Of course, it is worth mentioning that, like there are bad clients, there are even worse freelancers in the market. From the scammer, to the “i won’t do it today”guy that delays job from day to day, there’s no bottom in the sea of bad freelancers. We’ll enlist the bad ones so you know when to refuse a freelancer that might turn out to be bad for what you want.

1 – Jack of all trades, Expert in None Freelancer

I myself know some in all the areas of computing, a little bit of each, but i have ones that i really am an expert in , and i never ever keep from a client what i am not that experienced in. Give you an example right away:

I am very good in:

• Web Development (SEO, PHP, MySQL, HTML5, JavaScript, Ajax, HTML5, Twitter Bootstrap)
• Database Administration (only MySQL and Sqlite)
• Article writing (Tech-related areas and Informative)
• Linux Server Administration

I am average in:

• Web Design (anything except CSS3 animations)
• Content Management, Layout Design
• UX Design
• Online Marketing (i don’t like people that much)
• C and C++ Programming

When you hear a freelancer, that he is an expert in all areas, this is a bad sign (he might actually be average, or very bad in all of them). If you have some easy jobs to do in different areas, sure, you can hire this guy, but if you need, say an expert in Ruby on Rails, and his portofolio shows a majority of, say, Backbone.JS, you can’t take his word 100% that he can finish the job without problems related either to security or application bugs. Especially if it’s a hourly job you don’t want to pay the hours he is documenting himself on a subject that you already agreed he is an expert in. There are many more out there that can work at the same or even lower price with much better quality work.

2 – The Let’s do it tomorrow Freelancer

You know that guy. “Hey man, i’m really tired today, let’s move X to (insert date that is not today here)” The problem with this guy is, he is too lazy, and unmotivated to get the job, or has other clients that are down his priority list. Ditch this guy because he’ll create you problems in the long run. Most of the times, he won’t provide finalized work on time.

3 – The 50 cent a hour Freelancer

This guy is the cheapest bid that you can find out there. The problem is, he is neither skilled, and if he is skilled, he will probably provide bad work anyways. You can’t expect to hire someone that bids as low as 2$ to come up with awesomely designed, secure, and non-buggy well-tested websites or web applications. Simply look for another contractor that will provide much better work for 5-10 dollars more than the low-wage freelancers price. Most of these cheap ones come from third world countries, such as Kenya, India, or any other developing country.

4 – The Flat Out Scammer

These are the sketchy dealers of the Internet. They promise a lot but either bail out at 10% of the project, provide some superficial results (such as a few HTML pages with no functionality, or an article with 200 original words and garbage at rest), or plain simple do no work. One of the first signs to watch out are:

• Asks for upfront payment with no references (such as testimonials, or a portofolio)
• No reference or 2-3 to his past work with bad reviews
• Almost all of the reviews are hidden
• Clients always leaving few stars

Here we suggest you to trust your gut and simply don’t leave place for these kinds of freelancers.