Weird Proposals on Elance Jobs

[LaTamir]

I posted a job on Elance to got way more responses than I was expecting, but some of them are totally strange. Like, they didn't even read my job listing and their English is terrible! Obviously, I'm not going to hire them (there were a few decent bids that I'm following up on), but is it normal to get so many weird replies like this?

[Andrew]

Hahaha, yes! That is very common. Many of the service providers there simply reply to everything, like you guessed, without even reading the proposal or providing accurate estimate. It's dumb, but that's the way the game works. Thankfully, Elance makes it pretty easy to sort through the good/bad providers. Just be sure to look for someone with a long history of successful projects, a nice portfolio, and most of all, many positive ratings.

[LaTamir]

Okay, glad to know I'm not the only one seeing this It seems bizarre that people would even place a bid on something without looking at it, but ah well, I guess that's just how it goes...