ChaCha used to be a ridiculous human powered web based search engine that’s best use appeared to be for killing time when bored.
They raised a boatload of money from Jeff Bezos and others and eventually switched to an all-mobile interface. They also began offering their platform to third party marketers.
But now there are indications that the company is having cash flow issues, even after a recent pay cut to guides. As before, the information is coming from their poorly-paid and poorly-treated human guides.
Employees are simply not being paid, says one guide, asking to remain anonymous. And he sends several screen shots of ChaCha’s internal forum for guides, which show dozens of complaints about slow or non-existent payouts. A selection of comments:
I have been with ChaCha since the end of July and still haven’t gotten paid. I’m not even getting the runaround because I’m not getting a response from anyone…I have kids to feed and need to be paid. I’m not even tripping about the cut in pay…
I became a guide on August 6. I submitted my paperwork that day and then faxed my signature card on August 18. I heard nothing. I email FIB on August 28 and they wanted utility bills as I have a P.O. On the 28th of August I emailed them again as I had heard nothing. I still have no account!
ChaCha doesn’t seem to care about taking care of their Guides, which is really sad. It’s only due to our work, they are able to grow and make money. You think ChaCha would take better care of us. It’s pathetic to see them spend so much time on stupid hot minute contests and such things, while they don’t take a single second out to help us guides who are long past getting paid what we worked hard to earn.
For the love of God. It’s been 5 weeks and no pay me now button. No response, no anything. What’s going on here? I want my money. Can I get any help at all?
I have been waiting an extremely long time for them to get back to me over my earnings which I WANT NOW! And I am thinking about small claims because I contacted them MORE THAN enough times for them to respond, and gave them soo much time.
The comments go on. The guide who sent them to us also says the complaints are being deleted from the forum almost as fast as he can take screen shots.
I’ve emailed ChaCha for a comment.
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And…if you apply with Scorpion…he/she will make money off of every dime you make!
Yeah…
i signed up a month ago, answer questions a few hours every couple nights, and made an extra $115.
It doesn’t pay the bills but it’s not a bad deal at all for just answering questions.
My favorite posts are the people hired by the company to say how great it is. Susan, Vee and Alan are obviously making a lot more than .02 per answer. At first I thought A. Nonymous might be on the bandwagon as well, but based off of the ad hominem arguments, if you are, they are overpaying you.
By the way, I’ve never worked for this service and have no vested interest in it one way or the other but based off the responses, many who find it to be “great work” have problems with the use of “quotation marks” and “speling.” The lack of pay might be why people who seem legit, like Pamela, are annoyed with the lack of skill that follows.
First of all, not everyone who would work for chacha are idiots and thats just rude to say about people who are trying to make money.
Ive been a guide at chacha for a while now and never had a problem setting the acct up, getting paid or getting replies to any questions I had. Just like any other place of employment, you cant make everyone happy all the time and it only takes one sour grape to ruin it for the rest of us! the person who was complaining about not getting an email reply could just as easily use the telephone and speak to someone with their concerns.
But, if noone new signs up to be a chacha guide that just leaves more work for us non-complaining getting-paid, happy-to-be-working-in-today’s-ecomony guides…
Want to become a Cha Cha guide? With my referral you have a better chance to get in! Just enter yitz1190@gmail.com into the guide referral box. Apply HERE at: https://guideregistration.chacha.com/registration
Holy crap has it gotten bad- in order to deny you 20 cents they HIT the quality control HARD… I was answering the same way and getting an OCCASIONAL quality control notice but they knocked me down two weeks in a row- they are STRUGGLING…
they are having serious system problems and using the expeditors more to answer the easy b-s answers that so many people keep sending…
Yes, it takes time. And if you read through your training manual, you wouldn’t have such a heart attack.
The Bank is not just a Bank for ChaCha guides. Bank is open to any person wanting to Bank online.
Mine took about 5 weeks, but I expected it, CAUSE i read my training manual and participated in the forums and listened to vet guides.
Yeah, so what about that 99% that got paid on time?
P.S. You are told to have all the information ready for the bank when you apply.
If they have to ask you for more information to proof your identity and address you did not send enough information like you were asked..
This slows the process way down!
If you can follow directions, you should not have a problem with knowing “what’s going on!!”
Yep. This is ridiculous, to say the least. Here are the problems.
1- They cut down the number of texts …which means that
2- advertisers will be less willing to go with them with means
3- less money coming in
4- far too many guides (many shitty)
5- NO communication with guides or even letting us communicate with one another, they constantly shut down threads
6- out of wack priorities, they need to fix the SYSTEM and not worry about bells and whistles
7- Did I mention the lack of communication?
OH WAIT!!! This is way out of date. OoooOOh if you only knew what’s going on now!!!!! ChaCha is DOWN! They are sending out messages to customers saying that it’s due to high volume, meanwhile guides are getting MAYBE 5 questions an hour, if they are lucky. The underground (where we check our status and pay ourselves) is practically non-existent. This has been going on for a week, with them saying “we’re working on it” but not saying what they are working on or when it will be fixed. HQ is standing silent on the traffic issues…which makes us guides feel like banging our heads against the wall. We just want ACKNOWLEDGMENT. A 30 second scrap of hope that says “We know it’s slow, we’re fixing it!!!”
They dropped it so that infoseekers are allowed only 20 texts per month…to go between THOUSANDS (well over the 35,000 stated on the site) of guides online at a time. The limit is totally absurd.
Dang sucks for her. I have made $400 and got paid just fine.
The mobile search service also matches queries to guides that are most knowledgeable on the given subject, but the questions and resultant answers are delivered in short, singular messages via SMS text message. In April 2008, ChaCha also announced the availability voice search through its mobile service that could be queried via a toll-free phone number.
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george
New Cars
chacha is so terrible. i mean just a few days ago i needed some extra money to pay my cable bill so i got on chacha and within a little while boom i had the money
man chacha is awful. plus all those people i gave those answers to. i bet they didn’t REALLY enjoy using chacha right?
you guys that are trying to hate on chacha are so goofy.. i can’t even understand it. is it jealousy or are you all really that upset over someone elses success? this reminds me of a certain sucky website called MYSPACE which continues to succeed everyday.
Hy Scorpion
Please send me your details.
Reagrds
I am a guide and I work the night shift I can pull in at least 75 questions an hour that is about 8.00 dollars an hour not the best But I have always got paid, Been working there for months.
Well, I’m late to this game but ChaCha frustrates me. I have made about $7,000 there in the past year or so and have always been paid on time, every single time.
However, it disgusts me the way ChaCha treats the guides. They cut the pay in half again and they said “Because you guides said this is what you wanted!” Yeah, we all asked for our pay to be cut. And when problems occur, they are very sneaky and weird about it. I don’t trust ChaCha’s employees. They don’t appear to have any kind of moral integrity whatsoever.
Employees and Moderators in the forums keep telling guides to send in Feedback. The problem with that is guides don’t hear back and there are a ton of postings in the ChaCha forums about never getting an answer!
Here is the picture they used. Please compare it with the ChaCha blog picture. It was a lower image quality so it didn’t register with me what I was looking at at first.
http://www.virginmedia.com/dig.....hp?ssid=11
I review the forum daily. Yes, there are tons of postings. Feedback is where you see results. It does take time for them to get through them, all payment issues are being handled with top priority. I have used feedback many times. It is a great tool if you use it.