Guru: Questionable Site for Finding Gig Work

What is Guru?

Guru is theoretically a broad-based job site that can help you find work in a wide array of fields. However, the site charges freelancers for access to job postings that many freelancers maintain are bogus. And even clients aren’t wild about the site.

How it works

Freelancers can register on the site for free. You post a profile, saying what you do and, possibly creating a job offer much like you would on Fiverr.

Once you have a profile on the site, you also search for jobs. But, once again, the bulk of the jobs you can apply for appear to be listed by customers located in Nigeria, Singapore, India and the Philippines. Job descriptions are vague.

And any job that looks mildly promising has multiple applicants — mostly from Malaysia, Morocco, India and Pakistan.

Guru freelancer review:

There are some attractive-sounding jobs listed. However, they don’t allow run-of-the-mill freelancers to apply. Moreover, competing freelance platform Fiverr gets about 50 times the web traffic of Guru.

And the vast majority of Guru’s site visits come from India, Pakistan and other third-world countries that have considerably lower wages for all workers, not just freelancers.

Commissions and fees

Another frustration for freelancers is that you often can’t apply to jobs without paying a fee. Certain jobs are only available to “clients with a verified payment method on file.” If you want to apply to those jobs, you need to pay a membership fee. (You also need to pay a membership fee to bid on more than 10 jobs per month.)

Membership fees range from $12 a month to $50 a month. The site will also ask you to pay $5 to verify your identity before you apply to most positions.

If you get a job here, you’ll also pay a commission to the site ranging from 9% (for free and basic + accounts) to 5% for the “executive” level accounts that cost $50 a month.

Legit work?

However, the inability to apply for the “payment method on file” jobs makes you wonder about the other jobs that you can apply to for free. Are the jobs advertised by employers without a payment method on file even legitimate?

Maybe not. Workers say that they regularly get ripped off, doing work for employers who disappear when it’s complete. They say the site does little to prevent this fraud.

Equal lack of opportunity

It’s worth noting that employers say they get ripped off on this platform too. Employers say that scam workers pretend they’ll do a job, get an upfront payment, and then disappear.

Guru’s own terms explain that you should use the site’s “SafePay” option. But that system doesn’t appear to be all that safe either.

Recommendations

This site appears to be rife with con artists. We don’t recommend this site for anyone. If you want to sign up with Guru anyway, you can find the site here.

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

What their workers say: (from SiteJabber)

Hundreds of dollars wasted on fake jobs copied from other freelancers/websites. When a scammer gets blocked here, they just create a new account and do it again. No support or measures in place to protect freelancers or employers. Scammy sad place

This company is a complete fraud. It knows it has contractors that are ripping off buyers and it does nothing to stop it. I had a contract that was contingent on the totality of the work being finished. I asked Guru.com to look at the contract. They ignored me completely when I asked them about them upholding the contract. Guru.com did not do anything whatsoever to correct the issue with the scam contractor and that contractor, Cui Wen Lan, still remains on the site after having stolen over $2,000 from me and delivering nothing.

Full of scammers

The site is full of scammers. Most of them want from you to pay them some fee before project that will be “refunded” to you later. Please… pure scam.

I was scammed out of $600 by someone on Guru. When I reached out to Guru representatives, they said there was nothing they could do to help me, so I just had to move on with my life and deal with the loss.

Work, no pay

I wrote 50+ articles for a client, and when it was time for my weekly payment I never received it. 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. 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.

Not trustworthy

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. However, when pay time came, she had plenty of excuses until one day she went offline in Skype! And I saw my works posted online.

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?

An Employer’s view:

“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!

Updated 2/6/2023