All payment and communication between tutors and pupils must be handled through their online system, which takes a 40% cut for the first 25 hours of tutoring, and eventually reduces to a 25% cut- after 400 hours of logged lessons.
They're similarly inscrutable when tutors are arbitrarily banned.
Last year's 1175 point post "Why you should never use Upwork"[0] is still as relevant as ever and I don't expect it to change.
You should avoid Upwork like the plague.
E.g. you have a difficulty that means you can't leave the house. Okay, so participate in open source or specialist online communities. Write blog posts. Post yourself on the seeking freelancer thread.
Not having your own network opens you up to exploitation and poor treatment, because you need the network owner more than she needs you.
So, if you want that, you're left looking for an usually ethical company, which will be hard with a high chance of failure.
I think people need to be founding more online cooperatives and mutuals.
I'm naturally an introvert, and also shy, both of these add difficulty to me getting out face-to-face with people, shaking hands, doing small talk, and handing out business cards. It's an EXCELLENT way to meet people, but doesn't come naturally for me. Here are some ways you can still introduce yourself to others without the same challenges:
1) Go to meetup.com events in your city
These are filled with people in the exact same situation as you, so they will be awkward, forgiving, and grateful if you can speak to them, accept their card, and share a bit about what you do.
Not much has come out of these events as far as work, but it's the easiest, lowest-risk, fastest way to practice meeting people. Ack!
2) Give a talk or lead a workshop
It doesn't have to be the size of a conference, but even if you're bad at public speaking and getting in front of a crowd, think of it like this: you can 'meet' or at leas introduce yourself to 10, 30, 100, even more people at the same time! That makes talking to them MUCH easier afterward, and it really gets your name out there.
When I look around at successful consultants, I see a pattern of them regularly getting in front of hundreds or thousands of people and introducing themselves to all of them at once. When you're at that scale, you wouldn't even have time to meet & greet them all individually.
3) Write blogs or make youtube videos
This takes the pressure off you even more, since it's not realtime you can finesse and polish it to your hearts content, and revisit and touch it up later. By putting content online you can become known as an expert in a certain problem area - somebody people with certain problems can talk to to find solutions or results! This is a natural way to establish yourself as an expert in something
4) Job boards
While I would avoid any kind of online 'labour prison' where you sign in, clients and workers meet through the platform, ALL communication, work, and pay must go through the platform, and some even price your work for you, or require you to install spyware on your own computer while you're doing work. Just COMPLETELY AVOID these.
Instead, look for industry-related job listings that cost $$$ money (preferably over $100) to post a listing. The more it costs to post a job listing, the more serious you know they are about spending money on YOU. If they're the kind of employer who only wants free listings…I bet they also hope for free labour too and will only pay what they absolutely must, at the latest date they can.
Reach out to the listings that fit you, especially if it sounds like you might have an opportunity to speak directly to the business owner. I've found that when you make an acquaintance with somebody who controls a business, you don't have to sell yourself to them, they often can see where they can use you, and have the influence within the company to put you anywhere they want. Don't think about it as applying for the jobs in the listings as much as 'meeting employers of people like you' and every acquaintance you make is a win.
I searched around for what to do in this situation and came across many reports of this type of scam, where an unknown sender "accidentally" sends payment, request a payment from me for the money back, and simultaneously cancels the transaction. I did nothing and hoped the issue would resolve itself.
Two days later, I get an email saying my Venmo account has been frozen "due to recent activity that appears to be a violation of our User Agreement." After reaching out to Venmo via chat, I had a similar interaction as the article. They told me my account was frozen, that my case was being handled by an Account Specialist, and that would be in touch via email.
The next day I got an email from the Account Specialist saying my actions and activity were in violation of the ToS and that my account was permanently deactivated.
I reached out to support again and played dumb, saying I received payment from a stranger but can't send the money back because my balance didn't go up. Support again said they couldn't do anything, that my account was frozen by an Account Specialist, and that they would be in touch via email.
The Account Specialist sent me an email saying the payment was refunded and that I should reach out to the sender directly, to which I responded that I didn't know who the sender was and I assumed the payments were made in error and asking them to confirm that I had to take no further action. They responded with a form email saying my account had been unfrozen. "However, please keep in mind that the state of your account can be revised if your transaction history raises flags on our system in the future."
If the government fucks up, I have an easy way of appealing, everything is clearly defined.
If venmo or PayPal fucks up, I have to sue over country lines, argue an international case, and still have no recourse.
We have exactly one hospital in town. We have exactly one ambulance company in town. We have two medi-vac helicopter providers but you don't get to pick. We have one garbage company (Waste Management) that you're legally required to use in a residential property. One power/gas utility. One water utility.
All of those are private companies, but I have zero ability to switch. There's no competition. They're completely monopolistic either through regulation or naturally. If this is healthy capitalism I'd hate to see unhealthy.
Garbage pickup is particularly galling. It used to be public, government employees, with no profit motive. You had a complaint process. For ideological or "campaign contribution" reasons politicians gave it away to Waste Management, complaints are now handled by nobody, and fees climb year upon year.
There is no conflict of interest there.
So very optimistic. My wife is a foreigner, so she must deal with visas and visa extensions and paperwork and still being brought by immigration officials into tiny rooms and grilled about her paperwork despite everything being correct whenever she comes back from abroad. Our children are citizens of one or possibly two different countries, depending on whose government you ask. I could give plenty more examples but don't want to give up too much personal info. "Clearly defined?" What a laugh.
But I agree with your broader point, both in general and about Venmo and PayPal. They are shady enough companies that I don't have a Venmo account, leave my PayPal account dormant with no bank accounts linked, and opted out of arbitration when PayPal added that.
Most people are also unaware: PayPal owns Venmo.
One might turn this on its head, and suspect that this loss of agency might be the entire point of society changing in this way. TPTB have heard quite enough from the little people, thank you very much.
Host your own blog, run your own systems, use distributed software. I even keep two payment systems available, just in case. I get gigs often enough (as often as I want) mostly just through people reading my blog[1] (where I can advertise when available)
OP said he did a project for $10, which for most freelancers is maybe 5 minutes of work at their standard rate. If you're going to work for free, might as well do it in your own circle and build out from there.
It was a bad contract, but it was completed despite the various issues involved. I submitted the code and he made a claim that my code did something that is absolutely impossible to do: SQL is not going to affect the browser UI, especially not default settings within the browser. I asked for a screenshot of the "issue" and that never came in. The client also made changes to my code and kept demanding I fix it.
I closed down the contract and opened a case, thinking it would be obvious that I did the work as asked and they were very difficult to work with.
It was interesting to read the responses. They kept saying they needed more and more features before they agreed the work was done. I said that the contract, as specified in both the post and ensuing messages was done. I never heard these new requests.
Throughout the correspondence with upwork, the client kept changing their story, outright contradicting themselves over and over.
Upwork, of course, sided with the client over the new feature request they demanded. Apparently, upwork thinks that a contract is infinite work. I pointed out each lie, asked for a screenshot of the impossible bug, and explained the new features (which changed multiple times during the case) would take too long to complete.
I lost the case and ended up doing the job for half price. Upwork is optimized to client first, which is just wrong to the workers. I had to pay 20% of my earnings at $50/hr and up, so it's not like I had zero value to the company.
I closed down my account over that.
Unfortunately, how contractors get really screwed is when they run into a real asshole client. Once this happens they are reported to upwork (for not doing free work usually). Good contractors that worked for us were routinely banned.
[I only have been on the client side.]
"As a general rule, wages earned by nonresident aliens for services performed outside of the United States for any employer are foreign source income and therefore are not subject to reporting and withholding of U.S. federal income tax."
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/pers...
The contractor in Russia that is registered on payoneer can issue an invoice to you, with an US bank account number.
I totally understand why things developed the way they did. The internet is huge and full of bad actors, and a nascent service is in real existential danger of being overwhelmed and swamped by fraud. If you tell bad actors why you're banning them and spend valuable time communicating with them it can put you out of business early on.
But like in so many other arenas, the Valley mentality hasn't adopted to the fact that they are no longer underdog rebels besieged by barbarians on one side and big scary rich corporations on the other site.
The reality is now that these companies are the ruling class, and the users are the general population. And people rely on these services and base their lives on them. Arbitrary and capriciously depriving people of access to these platforms without any kind of due process rights isn't OK any more.
There's a reason we have consumer protection laws, why someone decided we needed things like the Montreal Convention and the FDCPA and CPSC and so on. It's axiomatic that we can't trust monopolistic corporations to do right by the little guy.
This Silicon Valley mentality is increasingly going to lead to pitchforks, torches, and regulation in the near future, it's an inevitability. Rightly so.
I absolutely despise this very common pattern. In the end, the company gets free publicity for screwing you over, and the 100s or 1000s of people in the same situation won't be helped - just because they don't have a massive userbase on social media.
Thought experiment:
What happens if Amazon, right now, decided that you are not a good customer and deleted every one of your accounts and deleted all your AWS data? As of right now, you can't buy anything from them goods wise. And if you were using AWS as a webservice platform, now, you can't. No recourse. At all.
Your Google account was hacked, but google saw you as a spammer and hacker trying to penetrate Google's security systems. They blast all accounts away that have logged in with your IP address of the duration of the hack. You're now without a whole slew of services. Dead in the water, again. Who do you call? Nobody. But you can leave a badly worded post in Google forums - oh wait, you can't even do that.
As you suggest bringing this to your local trade body and making a formal complaint is probably the way to go. It will take a long time and a lot of complaints to get there though. In the mean time avoid them, both the buy and sell side.
You can derive that is very likely the case based on the intelligence and composure of the rest of their post. You can also derive it directly from the full paragraph text, which is not referring specifically to Upwork, rather it is referring to Silicon Valley broadly, and why "things" developed the way they did with how SV firms have tended to treat customers/users.
The core issue is that Silicon Valley sold a dream: "We can build business without people in its ranks. Instead, we can staff programmers and build glue-logic around our business cases, and automate everything. This saves all the money from hiring people."
The investors bought into that idea. Because if it did work, you can have companies that are 1/10'th the size of previous high industry companies, because all the work is automated. Look no further than all the current crop of companies using software in this fashion. Some AI system "learned" that your combined inputs related a fraction higher as fraud - banned. Or someone checked a box in the wrong location and you're locked out. Or your system is deleting user content at random, and there is no-one to call.
Who ends up being tech support for these new companies? The executives. But that's only for people smart enough to realize to send them messages, or otherwise garner their attention via Twitter, Reddit, or HN and happen to be in the right place at the right time. Even the aforementioned gamification needs to be done for even HN, to get the right post at the right time.
Where do we go from here? In truth, not many places. Non-software companies with real human service will get eaten out of house and home by companies willing to make deals with machines. The VC funding is in AI businesses, not traditional. But one can still choose to be customers at respectful businesses. But the internet makes that much harder, as going online also includes 'selling out' customer service. Some AI will then tell agents "you can't do that" even , if it is what's needed.
You're talking like the only solutions to this can come from the market, and if the market forces won't work that way then we're screwed and must give up.
The real solution to this is customer/employee friendly regulation. I'm thinking something like a rule requiring an easy, timely way to appeal to a human that's empowered to override the automation after any adverse ruling by it; backed up by the threat of fines and legal sanctions. In the current American federal political climate, that's a stretch, but there are other jurisdictions, at the state level and internationally, where something regulation like this might be feasible.
Obviously we just need to make this kind of behavior expensive enough that execs don't take 20 years to develop a reasonable support model. Hold them personally responsible for their companies, and don't let them hide behind their shitty algorithms.
New users often charge bellow their market rate in order to build reputation on the platform. Then once you get your 5 stars and start making good money you get banned kafka style, lame explanation, no resource.
Looks like they want to keep it a race to the bottom more than anything.
It's not Silicon Valley you're railing against: it's blind unthinking bureaucracy. It's a problem that goes back much further than the days when "silicon valley" was all orchards.
Comparing this to private Silicon Valley companies that are't accountable to anyone for their behavior towards individual users actually illustrates the problem neatly.
Silicon valley looks at this problem, and says that it needs to be disrupted. It then disrupts it, by taking away power from organizations that have it, and giving it to itself. We then all pat ourselves on the back and order a rum and coke.
(and i'm sure various industries before that)
I created a new twitter account and a few days lates it's banned. I haven't even had a chance to follow/tweet or do anything.
Forgiveness is an important part of humanity that, at times, must be enforced.
What does that have to do with this? Well...
But like in so many other arenas, the Valley mentality hasn't adopted to the fact that they are no longer underdog rebels besieged by barbarians on one side and big scary rich corporations on the other site.
The reality is now that these companies are the ruling class, and the users are the general population. And people rely on these services and base their lives on them.
That's exactly how this feels. It's everywhere in Silicon Valley. And when you try to talk to them and point out that maybe this is unfair, it's like they don't even grok it. "Fairness? Morals?"
It's about power. The power to control you and have you obey. You either have power or you don't. And unless you build something, you have no power at all.
Those are uncomfortable conclusions. It pretty much defines what you have to do in life, for years, if you want to be in a position where anyone will listen. But that was always true – the world just makes it more obvious now.
But... It's also exciting. We have the ability to acquire power. It's true that most of us won't acquire funding, which is what we really need to influence the world. But at no point in history has it been so easy (relatively speaking) for a side project to suddenly influence the world. If you were a farmer in the middle ages, you were boned. Ditto for most of the present world today.
Isn't it weird? SV suddenly became the ruling class; you're exactly right. And no one has really been talking about the implications yet.
You can test this out- try to get customer service as a yeoman and try to get customer service as a valley baron.
So, lesson learned- never enter true occupation data in a field when registering.
They're being unreliable and stonewalling an extraordinarily tiny percentage of their massive userbases. That's precisely why it doesn't matter to them in a business sense.
Also, similar to recruiting these places need to attract top talent consistently not just warm-bodies. Highly skilled workers can afford to exercise other options much better.
So maybe it's not quite as monopolistic as the others you mentioned but it has clearly (and rationally) chosen to compromise fairness to its users to a degree that it likely could not in a more competitive market.
What the hell does that even mean? I write PHP for a living and this makes no sense to me.
Do they mean retrieve the ID via session_id() and pass it onto a page, like in a GET parameter?
But you're right. The question is confusing even for experienced PHP devs.
PHP Dev or not, that question is too vague to be answerable. You'd have to ask additional questions just to understand the question itself.
It's a shit sandwich, but in tough times, that's all you can find to eat.
"Let's build a platform that exploits desperate developers..."
I spent probably 2-3 hours for that $15 (and 3 hours more for additional $30) and then about 2 hours for that $100 (expected $50). These are all excluding messaging, just actual work.
It's a standard guide when joining new freelance sites.
The platform is pretty buggy, I don't enjoy using it. The only reason I stick to it is the "pool" of freelancers is pretty big so you can likely find someone qualified and decent to work with. You get _tons_ of junk though. You can limit this by setting to only in US, only those that have worked x hours and have already made x. Setting strict requirements at least can remove the bait and switch or fresh spam accounts.
Fun story time. I was looking for a developer and found a guy that seemed to have a nice profile, clear picture, etc. When I messaged him the responses felt very foreign and quick. Didn't really make sense so I reverse image searched the photo and found the photo belonged to a developer but not the guy I was talking to (different names). I emailed the real guy (he had a portfolio site and some nice programming articles) and asked if this was really him on Upwork. Nope. He said he's never had a profile on there and thanked me as he went to report it.
In my experience Upwork support has always been slow and cut-rate. I realize the irony as Upwork most likely employs contractors from its platform who aren't necessarily invested in building a product or community. It's unfortunate but this is a huge shortcoming both from a support and policy (ToS) standpoint. Support needs to be invested in the product.
FWIW no freelancer (or gig economy worker for that manner) should be dependent on a single platform for income. There are so many job platforms to invest time and energy on - Upwork, Toptal, Gun.io, RemoteOk, etc. And the plethora of developer focused Q&A sites. Leverage those to augment your personal profile (site).
I'd also add a recommendation to spend at least a third of the time you spend doing billable work in building up your own pipeline — regardless of whether you're using a freelance service like us or not.
Threatening legal action against UpWork gets you far in these situations.
These SV companies think they can do whatever they want and sometimes need a harsh reality check that they must obey laws, especially as more and more people depend on them.
I can't wait for GDPR and alike to start regulating these atrocities against privacy, security and fraud like behaviour.
If anyone from UpWork is reading this, know that not I only I have personally closed my account, I will do everything in my power to keep hard working, honest engineers from your platform.
And help them in any shape or form should they seek litigation against you.
https://theremotefreelancer.com
https://github.com/engineerapart/TheRemoteFreelancer
Remote jobs here:
https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job#job-board...
Actually, the OP is not a customer. A customer is someone who delivers money. Upwork treated their actual customer quite well: they refunded him and talked to him like human beings - even told him the reason why the OP was suspended.
I do not think that is very sustainable long-term... I think you'll be able to find much better quality workers in system that is more equitable.
However, systems like that don't exist.
One time, me and a client logged into Upwork to close a contract out on the same network. We both got banned :)
Six months ago from nowhere I got a sudden email about my account suspension. I appealed and try to prove my identity with Government Issued ID card, Academic details even My name in the list of the post-graduates(with no result). They keep on denying to re-activate my account and suggest me to withdraw my money, that I have not yet.
I can still browse Upwork, It is becoming more toxic with agressive bidding and way lower quality jobs now a days.
I hope you get this resolved, but let this be a warning that these "gig" companies are nothing but a scam.
> Before starting the verification process, I completed the second gig
That seems ... optimistic!
> She talked a bit more, but I could barely understand her anything due to connection issues.
> ...
> “That went far easier and quicker than I expected. Lovely.”
Seriously?
Other than that his experience does seem extremely frustrating.
Some more alternatives:
is it really so surprising that they are fucking abysmal at customer service?
my experiences with them are 100% bad, but nowhere near as bad as what the OP article discusses.
A "mechanical Turk", as amazon would call it, a "Code Monkey" as Jonathan Coulton sang in his song.
A completely exchangeable person, an employee as a service. How the code is written, who does it, is entirely irrelevant. Entirely replaceable, with no recourse for the "contractor".
The main component of the gig economy is exactly this, completely disenfranchising the worker by commoditizing work. You try to negotiate higher pay, you simply get replaced.
Someone once created an account on upwork in my name (based on my github probably), took me ages to get that one shut down..
When you're a serf on another's platform, you're subject to their rules. What rules are they? "Does their automated system and people like you?"
Is it unfair? Yes. Is it bad all around? Yes. Is there anything you can do about it? Yes - posting to social media and naming and shaming. That's it.
Honestly you're probably better off you ended your upwork journey after only a couple gigs.
I did a few projects on elance years ago but it was always a hassle and tough to find good projects/clients.
It sounds like you are providing good value/quality work to clients. Look to your network to find Go projects instead. Become more active in the community. Keep blogging.
Connect with other Go developers, ask around if anyone knows anyone needing a Go developer. Lots of times developers don't have time to handle all the projects/clients they run in to and will hand them off to someone else they respect in the community.
You're going to find better projects/clients and higher paying side work that way than using upwork. And not have to deal with their hassle, fees and issues like this.
This might be a little bit of a gray area since it violates their ToS but since your account is suspended anyway if you have the emails of the two clients you worked with you could contact them and contract with them on new projects directly. (Don't mention here that you are doing this in case your usernames are the same on HN/upwork)
Especially the last one where you completed the gig, he paid you a higher amount than agreed on and then upwork refunded your fee for work completed. He should be open to moving forward contracting directly.
Good luck finding side work.
