Custom Software Buyer Agreement

Software Coder Frequently Asked Questions:

1) I want to get paid for my programming skills. How does “Rent a Coder” help me?

Rent a Coder allows you to cash in on your areas of expertise. It automatically notifies you of new programs and questions in your areas of interest and expertise. You can then bid on the ones you are interested in.

After the customer accepts your bid, you create the program or answer the question. When you’re finished, you are awarded the bid amount.

2) What does this service cost?

Rent a Coder charges coders a Rent a Coder Fee of 15% of the final bid for securing the work/question (minimum $3). (note: the Rent a Coder Fee is reduced for one-on-one auctions as well as direct payment auction. See the Rent a Coder Fee comission schedule for complete discount details.)

As an example: if your bid of $100 is accepted by a buyer in an open auction, you will receive $85 after completing the work:

Accepted bid price:	$100
Rent a Coder 15% Rent a Coder Fee	- $15
	-----------
Your Profit	$85

The Rent A Coder Rent a Coder Fee and your end profit are conveniently calculated and displayed for you whenever you confirm a bid.

3) How and when do I get paid?

After the buyer accepts your bid, his or her money is held in an escrow account. After you deliver the product and they acknowledge that they received everything, you will be credited with the escrow amount minus the Rent a Coder finders fee. All credits accumulate in your account until the credit cutoff date of your choosing arrives (either the middle of the month, the end of the month or both). We then pay you that total on or before the following 7th day. (Note that you can also choose to not be paid, until your account goes above some amount that you specify). You can choose to have payments sent to you via a number of methods. Please see the Payment Options Matrix in your Seller agreement for full details on the different payment methods.

4) How are buyer and seller disputes handled?

Most transactions are completed harmoniously, but every now and then a buyer and coder cannot come to an agreement. If this happens to you then you can simply request one of the Rent A Coder arbitrators place the bid request into 'arbitration' to determine if the contract was met or not. During a court-like process, the arbitrator follows the rules of arbitration to determine what has and has not been delivered, and may even test the final code to verify a buyer's bug list. (For complete details, see the complete rules of arbitration in either the buyer or seller legal agreements). To ensure fairness, all parties have already agreed in advance to abide by the Rent a Coder settlement.

5) How can I promote myself to make customers more likely to accept my bids?

You can do this via your registration profile. Here are some typical things you can do to get more bid acceptances:

1) resume

2) a sample of your portfolio

3) a company logo

4) a personal photograph

5) a list of your areas of expertise and certifications.

6) What protections are there for coders?

     Rent a Coder has a number of features to protect your safety.

   First, you can instantly check the reputation of any customer who is posting a project. You can review their ratings (from 1 to 10), read the feedback that previous programmers have left about them, as well as learn other things about them, such as their 'non-action' ratio (i.e the # of times they didn't choose a coder on the site), and other important statistics. Read this carefully before deciding whether or not to make a bid.

    Second, by the time you begin work, each customer has already pre-paid the bill for the bid request and Rent A Coder is already holding it in escrow. This means that you don't have to worry about getting 'stiffed'! If you complete the work as specified, you can be confident of being paid.

    Third, should you ever get into a dispute over what has been delivered with the Buyer, you can enlist the help of a 3rd party. Just place the bid into arbitration with a Rent a Coder arbitrator. They will determine what has actually been delivered (or not) and the Buyer (and yourself) has already pre-agreed to abide by their decision.

7) How is my financial and personal information kept safe?

   All sensitive information is protected via the highest level of SSL encryption (128 bit) to prevent it from being intercepted by unauthorized parties. Once the information arrives at our data center, it is password-protected in a datastore. The data store is additionally fortified by an ICSA Certified firewall that blocks out instrusion attempts. Additionally, we subscribe to vendor security notification lists, and install new vendor patches as promptly as possible...most often with 24 hours. Finally, 3rd party security experts go through all of our system on a routine basis looking for holes, and anything they find is promptly sealed and documented.

8) Can non-US users use PayPal?

Yes, Pay Pal works in a number of non-US countries. For a complete list, as well as information on opening up an international account, see the Pay Pal international account info page. Please note that Pay Pal will charge a money conversion fee to convert the funds from US to your local currency.

9) I don't understand how I communicate with the buyer and/or get clarification on the specs?

   To communicate with the buyer or ask questions, simply post a comment on the bid request (a bid with a comment and no bid amount). The buyer will be emailed a link toyour posting and if he or she responds, you will receive an email of their response as well. It can then continue for as long as the two of you need to communicate.

10) Can you give me a summary of what the 'Coder Deposit Guarantee' is?

   The Coder Deposit Guarantee solves 2 sticky issues for both Buyers and Coders. How does a Buyer make sure that a coder is going to complete their project? How does a Coder set themselves above the crowd of other bidders and prove to a Buyer that they are worthy of serious attention? The "Coder Deposit Guarantee" solves both of these problems and takes the buying and selling of software to a new level.

    It works like this: When the buyer accepts the coder's bid, the coder deposits a certain amount of money to guarantee completion (the exact amount is negotiated between Buyer and Coder). If the Coder completes the project as promised, they receive the deposit back. If the Coder does not complete the project, then they forfeit the deposit (or a pro-rated percentage of it...if only a percentage of work is completed).

    To protect a Coder from a Buyer who unfairly witholds approval of fully completed work, the bid request can be placed into legally binding arbitration (like all projects), where an arbitrator from Rent a Coder will determine if it truly was delivered as promised or not.

    To further prevent an unscrupulous Buyer from abusing this feature, the forfeited deposit is NOT paid out to the Buyer. Instead it goes to:

Offsetting the Buyer's cancellation charge (if any).
(See the Buyer Legal Agreement for information on when a cancellation charge might apply.)

100% of the remainder is donated to charity.

Please understand all aspects of the Coder Deposit so you can best use it to your advantage. Links to frequently asked questions and the detailed legal agreements are below:

Frequently Asked Questions:	Buyer \| Coder
Legal Agreement:	Buyer \| Coder

11) How do I pay for a 'Coder Deposit'?

   You can pay for a 'Coder Deposit' via any of the normal site payment methods (which are currently via credit card, PayPal or a check mailed via postal mail). Additionally you can also use the funds in your coder account from other jobs to pay for a 'Coder Deposit'.

12) What happens if a bid for a 'Coder Deposit' but something happens before the Buyer accepts my bid and I can no longer do it?

   You will receive an email and will have the option to 'back-out' of the bid request.

13) I'm getting a warning about my Internet Explorer browser being old and possibly buggy. What is this all about?

   You are running an old internet browser (Internet Explorer v5.x) that Microsoft has found a number of bugs in. These bugs will not only cause problems for you on some of the advanced features of Rent A Coder (like posting bids and attachments), but also exposes you to security risks on all sites on the Internet.

      Microsoft provides new and upgraded versions of its software for no charge via download from the Internet, or via CD for a nominal charge. You are highly recommended to take advantage of all the latest bug fixes and security advances by downloading the free newest version of Internet Explorer. To learn more click here.

14) Is contact information allowed in bids? How about in projects > $500?

   To protect our fee, contact information is never allowed in any bid, no matter what the project amount. However, to facilitate the requirements gathering stage of larger projects, the site "Information Release" system allows you to release information to buyer without having to post your contact information in the bid. For complete information click here.

15) Can you give me more advice?

Yes. Check out these additional articles for coders...