lol yes a very similar situation for me but from the other side.. I employed people on rentacoder and it was not too bad just had to be very careful but then freelancer LOL it seems like an army of people who are only in the business of scamming, also the actual freelacer company looks really shady themselves! I only posted a few jobs on freelancer many many years ago but that was enough.. I logged in recently to freelancer and they seem to be ripping off 99designs/fiverr/whatever else they can find to copy..
I remember that now with rentacoder, they had a great escrow system.
oDesk are good, they dont allow employers or freelancers to get away with much wrong doing, they re all I use now and I hope they do not change