The place you describe sounds like the company I work for. A former telecom related company that went through a bankruptcy due to fraud and then was bought out and merged with another big player who shall remain nameless for the purpose of this post.
At any rate I understand your position completely and would recommend to you that you check out guru.com . They post requests for freelance development work and you can post your qualifications as a freelancer there as well. They also help with setting things up to make it more likely you will actually get paid, which is always a good thing when you are doing freelance development. They have varying levels including a free account which is all I have ever needed to use.
Hope this helps, happy hunting.
