Ask for Help

What it is

Ask for Help lists members who are offering their time. You find somebody with the skill you need, ask them for 15 minutes of help, and pay 200 Time Coins when the work is confirmed. Nobody pays money.

Good for: a second opinion on your CV, five quick logo ideas, a spreadsheet formula, a language practice call, a review of your website — any small job that someone else can do in 15 minutes.

Before you ask

• 200 Time Coins in your wallet. New accounts start with 200.
• An automated message for Ask for Help under Automated Messages — it is the opening line sent with your request. Or turn on Let me choose each time in Help Settings and type each request yourself.
• Your profile unlocked (country, region and a language).

Step by step

1. Open Ask for Help

   Exchange Place → Ask for Help. People nearest you come first and paying members are shown at the top.

2. Narrow it down

   Filter by country, region, language, paid members or Online now. Open a card to read the full profile and the member's track record.

3. Press "Ask for help"

   If you chose to write each request, a box opens: send your automated message, or type what you need in your own words.

4. The conversation opens

   Your message arrives with a request card on it showing the state, the 15 minutes and the 200 coins. All the buttons for this request live on that card.

5. The helper starts work

   See the next section. When work starts, your 200 Time Coins are held so they cannot be spent twice.

6. The helper marks the work done

   They have 24 hours from starting. You are told by a notification.

7. You confirm

   Press Confirm on the card and the coins go to the helper. If you do nothing, it confirms itself after 48 hours.

How work starts

By default your request is your go-ahead: the helper presses Start work once and it begins.

If you turned on confirm first in Help Settings, it is three steps instead:

1. Helper: "I'd like to start work"
2. You: "Please start work"
3. Helper: "Start work"

   The coins are held and the 24-hour clock starts.

You can also set an auto-expire for requests nobody answers — from one hour to seven days. A request that lapses is simply cancelled; nothing moves and nobody's record is marked.

Finishing, confirming and contests

• Not delivered in time? When the deadline passes, the request expires and your coins come back to you. The helper is reminded an hour before.
• Not happy with the work? Press Contest on the card and say why. A contest withdrawn within 24 hours leaves no mark; otherwise it shows on both public track records.
• Need to call it off? Either side can call off a request that has not started.

Limits and good to know

• You can have up to 5 requests open at once on the free plan, 20 on Premium and Elite.
• On the free plan you can ask the same member once a day. Premium and Elite can ask as often as they like.
• You can ask the same person again while an earlier request is still open — each request gets its own card in the conversation.
• Everything you have asked for, and where it got to, is on Already Asked List & Progress.