25,000 articles paying a dollar or two for each one! Lol! Guru is now basically a site for people that live outside of the States who will work for next to nothing, or scam artists around the globe. So many good freelancers have left, and I’m another one. Don’t go into these jobs blindly. Ask for good faith money upfront. To the employers who posted bad reviews about freelancers, practice due diligence. Ask to see a LinkedIn or other professional profile. Call them up…talk to them. I always gave my phone number out along with proof of my editing/ writing by providing a list of works on Amazon and other sites that list my name as editor. Stay smart.Posting this to warn other freelancers to stay clear of Guru. It used to be a good site years ago. Not anymore.

And an Employer review from SiteJabber: 

“Tried two separate $1000+ jobs. I am very experienced project manager of this kind of work and needed an extension to my team. Both “gurus” failed to deliver as agreed and long, long after promised. However, both Gurus had 5-star ratings! How can this be? It turns out Gurus can delete their negative feedback for money. Ugh. The final failed project resulted in a refund, thankfully. However, adding insult to injury, Guru kept a $30 “transfer fee” for allowing me to withdraw my refund money. Thanks Guru!

And this from Guru.com’s own website:

“I’m ready to throw in the towel with Guru. Your website changes have made everything so user-unfriendly and complicated. How do I even create a Safe Pay request? I can’t find information anywhere. To complicate matters even more, this was a job that was originally awarded to someone else and now, since the work was unsatisfactory, he’d like me to take it over. Please advise immediately. Quite honestly, I do feel that Guru has absolutely no interest in seeing that freelancers get paid.”

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