eLance oDesk Burned twice for several thousand dollars, eLance provides no recourse - BEWARE of elance and oDesk, Internet

I started and eLance account about a year ago.  I have attempted 3 projects and have been burned two times so far.  The providers say they do the work and even send reports, however, the work is not done as the reports state.  I thought to myself maybe I just got a bad provider so I gave it another shot just to find another bad provider.  

The sad part is www.eLance.com provides no recourse.  They claim to have "professionals" on their site, however, after reading quite a few reports it appears all of these so called providers actually give themselves their own reviews.  eLance and www.oDesk.com let these shady providers create multiple accounts, hire themselves, and then give positive feedback or themselves!  

The skills assessments are also a joke as the providers are allowed to self-assess themselves on things like SEO, adwords, SEM, web development, etc.  

You can file a dispute, however, eLance takes weeks to get involved and when they do you don't even get a phone call, only a short email indicating they barely even read the dispute.

On one job the provider did not do any work at all.  eLance told me because they used some time tracker program that I was SOL.  Well I can certainly turn on some program while I check my facebook too.  What is wrong with this picture?

The whole site is a joke and should not be relied upon for anything.  Save your money and especially your time.  Hire a real company and avoid the elance and odesk scam.