Rentacoder.com makes it easy to contract coding help

Last week I did my first project at Rentacoder.com. I was at first a bit skeptical , mostly because I’ve never farmed out work to someone that I’ve never meet before. I was also a bit skeptical because, quit honestly, they have one of the worst designs and user interface of any website. Myspace might even have a little more going for them in the design department than rentacoder. Never-the-less, I gave them a try. I posted a project for converting a HTML/CSS site to either Joomla or Drupal CMS. After posting my project I received several bids, with varying prices and from varying countries. I ended up choosing a coder in Egypt that had excellent ratings. We corresponded a few times and agreed on price. I explained what I wanted an the Egyptian coder took over. This guy was excellent with English, communicated with me every step of the way and as a matter of fact, he went out of his way to make sure I was happy with the final product. The whole project took about a week and I was extremely happy. One of the cool features that Rentacoder has, that sites like ebay should copy, is a “blind” period for ratings:

• To protect you from a potential retalitory rating, your rating MAY NOT be immediately made visible to the public (including to the other party). This “blind period” works as follows:
• If this was a completed project:
  Your rating will not be made visible until the CODER has rated you as well. This allows both of you to rate the other party honestly, without fear of retalitory action. (If the CODER never posts a rating, then your rating will be automatically made public 2 weeks after the project is completed. If that happens, then the CODER will also forfeit their right to rate you on this project.)
• If this project went into arbitration:
  If you won an arbitration on this project, then your rating will be made public immediately. If you lost the arbitration, you may not rate the other party.
• Once the “blind period” expires and your rating is made public, it MAY NOT BE CHANGED. So please verify it is entirely accurate (below) before pressing “I confirm that all of the above is accurate”.

If you have a project that you need help with. I highly recommend trying out Rentacoder.com. If only Rentacoder would use their own service to contract some design help and UI help, they would be better off.