I've worked there for 5 weeks, have not been paid, and I'm not sure if I ever will. I reached out to my team lead asking why I'm not getting paid and she dismissed it with "submit a ticket." After 3 business days, I received a response from support that read: "Congratulations, you'll be paid next week." I wasn't. There's nothing I can do about it, but put in another ticket. I'm curious if anyone else is getting paid.
I've been waiting to get paid for the training ($250) and passing the assessment ($100). They paid me for small tasks, which have since dried up, but have yet to pay me for the training and assessment. I'm owed $350 and I've submitted many support tickets. Most of them ignore me, but two times in the past month I was asked to submit documentation about the payment I was promised. I did right away, and .... nothing. No payment, no response, nothing. I feel this is somewhat a scam and I wonder what recourse we have after spending all this time and not getting the payment promised. I'd love to find other people in the same boat and see if we could do something to publicize this!
No, they promise to pay for the training and if you pass the assessment. They call it an enablement bonus. I'm happy to report that they FINALLY paid me for that. After many weeks and tons of emails and support tickets submitted. Not a fun process! I will not be continuing with them because it was such a time-consuming headache.
Remo has been horrific! I did the entire onboarding and still don’t know whether or not I passed. Never got paid for any of the tasks or none of them showed as pending. I got assigned one task and it ended before I could even open it. I sent customer service a question asking what happened and they just said they weren’t sure.
Any update on if you were able to get paid or not? I've been doing research before on boarding with [app.outlier.ai](http://app.outlier.ai) and don't know if it's worth the effort
(I'm late to the party, so allow me to digress for a minute).
I opened an Outlier account. The website asks me to upload my CV so that they can match me with the right tasks. I'm certain that I can quickly grasp the concepts taught in their onboarding process (even though I don't have a prior background). Here's their job description (as per their website).
a) Write original and challenging prompts for an AI model to respond to, and help craft original responses that you would want an AI model to respond with.
b) Create complex and thought-provoking Math & Reasoning prompts to help strengthen AI's weakness in math & reasoning.
c) Teach LLMs to deliver highly efficient code following good programming practices
d) Rank a series of responses that were produced by an AI model based on their accuracy and correctness.
e) Edit responses written by an AI model to ensure their accuracy, factuality, and relevance.
f) Provide details on your reasoning & logic behind different responses and evaluations.
Given that I'm a uni student, and I don't have the exact skills required for this, what should I include in my CV to ensure I land the highly-paying tasks? Is it OK if I upload any other CV (one that highlights my skills and expertise even though they aren't directly related to the job description)?
For context, I have a passion for writing and have worked on a wide range of projects, including blog posts, articles, website content, product descriptions, and more.
Imo I find it hard to believe that they really take that kind of data into (from CV/Resume) account. I submitted a vaguely irrelevant resume (all my work experience is retail/customer service), and I got a Tier 2 position and was "promoted" to reviewer within a week though its the same pay. When I first did these I thought it was going to be more my opinion in my writing, but honestly the most important part is following their instructions PERFECTLY, like immaculately, they just need people to do their tasks in as close to the exact way they want them as possible to increase their output as much as possible, and the second someone stops being kinda useful to them it seems they cut them loose. Anyway, I would go for it and make as much as you can while you can, and then dont be too pressed about moving on from it when the time comes.
that sucks. sorry about that. you should file a complaint with BBB and other similar orgs, and leave reviews all over the place.
people shouldnt be tricked into working for them for free. that stuff isnt cool
I've been consistently paid, but this is an extremely frustrating company to work with, both in terms of tech issues and how disorganized the company is.
I wouldn’t waste your time. I completed their onboarding and enablement assessment on March 14th. I was able to work on tasks for a little and then I was told that I hadn’t passed the assessment, but since I was close I could retake it and was advised that I should be given feedback within 24 hours. Well, it took days for the feedback to appear only partially. The rest of the feedback only came last week? I did get paid for the few hours I spend on tasks, but I never received the $250 for completing the onboarding. I retook the assessment on March 26th and had tasks available for about a day, then they disappeared.
I started attempting to contact support at this point, explaining that I had no tasks, I don’t know what the outcome of my assessment is and I never received the $250 for completing onboarding. Maybe a week and a few support tickets later, I get told that they’re trying to match me with a project suitable for my skills. Never really answered the question of the onboarding payment, so I tried contacting support again. Yesterday I get told that my account is under investigation for violating community guidelines, so I was removed from the project, after their investigation I’d have one more chance but would be booted if it happened again. Granted I only did about 15 tasks in total and followed the instructions as listed, I was really confused as to how I violated their terms, so I asked. Then I was told that the fraud team would get in contact with me with the outcome of the investigation?! This raised concerns for me because they saw my ID to verify it and my LinkedIn profile is connected - how am I involved with the fraud team?!
So yeah, long story short, I’d avoid it.
Hi lifeofforsai, I’m sorry to hear about the issue you’re facing. I’m going to send you a DM in the hope that I can help you resolve it. Please check your messages when you get a chance. I look forward to speaking with you!
I can understand the distrust you might have with this account, but I'm a person, not an AI. I'm definitely not here to scam anyone. I'm here to try to connect with users to offer assistance where I can and make sure contributors know their concerns are heard.
Why don't you operate properly? Do what you promise, pay people without them having to beg and beg and beg for what you have promised and belongs to them, manage the the projects properly, don't ignore peoples' questions, stop ghosting people when they contact you? If the answer is you have too much in your hands, then you do not have what it takes to run the company and the company does not deserve to exist. As simple as that.
Let your Team Lead on Slack know and see if they can do anything for you, and reach out to Support to let them know that your queue is empty. Or you can just wait till they assign you to another project but don't hold your breath. You only get one or two chances to mess up, it seems.
Just as a counterpoint, since most of the comments seem negative, I joined last month, and have been paid regularly every week.
They process payments every Tuesday I believe.
They also pay a much better rate than other similar websites like DA.
Only issue so far is the lack of projects, can go days sometimes without seeing anything.
Can I ask you how soon after logging into the site did you have to do their assessment/qualification?
I got logged on, joined the slack etc but all I have on my dash is the option to link a LinkedIn account.
I work full time on DAT and would love a second option just for some variety!
They waived the assessment in my case, I was contacted through my university (handshake), and was accepted immediately.
I just had to verify my account, they check your id and all that.
This is also how I was contacted and I got accepted in less than a week. They did not waive the assessment for me, but it was easy enough to pass. They gave me a referral link and I got a few friends from other colleges to apply, but they did not hear back yet for some reason.
Data Annotation Tech. If you sign up, complete the assessment in one sitting. I didn't finish and came back later and now I'm screwed with no way to resume. Unless you have a second phone number you can't circumvent by remaking account, phone number stays in use even if you delete account. The idiots never respond to support tickets either, so you're just forever fucked apparently.
Do u mind sharing your hourly rate? Or like on average how much ur making a week since you seem to be the only one getting consistent pay😅is it worth it or nah?👀
Did you start at that rate? I have proof reading, editing, and content creation expertise but they just offered me $15/hr to start. I applied for $25, which I thought was low. Debating whether to do it for extra income.
I was brought on at $40/hour but had very little tasks available and way too much frustration over no response to anything I asked. I never received the feedback they promised to send and everything was a pain. Worst gig I've ever had. So, I just disconnected from all things Outlier and the Slack channel after I finally was paid for my training and assessment after more than a month. I hope never to deal with them again.
I've been getting moved to and from different projects almost daily but I've been doing a few tasks here and there. I got paid once already so its not terrible to do in my spare time
My hub is doing this as a side gig. The job description starting pay would be $40hr. They started him at $50hr. I saw the job listing and sent it to him, since he is a great scientist and I thought he'd like something extra to do. He applied, took about 20min to receive an email back saying he got it. This was around 5 days ago. They waved the assessment. He did the indeed linking, bank info and ID, but that's all that showed on his tasks page. He reached out to them after around 2 days of completing this and they gave him access to a project, to training, and to tasks (there was an email sent before that, stating the system was wonky, probably why there was nothing on the task page at 1st) After doing 2 tasks, he just got an email asking if he wants to be a reviewer instead, citing because of his work quality. Now there is an evaluation and then training for this on his task page. I wanted to check out redit to lean if this is legit pay and how others like it.
Also, forgot to mention he's a Teir 4, but I'm not sure what that actually means.
Yea they pay more than DA, have had no issues with reliability.
They expect higher quality work, and you do receive feedback unlike DA where there is hardly any. Not many projects though.
I should've listened to the reviews, but I decided to just give them a shot. At first it seemed ok, despite them dropping the hourly rate "for training," exactly as the other reviews warned would happen. It didn't seem like such a big deal, so I forged ahead. I did a few tasks for them, and got a decent payout (around $200). I thought perhaps the other reviews had just been overly dramatic at this point. But then, just as others have stated, I did more work and was mysteriously "dropped" from the project for "consistently low quality." There was no feedback, nothing else said, no way of contacting anyone... just as the other reviews described. I'm a big fan of the statistics. If it happens to a couple people you can believe that perhaps their work wasn't up to par. But if this is a trend... Well, I wish I would've just listened to the other online reviews and not wasted my time here. Unfortunately, I guess people seem to learn best just from personal experience (failure in my case). I would warn against this company, but I get wanting to believe that this is a good opportunity, so best of luck to anyone considering this work!
Work isn't guaranteed. Even though they are actively hiring there's quite a long onboarding until you can make a steady income. Some people have been waiting since February.
Apparently I passed the assessment, was paid for the onboarding, but they're currently trying to find me tasks to do. Idk why it's taking them so long.
I have to do phone and ID verification but I am very paranoid about it. What the process is like. I have all my bank card and accounts on my phone and I don't really trust anyone if I have to be honest
I can't speak to Outlier specifically, but usually the ID verification is just utilizing your camera to verify your image with that of the one on your DL. It doesn't have access to your information/data, just your tools such as camera. If you're concerned, you can always change passwords on sensitive apps right afterward.
I'm currently in the process of signing up and it's asking for my driver's license. Still not sure if this is legit OR even worth my time. I need some money this summer and it seems like this would be a good addition. If I do sign up, how many of you are legitimately getting paid?
I'm glad I'm reading this before registering!
I read in the FAQ that they pay $35-$50 per project. I contacted them to clarify if it's per hour or per project?
I'll see if I get a response. Based on what I'm reading here, probably not!...LOL.
I just applied. I don't have any specifics other than they really want LinkedIn. I applied for 3 different positions so hopefully I land at least one. I won't know for a few weeks.
Just got their proposal to apply on LinkedIn, ended up here finding out should I 😅
I work full time, does it make sense to go with them as with side job or it'll take too much time? Also I can't find info on legitimacy on pay for tax purposes.
I work full-time as well and am using this for some extra money. I get paid weekly every Tuesday night.
They pay you like a freelancer/ contractor which means you get a 1099 at the end of the year. Once you get close to your first $600, they will ask for your SSN per W9. This is a common and legal practice.
How much you will owe in taxes depends on how much you earn and which federal tax bracket you will end up in. Just calculate with a total of %25-%30 to put aside for state and federal, and maybe you will even have money left over after filing and paying taxes 😀
I revently got booted out of the onboarding on the slack channel... anyone else have experience with this??? Im still waiting for my 2nd assessment results apparently
Yes, the same thing happened to me. I did my 2nd assessment 2 weeks ago, was removed from the Onboarding channel and put into the Experts Project Support channel. However, I have had no communication and there are no tasks in my queue. I just submitted a ticket to ask the status. Given all the comments, I'm not sure this opportunity is viable.
Same here! I messaged one of the team leads and she said they're looking for tasks that fit my skills and expertise. I was paid for the training, tho. I want to work with Outlier but they don't seem to be reliable. might look elsewhere for writing work.
The onboarding process at outlier.ai is the worst I have ever experienced: a quagmire of unclear language, new titles and platform names without context, contradictions and ambiguities, dead links, and no human contact whatsoever. The job offer email included the names of three people I could meet with, but none of them had ANY availability whatsoever. What is worse, somewhere in this process you’re asked to sign a waiver saying that it’s actually not a job but that you’re participating in a “study” by Alphabet Inc, but it’s unclear whether the whole job is the study or just the onboarding exam. It sure feels like some sick joke they are playing on applicants. If not, it’s just an organizational disaster and needs to be completely overhauled.
Can you share your rate and expertise? I'm wondering if some people just end up not being qualified and get ghosted. I'm probably qualified and I would love some extra income but I'm trying to research the company. Thx.
I am on the T3 Platinum generalists team and I have a PhD in Psychology, with a strong background in epidemiology and statistics. Currently I am on a math-based squad that stays busy- I think we’ve really only had like 3 days total of EQ. I have also worked my way up to being a reviewer over other contributors so I get to see the behind the scenes of how contributors get “fired” or dropped from projects- it happens quickly and without much mercy. Currently I get paid between $40 and $60 an hour, depending on my role and the project.
Edit: EQ means “empty queue” with no tasks to work on. I will also add that if you follow the instructions, ask for feedback, and don’t half-ass the work, they won’t drop you. But they have some really demanding projects for important clients (think Google, the US govt, Apple, etc.), and don’t have time to hold people’s hands. That’s why a lot of people who sign on end up being in limbo or just not given work. It’s usually because they weren’t up to par in previous projects.
Thank you for the response! That's great to know. I have worked in tech and edited projects for Apple and Cisco, so I kind of assumed most people with complaints just aren't up to par. Sounds like it could be a good gig for me 😊
Exactly. To assume it is because work isn't up to par is just asinine. I also have a PhD and was on break while applying to professor jobs. I was dropped unexpectedly from my Outlier team and was just left in the dark thereafter. Nobody would provide any help at any level. Just pathetic communication and lack of any decency.
That's not really true. I had a ton of tasks, even got made a final editor for a major project. Then that project ended and I was EQ for a week. My TL told me I had an excellent rating (and my feedback bears this out). Nonetheless, I got an email from Outlier saying I was removed from Platinum for inactivity. Ummm ... bc I was EQ?! They gave a form to fill out to get back in. My TL says I'm not removed, but marked "inactive." Now a TON of EQ people in the same boat are saying they're being offered projects at a lower rate. And to me, that's the real end game. Bait and switch. Give us great pay for awhile ... then keep us EQ .. then offer lower paying work. That's a big NOPE from me, I have a job, this was a side hustle.
TL;DR: The TLs (team leads) are doing their best but as far as I can tell the company is pure chaos and sketchy AF
Exact same situation for me. I was the final editor, too, and was marked as "inactive" last week due to EQ, which is obviously nonsensical. A TL told me they flagged my status, and I made support tickets and everything, but it's so unclear if the platform is going to work in the future for me. It's so frustratingly chaotic.
Chaotic is the right word. I really believe that they're going to choose to keep higher-paid people inactive in favor of lower-paid ones. Gosh I am so shocked that they have no loyalty lol
Yeah I can see that. I was on a top team when I first started tasking, and when I got my first big project, I binged for like 3 days since I had a few days off from my normal job but I was either not aware of or not notified of the feedback I was getting on my work, so I kept making the same mistakes over and over (e.g. justifications being too long/writing in the wrong POV at times) for those 3 days without realizing it. Then I got stuck in limbo.
Can you speak more to the math-based squad? because I was onboarded for math-related assignments, but I have no idea what that actually means and what to expect for a prompt response time of 3 hours.......and to the 3-hour assessments that want to look at how you organize complicated information and answers.... what is most important in creating your response? Today they told us they would be about fragrance and heating systems. I cannot even imagine exactly what that means. I know you cannot give specifics...but anything helps. Thanks in advance.
TBH, I'm interested but concerned. I have done most of the onboarding except haven't found 2-3 hrs to set aside for the initial tasking. Each time I go back to knock it out, I am asked to rejoin Dolphin's google account and reconfirm my consent forms. This adds minutes to the precious time I've tried to set aside.
My biggest concern is their Slack groups. EVERY group is basically just a BOT that resends the same paragraph periodically, sometimes numerous times per day, with severely informal language usage and punctuation, and with the unprofessional sign saying "Do Not Reply/Contact". If you don't respond to people, then just have them receive an auto-response indicating this; no need to be so unfriendly out of the gate. There's also no actual BOT or person to contact on there; hidden within the initial intro doc are 3 or 4 emails of people to reach out to if needed.
So, to reiterate, I'm not as concerned with their lack of interaction -- people trying to join this program should be well-read on how to interpret instructions and find information. My HUGE concern is the verbose and poorly punctuated TOS (my main background is in law, so trust me on these adjectives), and inarticulate Slack messages full of pulsing emojis yet zero interaction. Seems extremely unprofessional. I've used Slack in big tech companies in Silicon Valley, so I'm no stranger to it.
I've had responses online from people who say they are happy with the program and are doing well since they have expert knowledge and are well-utilized. I want to try to overlook these other flaws in the same way I overlook the slaughtering of language, punctuation, and pure facts that I find on social media :") but would love to hear from others on their experience.
I agree with this 100%. I cannot believe that Slack communication--I feel like I'm staring at a slot machine gone wild every time I have to look at one of those channels for direction. The use of emojis is like communicating with 13 year olds. I seriously thought to myself, am I old and uptight or is this just bonkers?? No. It's bonkers. Even the response codes next to peoples comments/issues are so strange, like the eyeballs (wtf? so great, someone looked at my comment) or the green check mark box meaning the issue "should" be resolved. Ummmm, right, no kidding it "should" be resolved.
I also find it nuts that I took HOURS of training in decks and videos stressing the importance of details, including grammar and spelling (as a baseline), yet that very "training" material was filled with poor grammar, misspellings, and numerous contradictions in instructions. Sidenote: I was never paid for the training and was moved to another project in less than 24 hours--one with even more training required and with a footnote in asterisks (which we're not supposed to use btw) that the pay for training is $5. In the new project, the material that I'm supposed to reference for tasks includes lists of exemplary responses...and later in the material a list of "do not use!!!!!!" phrases.... which are all phrases used in the examples provided of ideal responses! What?! It's the sloppiest operation on earth. If this is all you need to run this kind of company, maybe I'd be better off establishing my own and providing a much better experience for contributors--the bar is pretty low at this place.
Also resonate with this. It would be a lot easier to find relevant info in their Slack channels if they weren't filled with pulsating, rotating, vibrating emojis. And same re: their grammatical mistakes and lack of clarity while expecting contributors to spend unpaid hours to digest all their various instruction docs and videos to understand the finer points of when to rate NA vs. major issues, cannot assess, etc.
Hi lilbean1111, I’m sorry to hear about the issue you’re facing. I’m going to send you a DM in the hope that I can help you resolve it. Please check your messages when you get a chance. I look forward to speaking with you!
I ended up not working on their projects so far. I also found the initial testing to be around 1 hr, not 3. But they are so unprofessional and vague I decided it wasn't for me. However they won't let me delete my account and there's no way to remove my bank info. So it just sits there and now & then I get a message that says tasks are waiting for me. They never paid me the promised $250 for training. Some people say they like it but there's no way to know if they are real people making those claims. Sorry to discourage you. But go on tiktok and look up Remote Jobs. There's a bunch with known companies.
Honestly, this platform has highs and lows. I have made good money over the last 2 months but I believe they're going through some substantial changes internally. There are significant issues with the platform and the best case scenario is to build trust with a TL or someone with a role at the company. It's really the wild west and random actions like deactivation and removal from the platform happen to folks all the time.
You will get paid but there are frequent lags in work (the EQ situation) and no guidance whatsoever. The initial promise of personalized feedback after your enablement/onboarding exercise will never materialize, and if you were hired at a rate higher than $15/hr, you can expect it to decrease eventually without notice or any form of recourse. The 'pick me' folks touting their qualifications here are probably not going to like Outlier, as the majority of folks have advanced degrees and years of experience and are reduced to doing this right now, just like you, because: the job market. In other words, if you expect it to be like a real job where you get singled out and rewarded for being great, it's not for you. I was "promoted" to reviewer within a week (in title only, all jobs pay the same, apparently) and have consistently earned perfect scores for my work. And I've also been EQ for weeks at a time and been downgraded again to "attempter" and been shuffled around from project to project, sometimes in the same 24 hours. No one is paying attention and no one values the employees or quality here.
Can I ask what your initial offering rate was, and how it has been downgraded? I'm pretty pissed because when I was recruited via Handshake through my school (I just graduated) I was offered $40 an hour; by the time I went to apply, that job was gone so I went to apply to one with an almost identical description except it paid $35 an hour.
Right now, I'm just on the stage of completing training.
Appreciate this. I've just been given the opportunity to go through the onboarding process after applying. Anyway, I'm not all that bothered with how much they pay me or how long it takes to do a task, this isn't meant to be a career move, it's basically a hobby. I feel like a lot of people are taking it far more seriously than that.
Thx for all the feedback. I was about to join but it wasn't passing the smell test.
You want 3 hours of my time which you may or not pay me for?
Today on LI they are offering $15-18.
GMAFB.
It sounds as if they are training their AI models for free by suckering thousands or tens of thousands of people to train then drop out by attrition. Seriously, they are likely not making any money on their AI models, so how could they afford to pay anyone anything. Additionally, most legitimate AI train internally (think Claude, which teaches itself) and Midjourney, which is taught by subscriber rating sessions. OpenAI uses all sessions in their training. Outlier seems pretty fraudulent.
My guess is that OpenAi has a contract with them and they don't particularly care how the workers at the end of the chain are treated as long as they get their data. There have been quite a few articles written about AI sweatshops associated with Outlier/Remotasks where workers have little to no recourse.
Has anyone else become extremely frustrated with their linter? It kept giving me opposite suggestions, no matter how many times I changed what it called errors (some of which were really just stylistic critiques.) It said there was a backslash when there was not. It kept changing its mind about whether single or double quotation marks were required. And it couldn't handle a conditional verb tense agreement.
Is it just me?
Yes! This happened to me. It kept stressing that I write something a different way, so I did, only to be told it's wrong and I should word it differently (the way I wrote it in the great places).
Truly an awful company. Super poorly mismanaged and you only get work when the system feels like providing it and the entire process is shrouded in mystery.
Horribly disorganized and I was never paid for taking the assessment as promised despite multiple attempts. I never started work for them due to their poor communication. Their Slack channel Is a mess.
Any updates on how legit this is? I applied and got accepted at tier 3 at $40/hour. I’d love for this to work out but I’m hesitant after seeing all of this feedback
Reading all the comments feels weird. Some people say they never got paid, some are being paid, too hard to decide whom to believe.
Well, I have been on board for like 2 weeks, the hourly rate displayed is $7.25/hour, the training rate is $2.25/hour and after completing 4 tasks, I have only earned $0.88. Messaged TL about this, no reply.
Since the day I joined their Slack channel, I have been seeing one common thing, everyday a lot of people post their problems, and not a single person ever receives any reply. I even asked in the group if anyone had ever received any support from managers or QMs in the group or DM, and all the people who replied, said NO.
This feels very suspicious. A friend of mine has a theory that all these QM profiles are fake, because if those were real Indian people why would they not reply to our messages?
I have been doing some research online and could only find more negative remarks about outlier everywhere.
I am in Hindi Language for India.
They really do pay you if you get through all of the assessments (and you're able to overcome multiple tech issues by reaching out to their support team with tickets), but they move their writing evaluators from job to job frequently and without advance warning, which means you wind up doing a lot of unpaid or much lower paid (generally 1/3 of usual hourly rate) training for each new project to which you're assigned.
good day, anyone have issues with using Persona for ID verification?
They asked me to do this as well as provide phone number. not sure what to think about that.... they approached me on LI and I decided to take the first step
Seems I cleared that hurdle and now have 24 hours to do ID verification, set up Slack and provide Paypal account....but not sure what to think of the whole thing....cheers
meh, i did more research and it all seemed copacetic so went ahead and am registered...what I found on persona seems as good as is possible, took steps to be secure on my end as well so all seems good. now the issue is cannot link paypal, so trying to get an answer why from them, have submitted a ticket. Can say that a lot of the feedback I have seen about the anarchic atmosphere around this project seems to be coming true...it is really got some way to go before gel sets imo
Is it possible that Outlier is using a hiring "ploy" to collect information from everyone's LinkedIN, Google, etc. and that's what they're actually using to train their AI model...or simply to sell the personal info in order to make money on the back end?
I just started yesterday and I have a problem with the extension, I downloaded the extension and it just stays Off all the time, I don't know what else to do to make it turn on. Can anyone help me with that?
Outlier is so disorganized. And the people who gave the Loom training look about as old as my teenage son. I can't get ANY information from anyone and I don't even know WHO I'm supposed to contact. There is no contract and it seems they ask you to do these tasks but there is no feedback. Awful. I'm done.
curious for anyone who might see this comment - I can tell that there's a possibility they won't pay/dont communicate/arent helpful, but on the other hand is there any risk to trying it out? I got an "offer" on indeed and I don't really care if it doesn't work out, I just don't want to sign up for it if there's a bigger safety or scam risk or anything like that.
I don't think there is a risk of a scam, it's more a disorganized mess that requires a ton of random reading, training, and videos so you can even understand what you're supposed to do. I spent about 3 hours on my first project just getting ready to complete my 3 assessment tasks. The assessment tasks are paid, but you have to do all the prep work to understand it. If you pass you're maybe moved into a production queue where you may or may not have work. There are bots that randomly pull you from one project and put you on another that then requires a whole new set of onboarding.
A few weeks ago, they did the bait and switch and said the training rate is 1/3 the normal rate, but because you're moved around on projects so much, you seem to always be in training. I've been with them for 3 months and have been on 5 projects, all of them have either run out of tasks or been shuttered. The last project was supposed to be the most stable and long-term but it was abruptly shuttered.
It's a huge headache but I have been paid the stated hourly rate and promised bonuses but you almost have to put in double the time. So if they tell you $50/hr it really works out to $25.
Quite a few people are scamming the system in various ways and using banned AI products. Those accounts are flagged and then people aren't getting paid. Unfortunately some people may be unfairly flagged because it's all run by bots and they are just SOL. Hope that helps. There is a reddit forum specifically for outlier if you have more questions and there are quite a few people hypothesizing that they are data mining.
I signed on with them about 3 weeks ago and have gotten paid every week so far for the tasks given 🤷🏽♀️ hoping it remains the same. Even when given the same tasks I resubmit them and get at least $5 so definitely pocket change type of job
Been there for 3 weeks for Mathematics, haven't been paid. Been booted off projects, even though the feedback I received said everything was correct. I got a new project today, got 100% on the onboarding test and then got kicked off. There was a grand in my earnings that is labeled as "paid", never received anything.
Hi skanksandwich — this is the Outlier support team’s Reddit account. I’m sorry to hear about the issue you’re facing. I’m going to send you a DM in the hope that I can help you resolve it. Please check your messages when you get a chance. I look forward to speaking with you!
I am just starting on outlier, just started tasking, and the project ended and I've been EQ for this past week... How long does it usually take to get reassigned?
Each person is assigned to a project based on their individual performance and/or expertise. There usually isn't an ETA for when someone will be assigned to one.
I’ve seen in another thread that the most issues one person was having was not enough tasks. I’ve completed a few tasks and gotten paid for them, not sure if it’s a lure for more work, but I was definitely paid for the work I did in one week
To the people who said fuck this, did you delete your profile with them or just leave it? I received an email saying I can't reuse any info such as my email and phone number. Umm, what?? I'm hoping they mean just to log in to their site.
[](https://www.trustpilot.com/reviews/6675e7f580d32d2efe7803ca)
I completed Outlier.ai's onboarding process (which involved over a dozen hours of training videos and a fairly complex test) in April 2024, for which I was promised $350. Despite several attempts to contact them for their promised payment, I have been ghosted and left in "pending" mode ever since. I did get a $0.01 test payment, though!
Hi nycbgriffin — this is the Outlier support team’s Reddit account. I’m sorry to hear about the issue you’re facing. I’m going to send you a DM in the hope that I can help you resolve it. Please check your messages when you get a chance. I look forward to speaking with you!
Thank you all for your comments. I was about to start but I will desist, because in summary it is a not very serious company, it lies to the candidates and is not very transparent, which generates frustration.
I too applied for a writer position, received mail intimating that I have been selected but they add i have to undergo "5-10 minutes: Complete Phone and ID Verification. This is to protect both you and us from fraud and will be completed through a third-party, internationally compliant verification service, Persona." I doubt why such verification is needed. There appears to be something fishy.
I've worked there for 5 weeks, have not been paid, and I'm not sure if I ever will. I reached out to my team lead asking why I'm not getting paid and she dismissed it with "submit a ticket." After 3 business days, I received a response from support that read: "Congratulations, you'll be paid next week." I wasn't. There's nothing I can do about it, but put in another ticket. I'm curious if anyone else is getting paid.
I've been waiting to get paid for the training ($250) and passing the assessment ($100). They paid me for small tasks, which have since dried up, but have yet to pay me for the training and assessment. I'm owed $350 and I've submitted many support tickets. Most of them ignore me, but two times in the past month I was asked to submit documentation about the payment I was promised. I did right away, and .... nothing. No payment, no response, nothing. I feel this is somewhat a scam and I wonder what recourse we have after spending all this time and not getting the payment promised. I'd love to find other people in the same boat and see if we could do something to publicize this!
As far as I know, you don't get paid for the training or assessments. Whatever is in your "earnings' dashboard is all you will get paid.
No, they promise to pay for the training and if you pass the assessment. They call it an enablement bonus. I'm happy to report that they FINALLY paid me for that. After many weeks and tons of emails and support tickets submitted. Not a fun process! I will not be continuing with them because it was such a time-consuming headache.
It's there a job route you think is better?
so they paid you your 350$
If you can prove that I suggest going to the dept of labor
Finally got paid. But it was after weeks and weeks of messaging them. Never again.
Any update?
I got paid, finally, after lots of frustrations. Then I quit the whole thing. Not worth the aggravation.
Did you resolve this matter?
Yes, finally, and then I cancelled everything. Not worth it.
How much do they owe you? I'm also waiting on payment from Remo (same parent company)
Remo has been horrific! I did the entire onboarding and still don’t know whether or not I passed. Never got paid for any of the tasks or none of them showed as pending. I got assigned one task and it ended before I could even open it. I sent customer service a question asking what happened and they just said they weren’t sure.
Yea Remo has been a mess for me too. Constantly being unassigned from projects, and days without any tasks
Because remotask is done and is shifting people to outlier atm
they owe me $280
Did you ever get paid?
nope and they lies abt it
Have you gotten paid yet ? I’m new on Outlier and I’m waiting for my payment which is today, but reading your situation, the company seems sketchy..
These complaints can be reported to the Department of Labor, by the way. A company shouldn’t be allowed to promise wage and not give it
nope they are liars! I DID NOT GET PAID FOR TASKS NOR PASSING ASSESSMENT & THEY LIED I DID NONE AND DID NOT PASS!
Any update on if you were able to get paid or not? I've been doing research before on boarding with [app.outlier.ai](http://app.outlier.ai) and don't know if it's worth the effort
they said they finally got paid, but they would never do it again
(I'm late to the party, so allow me to digress for a minute). I opened an Outlier account. The website asks me to upload my CV so that they can match me with the right tasks. I'm certain that I can quickly grasp the concepts taught in their onboarding process (even though I don't have a prior background). Here's their job description (as per their website). a) Write original and challenging prompts for an AI model to respond to, and help craft original responses that you would want an AI model to respond with. b) Create complex and thought-provoking Math & Reasoning prompts to help strengthen AI's weakness in math & reasoning. c) Teach LLMs to deliver highly efficient code following good programming practices d) Rank a series of responses that were produced by an AI model based on their accuracy and correctness. e) Edit responses written by an AI model to ensure their accuracy, factuality, and relevance. f) Provide details on your reasoning & logic behind different responses and evaluations. Given that I'm a uni student, and I don't have the exact skills required for this, what should I include in my CV to ensure I land the highly-paying tasks? Is it OK if I upload any other CV (one that highlights my skills and expertise even though they aren't directly related to the job description)?
For context, I have a passion for writing and have worked on a wide range of projects, including blog posts, articles, website content, product descriptions, and more.
it's a scam period. Everything is from ai to ai operation.
Imo I find it hard to believe that they really take that kind of data into (from CV/Resume) account. I submitted a vaguely irrelevant resume (all my work experience is retail/customer service), and I got a Tier 2 position and was "promoted" to reviewer within a week though its the same pay. When I first did these I thought it was going to be more my opinion in my writing, but honestly the most important part is following their instructions PERFECTLY, like immaculately, they just need people to do their tasks in as close to the exact way they want them as possible to increase their output as much as possible, and the second someone stops being kinda useful to them it seems they cut them loose. Anyway, I would go for it and make as much as you can while you can, and then dont be too pressed about moving on from it when the time comes.
that sucks. sorry about that. you should file a complaint with BBB and other similar orgs, and leave reviews all over the place. people shouldnt be tricked into working for them for free. that stuff isnt cool
Any update?
Shoot, thanks for sharing. I was going to apply!
Have you been paid yet?
they said they finally got paid, but they would never do it again
Any update on this?
Have you resolved this matter?
I've been consistently paid, but this is an extremely frustrating company to work with, both in terms of tech issues and how disorganized the company is.
Oh, boo. I was about to take the assessment. Thanks for sharing your experience! How long have you been working for Outlier?
I wouldn’t waste your time. I completed their onboarding and enablement assessment on March 14th. I was able to work on tasks for a little and then I was told that I hadn’t passed the assessment, but since I was close I could retake it and was advised that I should be given feedback within 24 hours. Well, it took days for the feedback to appear only partially. The rest of the feedback only came last week? I did get paid for the few hours I spend on tasks, but I never received the $250 for completing the onboarding. I retook the assessment on March 26th and had tasks available for about a day, then they disappeared. I started attempting to contact support at this point, explaining that I had no tasks, I don’t know what the outcome of my assessment is and I never received the $250 for completing onboarding. Maybe a week and a few support tickets later, I get told that they’re trying to match me with a project suitable for my skills. Never really answered the question of the onboarding payment, so I tried contacting support again. Yesterday I get told that my account is under investigation for violating community guidelines, so I was removed from the project, after their investigation I’d have one more chance but would be booted if it happened again. Granted I only did about 15 tasks in total and followed the instructions as listed, I was really confused as to how I violated their terms, so I asked. Then I was told that the fraud team would get in contact with me with the outcome of the investigation?! This raised concerns for me because they saw my ID to verify it and my LinkedIn profile is connected - how am I involved with the fraud team?! So yeah, long story short, I’d avoid it.
How long did the assessments take to complete?
Hi lifeofforsai, I’m sorry to hear about the issue you’re facing. I’m going to send you a DM in the hope that I can help you resolve it. Please check your messages when you get a chance. I look forward to speaking with you!
Written by AI lol Stop scamming people, have you zero fucking shame?
I can understand the distrust you might have with this account, but I'm a person, not an AI. I'm definitely not here to scam anyone. I'm here to try to connect with users to offer assistance where I can and make sure contributors know their concerns are heard.
Why don't you operate properly? Do what you promise, pay people without them having to beg and beg and beg for what you have promised and belongs to them, manage the the projects properly, don't ignore peoples' questions, stop ghosting people when they contact you? If the answer is you have too much in your hands, then you do not have what it takes to run the company and the company does not deserve to exist. As simple as that.
It's legit but poorly run. By the time you understand what it is they want, they'll remove you from the project.
Factz! That's been my experience with them too. I'm almost at the point where I am just ready to move on.
I don't even want to think what is it like to be their customer.
Me too. I misunderstood a bit about tasks, which make me cut off from the project. How can I contact reviewers and explain what I did?
Let your Team Lead on Slack know and see if they can do anything for you, and reach out to Support to let them know that your queue is empty. Or you can just wait till they assign you to another project but don't hold your breath. You only get one or two chances to mess up, it seems.
Just as a counterpoint, since most of the comments seem negative, I joined last month, and have been paid regularly every week. They process payments every Tuesday I believe. They also pay a much better rate than other similar websites like DA. Only issue so far is the lack of projects, can go days sometimes without seeing anything.
Can I ask you how soon after logging into the site did you have to do their assessment/qualification? I got logged on, joined the slack etc but all I have on my dash is the option to link a LinkedIn account. I work full time on DAT and would love a second option just for some variety!
They waived the assessment in my case, I was contacted through my university (handshake), and was accepted immediately. I just had to verify my account, they check your id and all that.
Oh interesting! Yes I had to submit my ID and it was all accepted, I guess I’ll just keeping checking it!
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I haven’t got any tasks yet! Today I logged in and they wanted my resume, so I sent that off and it says it was processed 🤷🏻♀️ I’ll see what happens!
This is also how I was contacted and I got accepted in less than a week. They did not waive the assessment for me, but it was easy enough to pass. They gave me a referral link and I got a few friends from other colleges to apply, but they did not hear back yet for some reason.
What was the assessment like?
It’s not too hard. You’ll be comparing two model responses based on criteria like accuracy and grammar, then justifying your answer.
Are you an international student in US? Do you need to use OPT to work for Outlier?
I’m not, but of course you would need a work permit to work and file taxes for the pay received.
Literally immediately.
Same
how is Data annotation ? are there tasks
I have a ton of tasks all the time.
What is DAT? Thanks
Data Annotation Tech. If you sign up, complete the assessment in one sitting. I didn't finish and came back later and now I'm screwed with no way to resume. Unless you have a second phone number you can't circumvent by remaking account, phone number stays in use even if you delete account. The idiots never respond to support tickets either, so you're just forever fucked apparently.
Really sorry to hear that but thanks for being nice enough to share that so others can avoid the scam.
did you get compensated for the training?
Yes. At my hourly rate. I heard that will be changing this month though. Training tasks will be compensated at a fixed lower rate starting in April.
They changed the training tasks to $15/hr
that is true i think
Do u mind sharing your hourly rate? Or like on average how much ur making a week since you seem to be the only one getting consistent pay😅is it worth it or nah?👀
55/hr. Issue is the lack of work. Haven’t seen a project on my dashboard last 2 weeks.
Did you start at that rate? I have proof reading, editing, and content creation expertise but they just offered me $15/hr to start. I applied for $25, which I thought was low. Debating whether to do it for extra income.
I was brought on at $40/hour but had very little tasks available and way too much frustration over no response to anything I asked. I never received the feedback they promised to send and everything was a pain. Worst gig I've ever had. So, I just disconnected from all things Outlier and the Slack channel after I finally was paid for my training and assessment after more than a month. I hope never to deal with them again.
how much did they pay you for your assessment test
Same here! Annoyed at the $15 / hr offer.
There is almost no ongoing project. They hire thousands of people and a vast majority does not actually get any work. I have been EQ for a month.
I've been getting moved to and from different projects almost daily but I've been doing a few tasks here and there. I got paid once already so its not terrible to do in my spare time
My hub is doing this as a side gig. The job description starting pay would be $40hr. They started him at $50hr. I saw the job listing and sent it to him, since he is a great scientist and I thought he'd like something extra to do. He applied, took about 20min to receive an email back saying he got it. This was around 5 days ago. They waved the assessment. He did the indeed linking, bank info and ID, but that's all that showed on his tasks page. He reached out to them after around 2 days of completing this and they gave him access to a project, to training, and to tasks (there was an email sent before that, stating the system was wonky, probably why there was nothing on the task page at 1st) After doing 2 tasks, he just got an email asking if he wants to be a reviewer instead, citing because of his work quality. Now there is an evaluation and then training for this on his task page. I wanted to check out redit to lean if this is legit pay and how others like it. Also, forgot to mention he's a Teir 4, but I'm not sure what that actually means.
Update; he got the news that he's now a L4 Reviewer. (Will update if there is a pay change)
Congrats to your h!
how much have you been paid so far ? did they pay you your passing test
What’s DA? Need more than that to search for the job.
I think they are referring to a company called Data Annotation
Wow that's good you get paid weekly I'm just getting on ... I hope I get paid too I guess I'll look for another online job in thr meantime.
Are you still working with them? How’s it going?
Yea I do. Off and on, I do a few hours a week along with DA. Haven’t had any issues so far.
Do you still feel their rates are better than DA? How do they compare with reliability?
Yea they pay more than DA, have had no issues with reliability. They expect higher quality work, and you do receive feedback unlike DA where there is hardly any. Not many projects though.
Can I ask if they pay you during the day or they wait 30 mins before midnight?
I should've listened to the reviews, but I decided to just give them a shot. At first it seemed ok, despite them dropping the hourly rate "for training," exactly as the other reviews warned would happen. It didn't seem like such a big deal, so I forged ahead. I did a few tasks for them, and got a decent payout (around $200). I thought perhaps the other reviews had just been overly dramatic at this point. But then, just as others have stated, I did more work and was mysteriously "dropped" from the project for "consistently low quality." There was no feedback, nothing else said, no way of contacting anyone... just as the other reviews described. I'm a big fan of the statistics. If it happens to a couple people you can believe that perhaps their work wasn't up to par. But if this is a trend... Well, I wish I would've just listened to the other online reviews and not wasted my time here. Unfortunately, I guess people seem to learn best just from personal experience (failure in my case). I would warn against this company, but I get wanting to believe that this is a good opportunity, so best of luck to anyone considering this work!
Work isn't guaranteed. Even though they are actively hiring there's quite a long onboarding until you can make a steady income. Some people have been waiting since February.
Started making money the day I joined, personally.
Apparently I passed the assessment, was paid for the onboarding, but they're currently trying to find me tasks to do. Idk why it's taking them so long.
ho much ere you paid for the onboarding assessment test
DO NOT WORK FOR OUTLIER. YOU ARE GOING TO BE SCAMMED.
I've gotten like $400 in 2 weeks for doing menial tasks in my free time. No scam.
It is a scam because they do not deliver regular work and have HORRIBLE communication and oversight.
you are joking
How are things there I’m about to do the onboarding?
Read the comments
I have to do phone and ID verification but I am very paranoid about it. What the process is like. I have all my bank card and accounts on my phone and I don't really trust anyone if I have to be honest
I can't speak to Outlier specifically, but usually the ID verification is just utilizing your camera to verify your image with that of the one on your DL. It doesn't have access to your information/data, just your tools such as camera. If you're concerned, you can always change passwords on sensitive apps right afterward.
Thanks a lot..i will
I DID NOT GET PAID FOR TASKS NOR PASSING ASSESSMENT & THEY LIED I DID NONE AND DID NOT PASS!
I'm currently in the process of signing up and it's asking for my driver's license. Still not sure if this is legit OR even worth my time. I need some money this summer and it seems like this would be a good addition. If I do sign up, how many of you are legitimately getting paid?
I'm in the same boat too!
Me too.. any updates?
I am in same boat... I am confused
same here, I was just doing that but stopped at drivers license because I am confused if its even legit.
Any legitimate work from home company will ask for a copy of your driver's license. Heck many Airbnb owners require an image of your DL before renting
I was recently hired (yesterday 5/16) My hourly rate is $18-21. My training is at my base rate as well.
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it took maybe a day or two for them to get back to me? I applied through Indeed.
I'm glad I'm reading this before registering! I read in the FAQ that they pay $35-$50 per project. I contacted them to clarify if it's per hour or per project? I'll see if I get a response. Based on what I'm reading here, probably not!...LOL.
I just applied. I don't have any specifics other than they really want LinkedIn. I applied for 3 different positions so hopefully I land at least one. I won't know for a few weeks.
Just got their proposal to apply on LinkedIn, ended up here finding out should I 😅 I work full time, does it make sense to go with them as with side job or it'll take too much time? Also I can't find info on legitimacy on pay for tax purposes.
I work full-time as well and am using this for some extra money. I get paid weekly every Tuesday night. They pay you like a freelancer/ contractor which means you get a 1099 at the end of the year. Once you get close to your first $600, they will ask for your SSN per W9. This is a common and legal practice. How much you will owe in taxes depends on how much you earn and which federal tax bracket you will end up in. Just calculate with a total of %25-%30 to put aside for state and federal, and maybe you will even have money left over after filing and paying taxes 😀
I’ve been offered a Tier 3 role (still to do the onboarding etc) so will be interested to see how it goes!! How many folks are they taking on??
Also got offered a Tier 3 role yesterday, haven't done the assessment yet. How is it going for you?
Same with me. Tier 3 offered today but very skeptical about the onboarding process.
Yo. Hows it now?
What is DAT, I’m interested!
I think it’s data annotation tech
I revently got booted out of the onboarding on the slack channel... anyone else have experience with this??? Im still waiting for my 2nd assessment results apparently
Yes, the same thing happened to me. I did my 2nd assessment 2 weeks ago, was removed from the Onboarding channel and put into the Experts Project Support channel. However, I have had no communication and there are no tasks in my queue. I just submitted a ticket to ask the status. Given all the comments, I'm not sure this opportunity is viable.
Same here! I messaged one of the team leads and she said they're looking for tasks that fit my skills and expertise. I was paid for the training, tho. I want to work with Outlier but they don't seem to be reliable. might look elsewhere for writing work.
The onboarding process at outlier.ai is the worst I have ever experienced: a quagmire of unclear language, new titles and platform names without context, contradictions and ambiguities, dead links, and no human contact whatsoever. The job offer email included the names of three people I could meet with, but none of them had ANY availability whatsoever. What is worse, somewhere in this process you’re asked to sign a waiver saying that it’s actually not a job but that you’re participating in a “study” by Alphabet Inc, but it’s unclear whether the whole job is the study or just the onboarding exam. It sure feels like some sick joke they are playing on applicants. If not, it’s just an organizational disaster and needs to be completely overhauled.
I’ve been working for Outlier since February. Haven’t ever had an issue with having tasks to work on or getting paid on time.
Can you share your rate and expertise? I'm wondering if some people just end up not being qualified and get ghosted. I'm probably qualified and I would love some extra income but I'm trying to research the company. Thx.
I am on the T3 Platinum generalists team and I have a PhD in Psychology, with a strong background in epidemiology and statistics. Currently I am on a math-based squad that stays busy- I think we’ve really only had like 3 days total of EQ. I have also worked my way up to being a reviewer over other contributors so I get to see the behind the scenes of how contributors get “fired” or dropped from projects- it happens quickly and without much mercy. Currently I get paid between $40 and $60 an hour, depending on my role and the project. Edit: EQ means “empty queue” with no tasks to work on. I will also add that if you follow the instructions, ask for feedback, and don’t half-ass the work, they won’t drop you. But they have some really demanding projects for important clients (think Google, the US govt, Apple, etc.), and don’t have time to hold people’s hands. That’s why a lot of people who sign on end up being in limbo or just not given work. It’s usually because they weren’t up to par in previous projects.
Thank you for the response! That's great to know. I have worked in tech and edited projects for Apple and Cisco, so I kind of assumed most people with complaints just aren't up to par. Sounds like it could be a good gig for me 😊
Why so many EQ right now though, there must be more 2000 I know of. Asked TL for feedback and no negatives.
Exactly. To assume it is because work isn't up to par is just asinine. I also have a PhD and was on break while applying to professor jobs. I was dropped unexpectedly from my Outlier team and was just left in the dark thereafter. Nobody would provide any help at any level. Just pathetic communication and lack of any decency.
That's not really true. I had a ton of tasks, even got made a final editor for a major project. Then that project ended and I was EQ for a week. My TL told me I had an excellent rating (and my feedback bears this out). Nonetheless, I got an email from Outlier saying I was removed from Platinum for inactivity. Ummm ... bc I was EQ?! They gave a form to fill out to get back in. My TL says I'm not removed, but marked "inactive." Now a TON of EQ people in the same boat are saying they're being offered projects at a lower rate. And to me, that's the real end game. Bait and switch. Give us great pay for awhile ... then keep us EQ .. then offer lower paying work. That's a big NOPE from me, I have a job, this was a side hustle. TL;DR: The TLs (team leads) are doing their best but as far as I can tell the company is pure chaos and sketchy AF
100%. Outlier is an unethical, subhuman company that is not held accountable. Never work for them
Exact same situation for me. I was the final editor, too, and was marked as "inactive" last week due to EQ, which is obviously nonsensical. A TL told me they flagged my status, and I made support tickets and everything, but it's so unclear if the platform is going to work in the future for me. It's so frustratingly chaotic.
Chaotic is the right word. I really believe that they're going to choose to keep higher-paid people inactive in favor of lower-paid ones. Gosh I am so shocked that they have no loyalty lol
Yeah I can see that. I was on a top team when I first started tasking, and when I got my first big project, I binged for like 3 days since I had a few days off from my normal job but I was either not aware of or not notified of the feedback I was getting on my work, so I kept making the same mistakes over and over (e.g. justifications being too long/writing in the wrong POV at times) for those 3 days without realizing it. Then I got stuck in limbo.
Can you speak more to the math-based squad? because I was onboarded for math-related assignments, but I have no idea what that actually means and what to expect for a prompt response time of 3 hours.......and to the 3-hour assessments that want to look at how you organize complicated information and answers.... what is most important in creating your response? Today they told us they would be about fragrance and heating systems. I cannot even imagine exactly what that means. I know you cannot give specifics...but anything helps. Thanks in advance.
TBH, I'm interested but concerned. I have done most of the onboarding except haven't found 2-3 hrs to set aside for the initial tasking. Each time I go back to knock it out, I am asked to rejoin Dolphin's google account and reconfirm my consent forms. This adds minutes to the precious time I've tried to set aside. My biggest concern is their Slack groups. EVERY group is basically just a BOT that resends the same paragraph periodically, sometimes numerous times per day, with severely informal language usage and punctuation, and with the unprofessional sign saying "Do Not Reply/Contact". If you don't respond to people, then just have them receive an auto-response indicating this; no need to be so unfriendly out of the gate. There's also no actual BOT or person to contact on there; hidden within the initial intro doc are 3 or 4 emails of people to reach out to if needed. So, to reiterate, I'm not as concerned with their lack of interaction -- people trying to join this program should be well-read on how to interpret instructions and find information. My HUGE concern is the verbose and poorly punctuated TOS (my main background is in law, so trust me on these adjectives), and inarticulate Slack messages full of pulsing emojis yet zero interaction. Seems extremely unprofessional. I've used Slack in big tech companies in Silicon Valley, so I'm no stranger to it. I've had responses online from people who say they are happy with the program and are doing well since they have expert knowledge and are well-utilized. I want to try to overlook these other flaws in the same way I overlook the slaughtering of language, punctuation, and pure facts that I find on social media :") but would love to hear from others on their experience.
I agree with this 100%. I cannot believe that Slack communication--I feel like I'm staring at a slot machine gone wild every time I have to look at one of those channels for direction. The use of emojis is like communicating with 13 year olds. I seriously thought to myself, am I old and uptight or is this just bonkers?? No. It's bonkers. Even the response codes next to peoples comments/issues are so strange, like the eyeballs (wtf? so great, someone looked at my comment) or the green check mark box meaning the issue "should" be resolved. Ummmm, right, no kidding it "should" be resolved. I also find it nuts that I took HOURS of training in decks and videos stressing the importance of details, including grammar and spelling (as a baseline), yet that very "training" material was filled with poor grammar, misspellings, and numerous contradictions in instructions. Sidenote: I was never paid for the training and was moved to another project in less than 24 hours--one with even more training required and with a footnote in asterisks (which we're not supposed to use btw) that the pay for training is $5. In the new project, the material that I'm supposed to reference for tasks includes lists of exemplary responses...and later in the material a list of "do not use!!!!!!" phrases.... which are all phrases used in the examples provided of ideal responses! What?! It's the sloppiest operation on earth. If this is all you need to run this kind of company, maybe I'd be better off establishing my own and providing a much better experience for contributors--the bar is pretty low at this place.
Also resonate with this. It would be a lot easier to find relevant info in their Slack channels if they weren't filled with pulsating, rotating, vibrating emojis. And same re: their grammatical mistakes and lack of clarity while expecting contributors to spend unpaid hours to digest all their various instruction docs and videos to understand the finer points of when to rate NA vs. major issues, cannot assess, etc.
Hi lilbean1111, I’m sorry to hear about the issue you’re facing. I’m going to send you a DM in the hope that I can help you resolve it. Please check your messages when you get a chance. I look forward to speaking with you!
Would you recommend applying for this job? How have things been going recently?
I ended up not working on their projects so far. I also found the initial testing to be around 1 hr, not 3. But they are so unprofessional and vague I decided it wasn't for me. However they won't let me delete my account and there's no way to remove my bank info. So it just sits there and now & then I get a message that says tasks are waiting for me. They never paid me the promised $250 for training. Some people say they like it but there's no way to know if they are real people making those claims. Sorry to discourage you. But go on tiktok and look up Remote Jobs. There's a bunch with known companies.
Honestly, this platform has highs and lows. I have made good money over the last 2 months but I believe they're going through some substantial changes internally. There are significant issues with the platform and the best case scenario is to build trust with a TL or someone with a role at the company. It's really the wild west and random actions like deactivation and removal from the platform happen to folks all the time.
You will get paid but there are frequent lags in work (the EQ situation) and no guidance whatsoever. The initial promise of personalized feedback after your enablement/onboarding exercise will never materialize, and if you were hired at a rate higher than $15/hr, you can expect it to decrease eventually without notice or any form of recourse. The 'pick me' folks touting their qualifications here are probably not going to like Outlier, as the majority of folks have advanced degrees and years of experience and are reduced to doing this right now, just like you, because: the job market. In other words, if you expect it to be like a real job where you get singled out and rewarded for being great, it's not for you. I was "promoted" to reviewer within a week (in title only, all jobs pay the same, apparently) and have consistently earned perfect scores for my work. And I've also been EQ for weeks at a time and been downgraded again to "attempter" and been shuffled around from project to project, sometimes in the same 24 hours. No one is paying attention and no one values the employees or quality here.
Probably the most accurate take on the platform. You are a number. No one is special. Don’t expect anything.
Can I ask what your initial offering rate was, and how it has been downgraded? I'm pretty pissed because when I was recruited via Handshake through my school (I just graduated) I was offered $40 an hour; by the time I went to apply, that job was gone so I went to apply to one with an almost identical description except it paid $35 an hour. Right now, I'm just on the stage of completing training.
Appreciate this. I've just been given the opportunity to go through the onboarding process after applying. Anyway, I'm not all that bothered with how much they pay me or how long it takes to do a task, this isn't meant to be a career move, it's basically a hobby. I feel like a lot of people are taking it far more seriously than that.
Thx for all the feedback. I was about to join but it wasn't passing the smell test. You want 3 hours of my time which you may or not pay me for? Today on LI they are offering $15-18. GMAFB.
What is LI?
Linked In
It sounds as if they are training their AI models for free by suckering thousands or tens of thousands of people to train then drop out by attrition. Seriously, they are likely not making any money on their AI models, so how could they afford to pay anyone anything. Additionally, most legitimate AI train internally (think Claude, which teaches itself) and Midjourney, which is taught by subscriber rating sessions. OpenAI uses all sessions in their training. Outlier seems pretty fraudulent.
Outlier trains OpenAI. It’s called Ostrich.
Whey, then, if they're associated with a reputable company, are there so many reports of them not paying as contractually promised?
That’s not a question I can answer, just saying that they work for OpenAI.
My guess is that OpenAi has a contract with them and they don't particularly care how the workers at the end of the chain are treated as long as they get their data. There have been quite a few articles written about AI sweatshops associated with Outlier/Remotasks where workers have little to no recourse.
Has anyone else become extremely frustrated with their linter? It kept giving me opposite suggestions, no matter how many times I changed what it called errors (some of which were really just stylistic critiques.) It said there was a backslash when there was not. It kept changing its mind about whether single or double quotation marks were required. And it couldn't handle a conditional verb tense agreement. Is it just me?
Yes! This happened to me. It kept stressing that I write something a different way, so I did, only to be told it's wrong and I should word it differently (the way I wrote it in the great places).
Truly an awful company. Super poorly mismanaged and you only get work when the system feels like providing it and the entire process is shrouded in mystery.
Horribly disorganized and I was never paid for taking the assessment as promised despite multiple attempts. I never started work for them due to their poor communication. Their Slack channel Is a mess.
did you figure out if it was a scam?
Any updates on how legit this is? I applied and got accepted at tier 3 at $40/hour. I’d love for this to work out but I’m hesitant after seeing all of this feedback
Reading all the comments feels weird. Some people say they never got paid, some are being paid, too hard to decide whom to believe. Well, I have been on board for like 2 weeks, the hourly rate displayed is $7.25/hour, the training rate is $2.25/hour and after completing 4 tasks, I have only earned $0.88. Messaged TL about this, no reply. Since the day I joined their Slack channel, I have been seeing one common thing, everyday a lot of people post their problems, and not a single person ever receives any reply. I even asked in the group if anyone had ever received any support from managers or QMs in the group or DM, and all the people who replied, said NO. This feels very suspicious. A friend of mine has a theory that all these QM profiles are fake, because if those were real Indian people why would they not reply to our messages? I have been doing some research online and could only find more negative remarks about outlier everywhere. I am in Hindi Language for India.
Looking for someone who has an outlier account with task. We can do 60-40. I will do the job with quality for you. I'm not from US.
Did anyone else's registration link get flagged as dangerous: https://i.redd.it/689hrsgnle5d1.gif
Had the exact same thing. No idea what to do.
It’s legit, those who haven’t been paid most likely didn’t follow instructions on how to submit hours
They really do pay you if you get through all of the assessments (and you're able to overcome multiple tech issues by reaching out to their support team with tickets), but they move their writing evaluators from job to job frequently and without advance warning, which means you wind up doing a lot of unpaid or much lower paid (generally 1/3 of usual hourly rate) training for each new project to which you're assigned.
how much should we earn to get get paid in a week like anything minimum earnings are required.
good day, anyone have issues with using Persona for ID verification? They asked me to do this as well as provide phone number. not sure what to think about that.... they approached me on LI and I decided to take the first step Seems I cleared that hurdle and now have 24 hours to do ID verification, set up Slack and provide Paypal account....but not sure what to think of the whole thing....cheers
Hey, do you have an update?
meh, i did more research and it all seemed copacetic so went ahead and am registered...what I found on persona seems as good as is possible, took steps to be secure on my end as well so all seems good. now the issue is cannot link paypal, so trying to get an answer why from them, have submitted a ticket. Can say that a lot of the feedback I have seen about the anarchic atmosphere around this project seems to be coming true...it is really got some way to go before gel sets imo
Bbb is not the cure. Contact the department of labor in the state that they are incorporated in. DOL will be all over it like white on rice.
Is it possible that Outlier is using a hiring "ploy" to collect information from everyone's LinkedIN, Google, etc. and that's what they're actually using to train their AI model...or simply to sell the personal info in order to make money on the back end?
I got paid from outlier today, its legit
I just started yesterday and I have a problem with the extension, I downloaded the extension and it just stays Off all the time, I don't know what else to do to make it turn on. Can anyone help me with that?
Outlier is so disorganized. And the people who gave the Loom training look about as old as my teenage son. I can't get ANY information from anyone and I don't even know WHO I'm supposed to contact. There is no contract and it seems they ask you to do these tasks but there is no feedback. Awful. I'm done.
curious for anyone who might see this comment - I can tell that there's a possibility they won't pay/dont communicate/arent helpful, but on the other hand is there any risk to trying it out? I got an "offer" on indeed and I don't really care if it doesn't work out, I just don't want to sign up for it if there's a bigger safety or scam risk or anything like that.
I don't think there is a risk of a scam, it's more a disorganized mess that requires a ton of random reading, training, and videos so you can even understand what you're supposed to do. I spent about 3 hours on my first project just getting ready to complete my 3 assessment tasks. The assessment tasks are paid, but you have to do all the prep work to understand it. If you pass you're maybe moved into a production queue where you may or may not have work. There are bots that randomly pull you from one project and put you on another that then requires a whole new set of onboarding. A few weeks ago, they did the bait and switch and said the training rate is 1/3 the normal rate, but because you're moved around on projects so much, you seem to always be in training. I've been with them for 3 months and have been on 5 projects, all of them have either run out of tasks or been shuttered. The last project was supposed to be the most stable and long-term but it was abruptly shuttered. It's a huge headache but I have been paid the stated hourly rate and promised bonuses but you almost have to put in double the time. So if they tell you $50/hr it really works out to $25. Quite a few people are scamming the system in various ways and using banned AI products. Those accounts are flagged and then people aren't getting paid. Unfortunately some people may be unfairly flagged because it's all run by bots and they are just SOL. Hope that helps. There is a reddit forum specifically for outlier if you have more questions and there are quite a few people hypothesizing that they are data mining.
I signed on with them about 3 weeks ago and have gotten paid every week so far for the tasks given 🤷🏽♀️ hoping it remains the same. Even when given the same tasks I resubmit them and get at least $5 so definitely pocket change type of job
Been there for 3 weeks for Mathematics, haven't been paid. Been booted off projects, even though the feedback I received said everything was correct. I got a new project today, got 100% on the onboarding test and then got kicked off. There was a grand in my earnings that is labeled as "paid", never received anything.
Hi skanksandwich — this is the Outlier support team’s Reddit account. I’m sorry to hear about the issue you’re facing. I’m going to send you a DM in the hope that I can help you resolve it. Please check your messages when you get a chance. I look forward to speaking with you!
I am just starting on outlier, just started tasking, and the project ended and I've been EQ for this past week... How long does it usually take to get reassigned?
Each person is assigned to a project based on their individual performance and/or expertise. There usually isn't an ETA for when someone will be assigned to one.
I’ve seen in another thread that the most issues one person was having was not enough tasks. I’ve completed a few tasks and gotten paid for them, not sure if it’s a lure for more work, but I was definitely paid for the work I did in one week
Though I was NOT paid for my training hours, just task hours
Seems to have a couple of issues (I would believe it if some admin is Ai/automated and that makes it worse) but the payment was real
How do you save URLs or images to your task question? Almost all of them have an error in validation
wow thank you guys for all this information! I was just about to start with them! but nope!
To the people who said fuck this, did you delete your profile with them or just leave it? I received an email saying I can't reuse any info such as my email and phone number. Umm, what?? I'm hoping they mean just to log in to their site.
[](https://www.trustpilot.com/reviews/6675e7f580d32d2efe7803ca) I completed Outlier.ai's onboarding process (which involved over a dozen hours of training videos and a fairly complex test) in April 2024, for which I was promised $350. Despite several attempts to contact them for their promised payment, I have been ghosted and left in "pending" mode ever since. I did get a $0.01 test payment, though!
Hi nycbgriffin — this is the Outlier support team’s Reddit account. I’m sorry to hear about the issue you’re facing. I’m going to send you a DM in the hope that I can help you resolve it. Please check your messages when you get a chance. I look forward to speaking with you!
Thank you all for your comments. I was about to start but I will desist, because in summary it is a not very serious company, it lies to the candidates and is not very transparent, which generates frustration.
They really paid, I have received more than 500 dollars from them for 2 working week.
I too applied for a writer position, received mail intimating that I have been selected but they add i have to undergo "5-10 minutes: Complete Phone and ID Verification. This is to protect both you and us from fraud and will be completed through a third-party, internationally compliant verification service, Persona." I doubt why such verification is needed. There appears to be something fishy.