Upwork Sucks! #1 Freelance Site Is HORRIBLE
Author’s Note: the below article is written from the freelancer point of view rather than a business owner looking to hire freelancers. Whichever you are, hopefully my experience sheds light on both positive and negative aspects of online freelancing. Although my first year on Upwork left me feeling quite jaded, I still maintain an active profile where you are free to hire me for WordPress optimization work (until I get banned); better yet, check out LittleBizzy if lightning-fast WordPress hosting is your #1 objective.
Update 9/11/2015: Upwork.com has become so slow and buggy in recent weeks that today execs were forced to publicly admit they couldn’t figure out why, although they apparently blamed “abnormal traffic spikes” for the problems (which have been happening ever since the re-branding of Upwork Inc, according to many users). Naturally, they locked the forum thread so that nobody could post a reply… meanwhile, traffic to this blog post continues to surge as a result of overwhelming frustration.
Update 9/14/2015: You know its getting bad when freelancers are launching full-time Twitter accounts to expose all the problems with the Upwork website, from connection timeouts, to CloudFlare 522 errors, to a laundry list of feature bugs.
Update 9/21/2015: Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel continued to prove his unbelievable incompetence today when he emailed 10+ million freelancers, apologizing for website “slowness” during “September 7-10” (only) … despite the website still being inundated with programming bugs and poor performance, and despite these issues having existed for several months already (in fact, I now have Upwork leads emailing my company LittleBizzy because their “Slack-killer!” messaging system is down, yet again). I would actually feel sorry for Kasriel, except for the fact that he is a) dishonest and b) shows no loyalty to the top freelancers within the Upwork network…
Update 10/11/2015: Upwork has now removed the “5-star” rating system from freelancer profiles in favor of the so-called Job Success Score they announced earlier… I honestly think this might be a step in the right direction to combat clients taking freelancers “hostage” over stars, as it makes the feedback more low profile. Still, it really doesn’t matter when $2.84/hour is considered “Expert Level” work… outrageous.
Update 10/22/2015: Read how I was able to rank this article #1 on Google for “Upwork sucks” and then subsequently page #1 on Google for “Upwork” in just 5 weeks.
Update 10/25/2015: Yesterday I received yet ANOTHER warning from Upwork, stating: “Job application cancelled for a policy violation” issued to me by the Filipino freelancers that make up Upwork’s “support” team for “submitting the same job application multiple times on Upwork” which I did not, of course, do. After responding to them, “Seriously, are you Filipino freelancers blind?” I was issued yet ANOTHER warning “Account flagged for Policy Violation” for “making discriminatory or offensive remarks, threats, profanity, or vulgarity”… but after sending them the link to this article and thanking them for providing yet even more ridiculous content for this saga, they suddenly closed out the “warning” tickets! It is beyond clear at this point that Upwork is 100% over… it is now nothing more than a clusterf*ck of third world countries, with the investors and executives behind Upwork completely uninterested in turning the ship around.
Freelancing is the future — or so they keep telling us. For years, experts have been saying that upwards of 40% of Americans will be employed as freelancers by 2020 (although the clarification between “full-time” vs “part-time” freelancers seems oft-ignored).
The massive force behind this trend is, of course, the internet, along with its “easier” ways of hiring, firing, communicating, organizing, and sending money to people.
Enter Upwork, the largest freelance marketplace in the world, a result of the recent merge and 2015 re-branding of oDesk + eLance, previously the first and second most popular freelancing websites, respectively. The company has raised over $74 million in funding since being founded in 2005 — which, despite being notable, actually pales in comparison to the funding that most modern startups receive.
Which is why, ultimately, Upwork’s recent re-branding and constant CEO shuffle (eLance CEO Fabio Rosati took over as oDesk-eLance CEO in December 2013, a strange occurrence when it comes to buyouts; then Stephane Kasriel was named as yet another new CEO in April 2015), is so illustrative. When top executives keep abandoning ship and desperate, overreaching re-branding campaigns take place (despite overwhelmingly negative feedback), there is clearly something bigger going on.
But, let’s back up for just a minute.
My First Six Months With Upwork
For several years, I totally avoided freelancing websites. Despite wandering the globe through most of my 20s and being in desperate need of income half the time, I survived mostly from my own web projects and the various long-term clients and local opportunities I came across. I had always been under the impression that freelance sites were more of a place to hire “cheap” help from India, etc. a la Four Hour Work Week, rather than a place where I could offer any value or pick up decent clients of my own. This was an entirely narrow-minded view, although not a wholly unfounded one.
After becoming something of an expert in website loading speed, I decided to join oDesk in the fall of 2014 just for kicks after being partially re-inspired by a webinar uploaded by Wyatt Jozwowski. I charged my first client literally $1 for several hours of optimization work just to get my foot in the door, and in return received an amazingly positive review from him that helped open the floodgates to more and more oDesk clients. The experience largely influenced the re-launch of my managed WordPress hosting company, LittleBizzy, in the spring of 2015, at which point I put together a quick case study of my first 6 months on Upwork called SEO is dead that focused on the growing importance of loading speed, SSL (HTTPS), mobile support, and good old fashioned common business sense when it comes to finding success on the internet.
The amount of time I invested into Upwork during those first 6 months was absolutely insane in light of the unremarkable net profit I pulled in, although I fully expected (and was willing) to make sacrifices to get my profile juiced up nicely. But even when charging $33/hour – far above the average on Upwork – and picking up several long-term clients along the way, the numbers truly didn’t add up when considering the overall time, expense, stress, scheduling, and annoyance that Upwork caused me.
“Despite the fact that freelancers need to go through hell and high water to gain the highest verification level on UpWork, the persistent unskilled newbies from the Third World countries came flooding in on this site. Hopefully it will sort out the problem with the unskilled workforce overpopulation and UpWork will remain a harbor of safe labor and respect for skill, not cheapness. … The demographics of UpWork’s population are rather tilted towards the different sides of the planet – the most classic scheme one would find on UpWork is some USA or UK employer hiring a European or Eastern European freelancer.” — Idan Cohen
Still, by developing various tricks I was able to increase my profits and leverage various income streams into my business. At the 6 month point, the only justification I had to continue was that I had several long-term clients who were counting on me and who trusted me to pretty much bill when and what I thought was best (but even still, I could have easily brought all those clients away from the Upwork system – their idea, not mine!). With the launch of LittleBizzy, I had further incentive to develop new relationships across the web with successful business owners, so I bit the bullet and buckled down.
My Second Six Months With Upwork
At this point, I was (and still am) the #1 ranked WordPress expert on Upwork out of more than 10 million freelancers around the world (probably not accurate, but hey, I will take it, and thank you very much…); I am also #2 ranked for “Upwork Readiness” in the world and also rank among the top in skill tests such as English Spelling, English Grammar, and Search Engine Optimization. This, along with the fact that I now had over 50+ positive reviews on my profile and was also marked “Top Rated” in the Upwork system, helped me begin generating automatic inquires from new clients which definitely helped me save time looking up new job postings and sending in proposals; after all, clients who WANT you are the easiest to convert into paying accounts!
I did, however, eventually run into some problems after several months. Firstly, despite my rather quick mastery of the Upwork system (which I can hopefully throw together into a CollegeTimes eBook soon), I did actually end up refunding 2 clients on small projects who suddenly had huge temper tantrums. Rather than getting a negative review(s) left on my Upwork profile, I decided to maintain my 5.00 star ranking and otherwise perfect record by simply refunding these two clients, no questions asked.
Secondly, I began to notice that I was slowing down drastically as far as connecting with new clients. This was probably due largely in part to being busy with the long-term clients I had already acquired earlier, however, since one of my goals was to keep meeting new people (as part of my multi-prong business strategy), it did hurt my ability to achieve those goals simultaneously. Billable hours are wonderful, but at a certain point the “freelancing” (and constant emailing, helping, etc, at all hours) was hurting my ability to scale my hosting business, let alone remain organized with the various revenue streams and even non-business parts of my life that I wished to focus on. But as this was somewhat related to freelancing in general, I can’t fully blame Upwork for such issues.
However, last week (and the main inspiration for publishing this blog post) I ran into my biggest Upwork drama yet: a whack-job (“feminist”) client from Canada with a huge ego and absolutely no understanding of web technology decided to “report” me to Upwork for “purposefully deleting her website” after calling me a “sick” and “evil” “terrorist” from America; she was surprised because “weren’t all terrorists supposed to be from the Middle East!?” This nightmare was the result of me breaking one of my own rules: immediately cut off any client who replies to emails with short-phrase answers or who generally seems clueless about what they need. Long story short, this charade turned into a 100+ email exchange between me, the client, and her Indian developer (“the best WordPress developer she’d seen in 17 years”) who had hacked her WordPress template so badly it resulted in over 800+ queries executing on every page load, which continually crashed her MySQL database. Despite me offering her several hours of free explanations/advice, and even giving her a temporary “free” hosting plan upgrade so that she could see that more RAM would be necessary to handle her hacked template, she went ahead and filed an “hourly dispute” against me on Upwork.
The dispute, which seeks a refund for the randomly chosen amount of “4 hours of work” was filed on 22 August, 2015 (9 days ago from time of writing). Since that time, I have had all of my earned funds “frozen” on Upwork (bank transfers have been totally disabled on my account), I was unable to apply to new jobs or bill my current clients for existing contracts (10+ month old contracts) until just a few days ago, and have not received a reply from the Upwork team in over 4 days in regard to the resolution of this dispute, despite their TOS promising 48-hour resolutions to all hourly disputes (and despite me wasting several hours of time preparing all the evidence their Mediation team had requested to prove this client was, in fact, lying). When I contacted Upwork “support” yesterday for an update, I found myself chatting with a teenage freelancer from the Philippines literally working out of his bedroom, answering my legal questions!
Update 9/1/2015: This morning, 10 days after the dispute was filed, I finally re-gained access to my account and funds. I received a brief apology, despite an earlier warning (below) that further complaints would get me “permanently banned” from Upwork:
Hi Jesse, We are pleased to inform that your account has now been resumed. Please be reminded to adhere to all Upwork policies going forward. You can read more about our policies here: https://www.upwork.com/info/terms/ … Please note that if you violate this policy or any other Upwork policy again, your account will be permanently suspended. Please feel free to contact our Support Team if you need assistance. Thank you. Regards, Eu M. Upwork Trust & Safety
In any case, despite tons of wasted time and constantly struggling to distinguish myself among an ocean of extremely ignorant, incompetent, and unbelievably “cheap” people on both the freelancer and client sides of Upwork, I did end up connecting with dozens of talented, professional, and inspiring people (who I hope to know for many years). As of today, I have not necessarily become anti-freelance sites, but have rather concluded that without a drastically new approach (or specializing the playing field), highly-skilled people will continue to shy away from dominant freelancing markets.
The Never-Ending PR Struggle of Upwork
In late 2012, Reddit CEO Yishan Wong posted on Quora (now famously) that hiring people from the likes of oDesk or eLance is a bad idea, because “end products” never turn out more than “merely okay” or usually “failure” – directly insulting the dozens of remote workers that the company employed at the time:
“You shouldn’t do this; it will probably result in failure. I have a friend who is a designer (so, closer to technology and implementation than a business person; about as close as you can be without being outright technical yourself), and he was hiring developers via eLance. Even with consultation from friends of his (e.g. me) who were real engineers, it was extremely difficult to find decent engineers who could do the things he needed, deliver reliably, and iterate according to ongoing testing/customer feedback. The end product was merely “okay” – kind of slow, with little glitches here and there. If you have total technical ignorance and no local (friend) resources to help you, hiring from eLance or oDesk is almost impossible to do correctly. I would recommend trying another route.” — Reddit CEO Yishan Wong
Just months later, Reddit raised another $50 million in venture funding and Wong decided to immediately force all remote workers to either move to San Francisco, or be fired (initially, Wong gave them less than a few weeks to decide).
Now, I’ve never been a fan of Reddit (a post for another day), but when the CEO of one of the web’s largest social platforms makes such controversial comments, people listen. And, while I understand the premise of Wong’s view (or other similar views), his opinion is simply wrong. There are a vast amount of seriously talented freelancers on websites like Upwork; the problem is NOT the freelancers, its the way that websites like Upwork function (or perhaps, the way that amateurs like Wong manage their remote team).
Eventually, Wong left Reddit (in late 2014) after disagreements over – you guessed it – office and staff expansion in San Francisco. But the biggest hilarity of all was when Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel tried to capitalize off the story to attract these cream-of-the-crop freelancers into the sh*tty world of Upwork. But there’s a reason why Upwork is so desperate for cheeky attention in the face of round after round of lackluster fundraising, and its something that even Redditors seem to understand.
An Inherently Flawed Business Model
Companies like Automattic (the owners of WordPress software) have used remote-work teams for several years with amazing success; the error that dumbasses like Yishan Wong often make is equating freelancing with Upwork, or Upwork with freelancing.
I have no shame in being a “freelancer” — that being said, I indeed felt like a bit of a loser “competing” with millions of Third World “freelancers” on Upwork with poor English skills, questionable ability, and hourly rates that make working at the LAX McDonald’s look like a dream job (unlike “freelance” attorneys or accountants, the vast world of web development has no mandatory “bar” to pass).
But Upwork wasn’t always like this; indeed, I can remember the early days of oDesk when they tried to market themselves to corporate teams and project management, before it all caved in and became IndiaDesk — the problem was that their digital marketing strategy chose to prioritize “biggest” over being the “best” or the “only.”
Here’s an (ongoing) list of negative things I encountered over this past year, which in total made Upwork a barely-worthwhile resource for me:
- Instability: I have no idea who is in control of the design and functionality of Upwork.com but the sudden, illogical changes in design and constant crashing of the site and messaging system rendered Upwork 100% useless around once a week or more… not to mention their Ubuntu client is non-functional
- Expensive: While I appreciate Upwork trying to simplify the fees process by charging a flat 10% commission fee on all work, this is truly a huge ripoff on long-term contracts especially when its so easy to take clients off the site and over to PayPal or otherwise… I never did this in an effort to remain loyal and abide by TOS, but at least 50% of my clients suggested dumping the Upwork payment system and hiring me directly… despite “experts” constantly quitting Upwork, a few months ago they had the nerve to send out a “survey” asking how freelancers felt about a whopping 18% commission charge as part of a planned fee re-structuring
- Rudeness: The spoiled, ego-maniac clients on Upwork who read Four Hour Work Week and think they are the next Zuckerberg expect things like “highly detailed” proposals or demand ridiculous turn-around time or 24/7 availability, but 90% of the time you will not get a client if you charge more than $2/hour… commonly, these “clients” will have sudden temper tantrums, so spending time writing “custom” proposal messages or delivering quality work is almost never worth the effort (Note: the majority of Upwork clients are not this bad, but it happened often enough to matter)
- “Cheap”-ness: Even when you do write “custom” proposals, most clients are too “cheap” or non-professional to consider your high quality fair-priced proposal, so they exchange several demanding messages with you (wasting further time) and then ultimately bail, usually making up an excuse so as to not appear “cheap” (or, they attempt to blackmail you on $20 gigs by demanding free SEO consulting “and if its good enough, I will consider changing my review of you to 5 stars”)
- No Support: Upwork tries to make a glorious statement about the quality of freelancing by hiring freelancers from their own site to… help manage their own site. This is not necessarily a bad idea, but when I’m being threatened with lawsuits and being called a “terrorist” by a whack-job client (after my cash has been frozen for 10 days), chatting with a teenager from the Philippines is not my idea of supporting the highly skilled freelancers who make or break the reputation of your community
- No Loyalty: By constantly focusing on growth, Upwork is stuck in a recurring Catch-22 where they approach their network like the TSA, assuming everyone is a scammer and bringing down efficiency standards for everyone because of it; naturally, people keep quitting the site and Upwork is forced to focus on growth again. If I was the CEO of Upwork, I would break my back to make sure my top rated freelancers were treated like effing kings, offer them dedicated support agents, and give them the benefit of the doubt any time a complaint or dispute was filed against them. What justification exactly do talented freelancers have in keeping long-term clients in a “Dante’s Inferno” billing system besides its kind-of useful time tracking app? (Thankfully, there are many other time tracking and time sheet solutions out there these days.)
Any half-decent MBA graduate should be able to explain what is going on behind the scenes of Upwork and its ever-shaky reputation among investors: Upwork is ultimately nothing more than an easily-replicated attempt to capitalize off a growing economic trend without adding any real value to the process of freelancing, or any real incentive for freelancers to stick around after acquiring a handful of client leads. In other words, Upwork is neither a necessary tool for people to begin freelancing, nor do they provide any reason for freelancers to retain Upwork as a “tool” of the trade after their client base grows up. At the end of the day, the only thing that websites like Upwork really provide is a wildly unpredictable stream of client “leads” to a wildly unpredictable market of freelancers – and a whole lot of guaranteed time wasting.
“If you want great clients who are willing to pay well for your time you need to specialize and solve real business problems. If you’re just ‘building WordPress themes’ then you are in competition with oDesk and you’ll continue to be in competition till you change your business model.” — Curtis Mchale
Upwork Is A Massive Conflict Of Interest
But that’s just the thing: Upwork’s investor-backed goals are not concerned with quality, they are concerned with concepts like “market penetration” and vanity metrics such as the following: “As of May 2014, Upwork reported $1B in annual billings, 10 million freelancers and 4 million clients worldwide.” Any good investor knows that cash flow means nothing apart from net income growth and sign-ups mean nothing without a strong retention rate: The typical Upwork client either grows quickly frustrated re: poor quality freelancers and wasted time shopping around, and the typical Upwork freelancer grows quickly frustrated re: poor quality clients and wasted time sending proposals. It is a constant, vicious cycle of poor quality, wasted time from doing menial tasks (the very thing that these users were trying to get away from doing), and perhaps, ocassionally connecting with a few good quality people in which case they quickly take their business relationship off of Upwork to save on costs and save on time (and annoyance).
The company’s desperate, cheeky PR moves don’t help. Earlier this year, Upwork was quick to make an inflated job offer to Nina Mufleh, the girl whose online resume aimed at AirBnB went viral around Silicon Valley and beyond. Are Upwork execs really that clueless when it comes to what their website needs to improve, or do they simply prefer the worthless soundbites they achieve with stupid PR stunts?
Upwork is, no doubt, the largest freelance marketplace — but like WalMart, it’s a marketplace for the cheap-ass ignorant wannabes of the world, or anyone else too lazy to walk across the street to Trader Joes — let alone cook dinner at home.
https://www.lancebase.com/threads/a-client-told-me-theyll-never-use-upwork-again-heres-why.10637/
They didn’t even give me the chance to put my side.
Now, I have lost all of my reputation, my clients of upwork that I earned with so many efforts.
They are behaving like a dictator saying that their decision is final.
How Freelancer can request the Bank without informing me and for what reason and how can the Bank Debit my account.
This is a Fraud. I am residing in the State of Qatar and my Banker is Commercial Bank of Qatar.
everybody be careful from this cheaters.
How Freelancer can request the Bank without informing me and for what reason and how can the Bank Debit my account.
This is a Fraud. I am residing in the State of Qatar and my Banker is Commercial Bank of Qatar.
Please everybody be careful from this cheaters.
Not mention, the left a poor review which dropped my JSS to a level below that of many of the minimum requirements. ZERO LOYALTY to the freelancer.
After living in Germany for a few months, I returned home for the holidays I changed to my permanent home address which they required proof (and I did provide) they NOW they decided to SUSPEND/DEACTIVATE my account because they claim my uploaded Proof of IDs are fake, although I completed an I9.
I didn’t get any upwork projects while in the US and once I was in Germany, a French company contacted me.
Now I’m fighting these incompetent maroons for I am due another pay check from the company I provided services, and they never answered within 48hrs as their support email ticket ‘promised’ … 6 days to get a message claiming my information is a fraud… SERIOUSLY????
I certainly know who I am …
You’re very wrong.
If you go on this site and there you will be deceived, you will be to blame for yourself, since you did not listen to the warning
Also check out:- TheHTMLCoder.com
Why don’t you go look at the mirror and find out what’s wrong with you.
I am not a full-time Upwork worker, but in the last 2 years I have completed 3.2×10^7 projects with a rating score over 99.99% for a total of $345,322,937,000.17 earned.
I would strongly recommend to try out the platform as an alternative to UpWork.
Its talent pool consists only of pre-vetted developers who work in real companies. Most of them are residents of Eastern Europe so the price of work is usually lower than average price on UpWork, for example.
Hope you find this information useful!
Please come and join on https://www.freelancinggig.com
Here you can buy/sell micro services and you can post free project.
Few features:
No membership charges
Free post project
low commission fee
No transaction fee
withdrawal in same day
Looking forward to see you in freelancinggig.com
Thanks
You will cheat and after that cannot find you or your location !
I also received ID verification message from the Hell Upwork and submitted it.
But later they told me that they need another image of my ID card.
So, I’ve resubmitted it.
After that, they said to me that they’ve completed another review of all the information available and concluded that my account will remain permanently deactivated.
And didn’t tell me what the matter is in spite of asking the reason.
__________________________________
All you guys can make client account easily and post job on Upwork, and you can expose fraud and cheating of Upwork.
I will do that and hope everyone follow me.
Regards.
After a lengthy phone conversation August 10, 2017 with Anna (see that conversation summary below), Upwork phone representative, trying to figure out why I still can’t download the $60 payment from Scott A., I was informed that Upwork had taken my $60 and removed the access button to retrieve my money. Anna said that she would speak with others to see if she can get that money returned to me and would email me about the situation. The following is what I received via email:
Anna (August 10, 2017) at 17:46
Hi Patricia,
Thank you for contacting Upwork Support. My name is Anna and it was a pleasure assisting you today.
I investigated your account and found that in December 2015, you were given a code to have a free 2 month membership for your Agency. You were given instructions on how to apply it on your account as well. This free 2 month membership was applied to January and February 2016.
After that the membership was not cancelled and so the system used the then existing balance to pay for the $20.00 monthly membership plan.[THIS IS A LIE, I CANCELED IT IN JANUARY]
I feel sorry that you might have been confused on how to access your Agency profile but we will not be able to refund the Membership Fees for March, April, and May 2016. [THIS WAS NOT A MEMBERSHIP FEE PAYMENT, IT WAS A PAYMENT FROM A CLIENT]
If you need further assistance or experience any additional issues, please submit a new ticket using this link and one of our team members will be more than happy to help.
Kind Regards,
Anna
Upwork Customer Support
————————–
Patricia August 11, 2017 at 14:00
Dear Anna,
Like I told you on the phone, I canceled the Agency in January 2016 but your representative evidently didn’t follow through with that cancellation procedure (which I didn’t know about at that time) and I kept trying over and over again to retrieve my $60 payment from Scott A. for the work I completed and he paid for through you website. I was not able to retrieve that $60 payment because Upwork denied me access (removed the button) to this payment and I found out just yesterday that Upwork stole my payment which was my money for creating 2 logos (at a great discount) for Scott A. without my approval and without even mentioning anything to me about what they were doing with that money because I would have stopped them if I had known. I had no idea that the Agency account wasn’t canceled as requested in January 2016 until Upwork tried to take $20 from my PayPal account for it in June. I had to contact PayPal to file a complaint with them and let them know that had canceled that Agency account in January and then PayPal got that issue resolved for me and I then received the refund of that $20. But I still wasn’t told that Upwork had stolen my $60 and did not receive the return of my $60 payment for the work I completed. Upwork had no business taking my money – that was my money to choose what to do with it but Upwork had stolen it and removed the button that I needed in order to withdraw and transfer that money to my bank account! This is theft and is very unethical so I intend to have my attorney file a formal complaint with request for compensation for my payment and for the unethical dealings of Upwork. Please do the right thing and return my $60 immediately and I will stop the legal process.
That’s crazy. I started LevelQA.com which is for freelancing, consulting, and mentoring. We have a free subscription of course, but the payment for our payed subscriptions is taken up front for the coming year. Any payment you have is yours – that’s a pretty bold move taking your money to cover their fees, especially if you had already made a move to cancel and it was their error. Some of the experiences people are running into just seem punitive.
https://qaonair.com/
On the other hand, I joined Toptal. So far, my first experience is great. The best thing there is pre-vetted developers and recruiter to handle all rates issues.
If upwork keep acting like this, it will surely become a site like freelancer in few years.
We’ve reviewed all of the information you provided, but will not be reinstating your account. The decision is final and your account is permanently deactivated. I understand this is not the outcome you were hoping for.
Please know we are unlikely to respond to further correspondence regarding this matter.
That’s true. It really SUCKS…..
My name is Allie and I’m undergraduate student involved in a summer research program at Carnegie Mellon University. During my short research internship, I’m conducting interviews with online workers. I’m conducting these interviews because I’m interested in better understanding online work in the hopes of developing systems and/or resources to better support YOU ?
If you are interested in participating in a brief 30 – 40 minute interview, please email me: [email protected] & I will provide you with more details!
I realize this is a big favor to ask, however your participation in this interview will offer my current study immense value. Finally, if you do agree to participate, completing your interview will be my top priority – so I will adapt to meet YOUR SCHEDULE!
Thank you again for your valuable time.
Best,
Allie
My name is Allie and I’m undergraduate student involved in a summer research program at Carnegie Mellon University. During my short research internship, I’m conducting interviews with online workers. I’m conducting these interviews because I’m interested in better understanding online work in the hopes of developing systems and/or resources to better support YOU ?
If you are interested in participating in a brief 30 – 40 minute interview, please email me: [email protected] & I will provide you with more details!
I realize this is a big favor to ask, however your participation in this interview will offer my current study immense value. Finally, if you do agree to participate, completing your interview will be my top priority – so I will adapt to meet YOUR SCHEDULE!
Thank you again for your valuable time.
Best,
Allie
Interesting and very informative post, I must admit.
As a Co-Founder of revolutionary freelancing platform called Parttimerz which is poised to forever change the way freelancing and online outsourcing is done, I’m please to have read your post.
Namely, over the past several months I came across dozens of post similar to your in tone and hundreds of comments from ex-Upworkers who had very similar complaints and concerns.
All of that caught me by surprise but made me happy simply because Parttimerz unconventional business model of rewarding top performing freelancers by additional paycheck – above and beyond their quarterly earning – and weeding out the weak and underperforming freelancers, is beautifully positioned to address those concerns and fill gaps Upwork has created.
Once again, that was an awesome – eyeopening – read and I thank you for your candor. Meanwhile, give your expertise in the world of freelancing platforms, I’d appreciate greatly if you find some time to visit https://www.parttimerz.com and have a ‘test drive’ in hope that you may have some cool pointers on how to improve further more to make freelancers and clients experience even more rewarding and fulfilling.
Cheers!
Dzenan
I am writing to let you know that we have carefully reviewed your appeal and determined that your Upwork account will remain suspended.
We know this is not the news you wanted to receive, however at this point the appeal process is exhausted and our decision is final. If you have any open contracts you will be able to complete that work and receive payment through our site. You will not be able to submit proposals for new contracts, however.
We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors outside of Upwork. Please note that it is unlikely that we will respond to any future correspondence regarding this matter.
Regards,
Grace
Upwork Trust & Safety
My name is Allie and I’m undergraduate student involved in a summer research program at Carnegie Mellon University. During my short research internship, I’m conducting interviews with online workers. I’m conducting these interviews because I’m interested in better understanding online work in the hopes of developing systems and/or resources to better support YOU ?
If you are interested in participating in a brief 30 – 40 minute interview, please email me: [email protected] & I will provide you with more details!
I realize this is a big favor to ask, however your participation in this interview will offer my current study immense value. Finally, if you do agree to participate, completing your interview will be my top priority – so I will adapt to meet YOUR SCHEDULE!
Thank you again for your valuable time.
Best,
Allie
My company https://www.worklily.com has set up a marketplace for freelancers and project owners in North America, We are basically looking to avoid all the negative points that have been made in this post about Upwork. Freelancers will never be charged anything ever that’s our model. Also instead of looking for roles as a freelancer we will actually match freelancers to projects that suit their interests and skills. We do a brief screen/phone interview before a freelancer is approved. Once you’re on the site leave us do the work to match you to projects that match your cost, skills, interests and hours you can work.
We are in beta at the moment and are building a great DB to match to our projects that are coming in fast.
Thanks
I was sick of taking the hit for 20% transaction fees when I did the hard work and invested the time. My account got removed due to claims I was circumventing…I will neither confirm nor deny those allegations :)
I saw FWB pop up on my Facebook feed and something about them really captured my interest and I decided to sign up early and get that nice discount!! Can’t wait until they launch!!
Upwork is the most recent. It was hard to land the first jobs. And it is as described in your post. Even at $35/hour the work exceeds reason. The niche I’m in is not that bad actually. Although, even in this case the cheap workers ruin the profit. But besides high fees, also the quality of the material I received to work with was so bad, it took me more than twice as long to finish the job, than it would usually take me.
Going further down your post, what you describe to me sounds like the usual problems you see everywhere. Because if you think about it, wherever you look, they all want more and more, but while they grow and grow, the basics start to crumble and break apart. And that’s what you are describing with Upwork. They want new markets and new people. But the basic features like the actual website and support don’t work. Think about eBay. Same difference. First they destroyed the platform with high fees for small private offerers. Then they wanted to move to China, since they were not able to get enough members and sellers in Europe.
And since we are at not getting the basics right: You might have noticed, that Upwork is taking 25% instead of the stated 20%, right? Did you also ever notice, they are commiting tax fraud and trying to hide it by twisting the transaction history?
Take a look at this:
https://upworkfraud.byethost4.com/upwork-charging-wrong-vat-from-freelancers-instead-of-clients
Just read the reviews. It’s all about the money.
Clients report, they don’t find real talents and in case Upwork denies their request to cancel and charges the money anyway. On Trustpilot (among all the fake reviews) you can find one that says, he cancelled at $25 and Upwork continued charging from his Paypal account up to $250.
While on the other hand, freelancers are charged claimed 20% instead of 10%, 25% real instead of 20% claimed, from the amount the client is paying, which already contains the fees, instead of the amount the freelancer should get, plus VAT that should be charged to the client AND … here is the clue nobody usually thinks of: did you know, according to Upwork, since Upwork twists the transaction history and claims, instead of Upwork you are receiving the money from the client, you should pay VAT for the full amount instead of Upwork?
Well, take a look at the mentioned website. It’s interesting. This is really bad. Taking a closer look, Upwork has obvious flaws. And not only the ones everybody is complaining about. But really serious ones.
They force the clients to pay, they commit tax fraud and they take from the freelancer not only every possible, but even the impossible ways!
Oh and, there is not really much to say about the support. Except maybe, this is really the worst support I’ve ever seen in more than 15 years online.
My name is Allie and I’m undergraduate student involved in a summer research program at Carnegie Mellon University. During my short research internship, I’m conducting interviews with online workers. I’m conducting these interviews because I’m interested in better understanding online work in the hopes of developing systems and/or resources to better support YOU ?
If you are interested in participating in a brief 30 – 40 minute interview, please email me: [email protected] & I will provide you with more details!
I realize this is a big favor to ask, however your participation in this interview will offer my current study immense value. Finally, if you do agree to participate, completing your interview will be my top priority – so I will adapt to meet YOUR SCHEDULE!
Thank you again for your valuable time.
Best,
Allie
In essence this makes services like Upwork next to useless for those of us who live in first world economies. Why would I sell my skills for $2 per hour when I could get $20 per hour stacking shelves at the local supermarket and with no skill whatsoever?
There are also far too many people on Upwork who put themselves forward for jobs that require skills they don’t have or only partially have and this dilutes the opportunities for everyone. Personally I know how to do a LOT of things but I also know that I am VERY good at a small core set of skills so I only put myself forward for those.
I think the bottom line is, if you are really good at what you do and want to make a decent living from it then either build your own client base or join one of the small more specialist freelancer sites but whatever you do stay the hell away from Upwork!
Now, would all these possible hikes make the site function better? Would that get Upwork a better infrastructure? Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t think they could run a kindy school raffle, if you let them. Total f**k-ups, they’ve lost the plot. And, as we all know, legit criminals are at the helm in this organization. I can’t wait to see the demise of this platform, honestly!!!!
while I was looking on Google for something else, Nonetheless
I am here now and would just like to say kudos
for a tremendous post and a all round exciting blog (I also love the theme/design),
I don’t have time to browse it all at the moment but I have saved
it and also included your RSS feeds, so when I have time
I will be back to read a lot more, Please do keep up the fantastic work.
I was not using my upwork profile for years. I just started using this month. I had submitted 30 proposals and WON one project too. But suddenly they sent me following. Not to mentioned that I had already undergone through their HELL LIKE VERIFICATION PROCESS.
Dom L (Upwork Help Center)
Mar 29, 3:30 AM UTC
Hello Sonu,
We are contacting you to let you know we have suspended your access to Upwork indefinitely.
Our decision is based on a careful review and the fact that you have submitted a high number of proposals for jobs on our site without many contracts or earnings. Unfortunately, this means the jobs posted by clients are not a good match for your skills.
I know this news is likely disappointing to you. But our goal at Upwork is to enable freelancers to successfully connect and collaborate with clients who need their skills and expertise. Unfortunately, this means we must part ways with freelancers whose skills are not in demand in our marketplace.
If you want to appeal this decision, you can email us at [email protected]. Please note each case will be manually reviewed by our Trust & Safety team to decide if your account can be reinstated.
Please know we don’t make decisions like these lightly and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Regards,
Upwork Trust & Safety
Damn autocorrect!
I also suddenly got an email saying my account has been suspended because I have applied for too many jobs and haven’t got hired recently.
This is totally unprofessional. I have never seen any warning like this before on their site before so they should have at least sent a warning email before suspending my account. Crazy guys, I am never going to work for Upwork anymore.
One more thing, they better cash me my remaining payments if they don’t want to get sued!
They even banned me in the community, so that i really have no chance to ASK FOR HELP!
Upwork is really suck!
There are so many freelancers inside Upwork that sometimes credentials get ignored. Most projects stay open for months because the people seeking freelancers are also trying to get the job done for less than $100. How bad does it get? I once saw a contractor looking for someone that could make an AirBNB clone for $500.
I have worked on projects other Upwork freelancers left unfinished, and it is easy to conclude that most of these freelancers took a PHP course, and a MySQL course, or any other language for that matter, and just launched themselves into the freelancer world. Some of the things they do are heaven for hackers, or hell for a computer processor if there are more than 100 users using the website at the same time. It is THAT bad.
I am trying to find a job in Panama, not as a freelancer, since Upwork and the like are now saturated with people who think of themselves as programmers, but they are amateurs, and contractors who think freelancers and slaves are the exact same thing.
For everyone bitching about the foreign freelancer competition, you’re looking at it the wrong way. I’ve been doing this for 2 years FULL TIME and cleared $80k last year (comfortable income for doing remote web development).
These 3rd world freelancers bidding pennies on projects are precisely the reason why I can charge $50/hr. I depend on these types of freelancers to establish a baseline for the client. After 2 or 3 horrid experiences with that $2/hr “developer”, most clients are filled with joy when they see that American flag next to my name, my 5 Star performance reviews, 100% completion rate and happily agree to paying my rates.
Trust me, online freelancing is only a race to the bottom if you CHOOSE to participate in the race.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re ok to use to get experience and build your portfolio, just don’t respect to be making a living from them.
the whole basic concept of working for peanuts is just so WRONG! Wrong to even offer such services, very bad for the economy.
I used to sell and buy on both Ebay and Amazon when I was 18, so I know how they all hold the money being the ‘middle man’ so to speak and doing more than just hosting a simple website for services platform.
come on, let’s be REAL! who’s gonna compete against India’s who will work for $5?
Best to create your own website, where you have all control on your business, and promote your business on social media
Who can compete with an Indian who is charging $5 per hour? – Someone who has the same skill set. Would Rolls Royce be worried what Honda is doing?
I have personally stopped using these third party sites – I use other sources to get my business and I get more than I can handle. And yes, I have more control – at freelancer.com or upwork, everything belongs to them. Your profile, your reviews -meaning they can shut down your account anytime without any worries. So please fellas, start on your own, if you feel like using these third party sites, use them and fine tune your skills – if you dont need to fine tune them and believe that you have the skills which you can sell successfully in this global market – go for it!
Upwork should be Renamed Downwork.
Considering how many scheduled outages and downtime Upwork displays, I think the name is inappropriate.
They even publicise their ineptness:
https://status.upwork.com/
They’re offline nearly every day!!
And when you complain to support they just write back and say they take this issue very seriously.
But not seriously enough to hire one of our freelancers to fix it.
Facebook, Ebay and Google never have outages or “scheduled maintenance”, nor do millions of other sites.
Come on Upwork – grow up!!
10 minutes after posting an Upwork moderator renamed the title to:
Upwork Should be renamed **
Buggy…features make no sense. #Lame
Recently they suspended my account and their explanation was, quote, “Our decision is based on a careful review and the fact that you have submitted a high number of proposals for jobs on our site without many contracts or earnings. Unfortunately, this means the jobs posted by clients are not a good match for your skills.”
I am new to Upwork with obviously no reviews from clients. However, I have two years worth of experience in a very popular type of work, just that I used to work in an office. If clients requested it, I could provide scans of significant documents (certificate of employment, diploma, etc.) to support my credibility.
Besides, I don’t even go there every single day to post. I would visit there one day, submit proposals, and my next visit wouldn’t be until like five days later, maybe even a week or so. I didn’t understand the logic behind this.
I tried to ask Upwork to lift the suspension and explained my situation and even provided images of those documents but they did not lift the suspension. Utterly ridiculous.
They didn’t even email me a prior warning. They could have said something like “Your account is in danger of being suspended because you’re submitting a high number of proposals and getting no responses.”
Nothing. The only request they granted was my request for them to close my account. I’ve been happier ever since.
Same happened to me. Although I have completed a couple of projects over there as well.
What you are up to now? and where are you working now ?
Upwork is heartless even of you are working on a project with a client and don’t submit proposals so that they can make their high fees off you then your account gets permanently suspended. Like come on if I do not have sufficient time to allocate to another gig why would I be applying? Anyway they ask you to appeal and once you let them know the situation they suspend you anyway. So if you are a student trying to pay you way through school by freelancing on Upwork then Badluck. Highly recommend Peopleperhour
I totally agree with your post entirely.
I signed up with a freelancer account on Upwork about three weeks ago. I made my profile all spiffy, did the “video conference” to verify my account (which was awkward as I was talking to an Indian woman who sounded like she was working in her home – I heard a baby crying in the background), and sent out proposals.
I received three proposals. The first two were apparently part of a large spam/identity theft organization. I was asked to share my personal information (birth date, address, etc) over email to these people to “begin work”. Thank god I Googled the companies because I found out they were spam/identity theft/information selling companies. Go figure.
The third, and possibly worst, client who corresponded with me was for a quick proofreading project. He wanted me to proofread and edit his 100-word piece. He initially came to me and asked me to lower my price by half, which meant I would walk away from the project with $8. (Upwork charges a ridiculous “fee”….$2 on this project in particular). I agreed because, hey, this was my first freelance “gig” and he also said the project wouldn’t take more than about 15 minutes. So, hey, why not?
Well, little did I know that this guy would have me back and forth for two hours with this freakin’ (sorry for the language) proofreading project. He was rude throughout the whole process, asking me if I knew what I was doing (despite the fact that he hired a “beginner” proofreader/editor…I am not by any means a professional). He was copy/pasting links to articles where he thought I had misused words. He even questioned whether I should capitalize a country’s name if it was used as an “adjective”.
Two hours later, the darn thing was done and he didn’t pay me for about a week after that. I rated him a 3-star, which I thought was pretty generous considering our work experience. This is kind of when things turned ugly. He blew up on me over the Upwork messaging system. Telling me, “you better hope karma isn’t real.” and “with your attitude, it’s no wonder you do work for $8 on a weekend!” and “I hated your work anyway”.
He then ended our conversation with, “Karma is real, I’ll let you think about that”. All because I left a real, unedited review of our work experience together. Well, after that, he sent me a review response making fun of my abilities, saying that just because you speak English doesn’t mean you’re a writer, etc, etc. The guy was really going off on me. To say that I felt horrible and cheated (I made $4 an hour working for this guy…) would be a total understatement.
I didn’t know what else to do but block him and send a message to Upwork. Despite the fact that I literally titled my message to them, “I am being harassed by one of your clients”, it took them days before they got back to me. When they did get back to me, they simply said that my case would have to go to upper management to be handled.
This past weekend after days of not hearing a response from “upper management”, I kept rereading the guy’s review and taking into account that the only other two job offers I received were from spam/identity theft companies, and I decided to close my account. Wouldn’t you know that about three hours after closing my account, Upwork emails me and basically says, “We’re sorry for this experience. Rest assured that we’ll look into it and if he’s found to be violating any of our terms, we will take appropriate action. As we part ways, good luck in your future endeavors.”
I find it ironic that they were ignoring the issue until I was the one who closed my account. It goes to show that Upwork values their clients, not their freelancers. They were willing to lose me as a freelancer but not the client, who is ultimately the one bringing in money. It’s a sad and pathetic way to run a business. That was my one and only experience working on their site and I’ll admit, it was so horrible that I would never recommend Upwork to anyone. The clients are able to run the site and do what they please, including harassing freelancers.
I’m sure there are clients using Upwork who are fine, but when you deal with one who’s literally harassing you and prolonging a project to the point where you’re working for slave wages, they don’t provide the customer support that we, as freelancers, so desperately need!
Upwork is so suck!
Thank you for this article Jesse. It is very instructive.
Renel Quellan (Upwork Help Center)
Jan 19, 10:29 PM PKT
Hello Anees,
I am writing to let you know that we have carefully reviewed your appeal and determined that your Upwork account will remain suspended.
We know this is not the news you wanted to receive, however at this point the appeal process is exhausted and our decision is final. If you have any open contracts you will be able to complete that work and receive payment through our site. You will not be able to submit proposals for new contracts, however.
We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors outside of Upwork. Please note that it is unlikely that we will respond to any future correspondence regarding this matter.
Regards,
Renel
Upwork Trust & Safety
It was a horrible experience for me, I just decided to brand my self in open way. as they say I am not I have not enough skill for programming, see my resume (https://1drv.ms/b/s!AmqvsDiaYAIFjT1MYl0xy4RLO40M) what I have already achieved.
Kate P. (Upwork Help Center)
Jan 19, 1:12 PM EET
Hello Normunds,
We are contacting you to let you know we have suspended your access to Upwork indefinitely.
Our decision is based on a careful review and the fact that you have submitted a high number of proposals for jobs on our site without many contracts or earnings. Unfortunately, this means the jobs posted by clients are not a good match for your skills.
I know this news is likely disappointing to you. But our goal at Upwork is to enable freelancers to successfully connect and collaborate with clients who need their skills and expertise. Unfortunately, this means we must part ways with freelancers whose skills are not in demand in our marketplace.
If you want to appeal this decision, you can email us at [email protected]. Please note each case will be manually reviewed by our Trust & Safety team to decide if your account can be reinstated.
Please know we don’t make decisions like these lightly and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Regards,
Upwork Trust & Safety
Most if not all of us are freelancers with no bad reviews, and only thing we did bad is wanting to make some money, and that may be a surprise to you, some of us do not work for peanuts.
so go work for 1$/hour who is stopping you.
The more clients who know about these problems, the less they will go to Upwork.
Problem 1 – Jobs are frequently bid on by middlemen freelancers. For example:
A client posts a job for $100. A middleman bids on the job and gets it. Then the middleman turns around and re-posts the job on Upwork, using almost the same language as the original job posting but lowering the job amount to $60.
The problem for the client is, they’re no longer getting $100 worth of value. They’re getting $60 value for their $100.
The middlemen do nothing but scoop up jobs, take a cut and bid the job out to a freelancer who will do the job for less.
When you factor in Upwork’s 20% commission, a client’s $100 is actually worth about half of that.
Problem 2: There’s been some speculation about freelancers who may support terrorism.
Freelancers come from all over the globe and with proxy servers, can look like they’re from somewhere else.
Is Upwork supporting terrorism directly? No. But indirectly? No one really knows.
As a client, I would be reticent to go through Upwork if I had any suspicion that the money I spend is financing anyone remotely involved in terrorism.
To the second point first, some countries can be blocked, but I think crime is the far bigger threat rather than terrorism.
The funding of terrorism as of a year ago is mostly from taxation (think ISIS), oil, ransoms, donations, selling antiques, and scamming banks.
On the first point…that’s tricky, but if that happens to you on a freelancing site, cancelling or reducing payment should work to undermine that practice. Then report it. The expectation should be you get what you pay for.
Firstly they merged Elance and Odesk.
Then increased commission from 10% to 20%.
Now suspending account for stupid reason?
I don’t understand THEY are providing SOLUTION or JUST FOCUSING ON THEIR EARNING?
Kate P. (Upwork Help Center)
Jan 12, 4:31 AM PKT
Hello Zeeshan Hassan,
We are contacting you to let you know we have suspended your access to Upwork indefinitely.
Our decision is based on a careful review and the fact that you have submitted a high number of proposals for jobs on our site without many contracts or earnings. Unfortunately, this means the jobs posted by clients are not a good match for your skills.
I know this news is likely disappointing to you. But our goal at Upwork is to enable freelancers to successfully connect and collaborate with clients who need their skills and expertise. Unfortunately, this means we must part ways with freelancers whose skills are not in demand in our marketplace.
If you want to appeal this decision, you can email us at [email protected]. Please note each case will be manually reviewed by our Trust & Safety team to decide if your account can be reinstated.
Please know we don’t make decisions like these lightly and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Regards,
Upwork Trust & Safety
Zeeshan Hassan Memon @shan89pk 21h21 hours ago
@Elance #elance #odesk @oDeskLab were better than @Upwork
#upwork really sucks despite being greedy and annoying in payment related stuff
@Upwork #upwork #suspended my account reason being i am bidding too much and my earnings are less. @UpworkHelp this way work? valid reason?
Many of the problems on Upwork are the direct result of their criminal Filipino employees, incompetent Filipino employees, and angry Filipino employees who are mad at successful Upwork users. Many problems are just from angry, miserable, bitter, lazy Filipinos. They should be thankful for the opportunities they even get with a company like Upwork because they have no business doing anything for Upwork besides maybe supporting their Filipino users. They’re like cheap, unskilled, unqualified Mexican labor that’s everywhere it shouldn’t be.
you forgot the Chinese, Indians, Blacks, Muslims, Jews, the disabled, the ugly, the non-heterosexuals, the deaf, blind, the old, the sick people etc.
i.e. the 7.55 Bio people on earth minus yourself.
Kate P. (Upwork Help Center)
Jan 12, 6:34 AM AWST
Hello Albert,
We are contacting you to let you know we have suspended your access to Upwork indefinitely.
Our decision is based on a careful review and the fact that you have submitted a high number of proposals for jobs on our site without many contracts or earnings. Unfortunately, this means the jobs posted by clients are not a good match for your skills.
I know this news is likely disappointing to you. But our goal at Upwork is to enable freelancers to successfully connect and collaborate with clients who need their skills and expertise. Unfortunately, this means we must part ways with freelancers whose skills are not in demand in our marketplace.
If you want to appeal this decision, you can email us at [email protected]. Please note each case will be manually reviewed by our Trust & Safety team to decide if your account can be reinstated.
Please know we don’t make decisions like these lightly and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Regards,
Upwork Trust & Safety
I told them just do so. I don’t need any argue or waste my time appealing things. I don’t care..
It only shows what screwed up mentality rules their site. Hmm, can you imagine not being allowed to read a newspaper’s job ads because after having done so for a long time, you still could not find an interesting job!
Anyway, today I attempted to delete my account, and was again shocked when told that because my account is suspended, I cannot delete it!
But since my account is suspended indefinitely, I will never be allowed to delete it, and with it all my personal data from their servers.
Just for this last reason, I’m considering taking legal action against them (as it violates their own user agreement) but if this is a common problem, I guess a class action lawsuit would more appropriate and cost effective at a personal level.
Then again, is it really worth the trouble?
Another thing is that, I have noticed people like gary & ts making pro-Upwork comments here all along. It looks like they are being paid for it.
Thanx everyone who’s posted alternative platforms in this thread. Since upwork obviously doesn’t want my business, I’ll take it elsewhere.
Justin D (Upwork Help Center)
Jan 3, 4:44 PM CET
After reviewing the documents you submitted for ID verification, we’ve determined that some materials were falsified or altered.
In an effort to ensure an honest and trustworthy marketplace for all, we have a zero-tolerance policy towards false documentation and this is viewed as a serious violation of our Upwork identity policies. Therefore, we’ve suspended your Upwork account, and you won’t be allowed to open a new account.
At Upwork we fully understand how this may affect you, and we made this decision only after careful consideration. We thank you for your time on Upwork and wish you success with your career.
Best Regards.
Upwork Compliance Team
I would advise for people not to go through with upwork. The customer support is TERRIBLE and RUDE.
They have deactivated my account by claiming that i am receiving payment outside of Upwork. But, the fact is, I never received any payment from Upwork client outside of Upwork.
It may be the reason, i posted a couple of article by criticizing Upwork down sides which they dont like. They banned me from Upwork LinkedIn group when I promoted my post there.
https://101authority.com/why-people-hate-upwork/
Thank you for this article Jesse. It is very instructive.
Unlike computer programing and coding my field of work is financial analysis and Excel Financial Modeling and everybody knows that there is no much work available there for us.
I hope in the near future some decent website that don’t lie and respect freelancer will replaces it soon
However, they can’t manage escrows without financial service license and obviously with financial service regulations here in Europe, they can’t withhold payments 6 days. Those must be done within 48h. So, that makes their service illegal in Europe.
By monitoring private conversations under NDA agreement, they commit a crime. I reported that to FBI, but seems that US corrupted Police is so used to such kind of illegal activities, that they do not bother to arrest them. Maybe first suing them and asking compensation will put also FBI to work?
What happened to the globalised economy bullshit of the 90s that all the developed countries were preaching to the ‘Third World Countries’. So as soon as the poor guys learn to use your weapon and shove it back up your ass, you start crying like a b***h. This is what the rest of the world must have felt for centuries when Western world was using its advantage (technical) to piss on the other guys. Now when we are using our advantage (economical) you can’t stop crying. Stop the bitching and be a man. Look for a way to compete. A few months back I noticed that WordPress and PHP jobs were not paying enough anymore. So, rather than crying like a b***h, I moved on to new things like Angular 2 and Node.js.
Again, STOP CRYING LIKE A B***H……
We are contacting you to let you know we have suspended your access to Upwork indefinitely. Our decision is based on a careful review and the fact that you have submitted a high number of proposals for jobs on our site without many contracts or earnings. Unfortunately, this means the jobs posted by clients are not a good match for your skills. I know this news is likely disappointing to you. But our goal at Upwork is to enable freelancers to successfully connect and collaborate with clients who need their skills and expertise. Unfortunately, this means we must part ways with freelancers whose skills are not in demand in our marketplace.
If you got banned for this reason too – please post it on reddit.
https://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Seeing-when-a-message-is-read/m-p/278686#U278686
I had always delivered on time, always been polite to my customers, however I seem not to be welcomed in upwork. I feel like I go to my favorite restaurant and they kick me out because I don’t order what I once used to. I always had high paid jobs however it happened that the last 5 months I couldn’t get anymore jobs. For me it was only a price competition, nothing skill based. I simply cannot work a month for $50. My months on upwork used to be 4000-5000 from 2,3 tasks.
Hello Emi,
We are contacting you to let you know we have suspended your access to Upwork indefinitely.
Our decision is based on a careful review and the fact that you have submitted a high number of proposals for jobs on our site without many contracts or earnings. Unfortunately, this means the jobs posted by clients are not a good match for your skills.
I know this news is likely disappointing to you. But our goal at Upwork is to enable freelancers to successfully connect and collaborate with clients who need their skills and expertise. Unfortunately, this means we must part ways with freelancers whose skills are not in demand in our marketplace.
If you want to appeal this decision, you can email us at [email protected]. Please note each case will be manually reviewed by our Trust & Safety team to decide if your account can be reinstated.
Please know we don’t make decisions like these lightly and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Regards,
Upwork Trust & Safety
https://www.reddit.com/r/Upwork/comments/5hepc5/now_upwork_can_ban_you_for_searching_for_a_job/
I’m conducting a user study of clients and freelancers who use platforms such as Upwork and Freelancer. The goal of the study is to understand users experiences on these sites in depth and identify opportunities for improvement.
Please let me know if you’d be interested in participating in this study, which will involve a 20 minute interview by phone or skype. Please note that we do not intend to pay interviewees, but hope that the results of the study will improve the freelance economy in the future.
We’re only conducting six interviews, so if there is a lot of interest we will not be able to interview all who respond.
If interested, please email me at [email protected]. I’d appreciate if you’d briefly describe how you use these sites (client or freelancer, type of work done).
Many thanks.
When i asked Upwork forums members about that , they BLOCKED my account .
Upwork became UNVALID for working online .
All of a sudden job listings I’ve saved or previously seen are disappearing. Literally, they’re listed one minute and completely gone the next. No record whatsoever. And it’s only the specific ones I save or show interest in.
That hasn’t happened in the history of the platform, and there’s only one logical explanation:
These loser Filipinos think they can (1) get a job only a talented American is qualified for, and (2) their loser asses feel accomplished by blocking opportunities.
I regret to inform them that it will only get them fired, AGAIN, and they they will FOREVER be a loser. And eventually American companies will stop hiring them because they SUCK and they’re CRIMINALS.
Most of Upwork’s problems stem from hiring Filipinos, who are criminals. Literally, Upwork performance and everything else would improve dramatically if they fired all the Filipinos. Most of the scamming and website function problems would disappear.
LOL
I hope your profile was banned, because you obviously have issues with working with others.
It is bottom feeder shiite that comes to upwork to hire. 95% of those looking to hire are a complete waste of space (I have 100% feedback rating & 5 years solid freelancing) on there, so I know WTF Im speaking about
I have hired as well on Upwork, so I know what I am talking about.
Do you have to in the real world pay to apply for a job? NO! Then WTF do you or should you pay for work or to apply for work that is not full time, where the client can pause your contract at a moments notice, where a client can leave you shiit feedback and it is on your profile forever?
Who in their RFM would want to be a whore on Upwork?
If only newbies can or could find this before signing up for Upwork
When I joined upwork few years back, had no debt, today I have more debt from the ebbs, flows of Upwork than before.
Shiit, knowing what I now know, I would never have put myself through the torture of Upwork.
Never again, Im shutting my account down and will NEVER EVER go back to their platform again. The online freelancing world is more like outsource contracting on behalf of a US corporation in disguise of you having “a freelance” career.
No man- if you are in a 3rd world country where you have no job prospects, sure then jump on Upwork but not if you like regular income, regular clients, its a waste of time, a battle you will not win.
And I am writing this from a 4,250 hrs logged, 100% feedback rating/time/score, Im not writing this from a 50-75% client feedback score but from a 100% client feedback score.
UPWORK IS SHIIT! Dont use them and avoid like the plague, the online freelancing world is a sham, a scam and you will regret the day you did it.
The only people who should or could benefit from the platform or those stay at home moms/dads who dont need the income (then why stress yourself out?) or 3rd worlders where $8 per hour is more than they would earn an entire day.
As a talented freelancer, Upwork should be paying me to apply for jobs on their platform, as I bring my expertise to the table.
I dont come to the table with no skills and English is my first language, Im good at what I do and I get results.
The day, you as a freelancer must pay to apply for jobs (less than 70% of jobs are even looked at by clients in a week), you must pay 20% of your earnings to their shiit corporation that replies with template responses, where clients can pause, end or cancel contracts whenever they feel like it, where you have to log time to do your work, where you have to risk your reputation online for all to see forever and there is no debating if it will ever be removed.
Whats that saying in terminator?
I wont be back! Screw upwork, its a battle you wont win and its a damn cruel battle.
Like a cat chasing a string, you will get one or two perhaps 10 projects and think you have nailed it, its a vortex sucking you in slowly and before you know it, you might have work for a month and then it dries up.
So you sit waiting, applying, dipping into your funds, you get thrown another life line and you think ” Ah see this works” so you bob up and down.
OH and dont forget when the f*****s working in the corporate background, who have a permanent job, nice cushty positions decide to change the platform, how they run thing….
They implement it! They dont ask, they just do! Their f**k your present from the top of the corporation. Ask them to change somethings, get a vote from other freelancers – do you think they will listen?
Listen 95% of the clients on Upwork cannot afford to hire professional freelancers for more than $25 per hour. In the real world working in a full time job with benefits, pension, holiday, your hourly rate is more than that.
Freelancers often dont take into account things such as holidays, putting money aside for a rainy day, time off, sick – if you really added those up and actually calculated what you would need to charge clients if you were living in the western world, most freelancers would be charging $29+ per hour + 20% Upworks fee.
And please listen carefully, Im not some stooge who is writing this who tried once to get a job landed a shitty client and then complained, like I said…
2,200+ hrs, 100% feedback, I know WTF I am talking about, I turn down more clients who have turned me down because…
Champagne taste beer money!
They all want the best but cant afford it.
If they want to hire you at your rate, then they want to pull the 3-8 hrs crap on you and you must be available 24/7, you must deal with their tantrums, you must deal with their budgetary issues, you must deal with their little businessman syndrome where they can pull a shark s**t (I mean shark tank), the apprentice boss thing on you and call the shots…
Thats fine but pay up! And most cant, so now Im sailing in a new direction, this is my last month on this platform.
Fork you and goodbye!
Sounds like I have a shiit attitude! Right? Thats right, work on the platform for 4-5 years, rake up this amount of hours, speak to as many clients/potential clients as I do (3-4) per week and we will see what you say.
Had a cheap ass client send me a contract last week. I kid you not, she sent me a 1 hr contract for $10.
I rejected it, she sent me another one for $12, I rejected it. After speaking to her, she finally decided to hire me for a total of 2 starbuck lattes and for a whopping 1 hour per week at $16 and I kindly told her in the nicest way…
“Love, my coffees per day cost me more than you want to hire me and tell me, how can I even do my job in 1 hr, it takes me longer to reboot my computer during the week than you want to hire me for”
OH and dont forget, this client wanted to see results! Oh yes, you think going to hell is bad? You think sniffing satans a*****e is bad, try working with some of these clients and I would gladly sniff satans a*****e day in and day out.
No – F**K UPWORK
Its a waste of time and space. Its a sinking ship, in the end westeners will abandon ship, 3rd worlders will all raise their rates, the top freelancers will leave and it will be like a nice night club that looks great on the outside but inside spells like piss and s**t.
Upwork is a pain in the ass.
Leaving and wont be coming back.
Bom fucking voyage and screw Upwork.
If my message doesnt resonate with you, then sign up and pay through the ass to deal with clients. Do it for 100 hrs and then lets see.
Anyone who reads what I have said, worked more than 200 hrs knows that what I say is not only the truth but it is how the platform IS – not how it should be, or how someone tries to sell it to you but the reality of it.
Or you could torture yourself and put yourself through hell for a few weeks, dismiss what I say, pay through the ass for connects and then pay through the ass with your time to speak to asses.
Thanks
Bye!
But i do have a hate/ love relationship with them.
Please read my experiences here (I’m anonymous in that thread) and let me know if you agree:
https://www.quora.com/Is-freelance-programming-on-Upwork-dominated-by-Indians-working-at-low-prices
I remained at the new Upwork and got some few projects but these people were dirt cheap! Since there is no actual regulation on how they should treat freelancers I got this one jerk who was just horrible. I worked with some who were amazing and that was the good part. The fact still remains that many employers are doing their best to get the lowest bid. If you’re living in a place with high living standers (hence more expensive bills and all), how can you compete with $2/hr??? I can barely live on $7/hr! That’s even below local minimum. So they’re trying to cheap out while wanting to get the best services. I was one of those top rated freelancers but I still keep getting offers to work for $5/hr – no thanks.
Then of course, there was this change in fees and that one really pissed me off. I do freelance photography and I can’t charge $1000 for one photo! So if I had 100 different clients, even if I earned $1000 total I’d still have to pay their ridiculous fees because I didn’t meet the criteria of getting into that bracket (paid by the same client).
So I’m just done. Crazy and cheap employers, crazy rules… I’m just done.
I’ve also worked through freelancer.com and, in fact, worked with their staff for a number of years to develop their certification exams.
Upwork and Frelancer are two of the worst platforms for freelancers, simply because they 1) cater to “employers” and put service providers at a disadvantage and 2) encourage third-world rates for quality work.
Despite these and countless other poor tactics (5-day “security hold” on escrow payments and a horrendous fee increase masked as a feature for “long term jobs”, for instance), they are also the most active platforms around. Why? Because they attract sub-standard talent and “employers” that take advantage of the low rates.
Unfortunately, these platforms are the rule rather than the exception.
It is also possible to make money on these sites, as there are employers looking for skilled service providers. You’ll need to spend a lot of time searching for the right jobs and selling your skills to prospective employers. You’ll also have to put up with the fees, the frustration of being paid late while the platform owners earn interest on your funds and all those other grievances that will be ignored if you complain or worse, result in the loss of access to your account.
There’s one other platform that I’ve been working through even longer and it used to be much more active than these two, but the powers that be chose ethics over volume. Check out Guru.com. Yes, they have their problems, but after more than 25 years as a freelancer, I can tell you that they’ve improved while the others have deteriorated.
Immediate payouts on escrow when released and fees lower than 10% for their free accounts are just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re a serious freelancer and have real sills to offer, Guru is the best place I know to market them.
Meanwhile, if you choose to work through Upwork, remember to include their fees in your bids, don’t expect to be hired at the market rate and don’t expect to be paid on time.
this is my email :
[email protected]
please send me email if you
have the time to help.
thank you,
I founded LevelQA.com (a new platform) for these reasons! It just went live and it’s still evolving (mainly freelancing, consulting, and mentoring).
I used to consult and was a freelancer on all these sites. I wanted to make something more fair to both sides (which should be the goal). A marketplace that is drastically unfair to one party or the other can’t last forever. I’ll try to sum up the differences as I see it. I’d be glad to answer any questions or take any advice you all may have.
First, there seems to be a LARGE number of you who are generally receiving a lot of friction from Upwork -being banned, having money taken, editing responses etc. This is part of the reason people are upset. I understand business decisions as I’m now in the business of making them, but damn. I will take a fair and common sense approach to disputes. Not that I want to arbitrate everything, but sometime people do need a third party to resolve a misunderstanding or dispute. I do not advocate banning people for first or minor offenses, that’s really overkill. Just play fair. There are always going to be some clients who seem crazy, so if you keep it professional and stick to what you laid out up front, you’ll come out fine.
Second, the marketplace model…
1. The Free subscription, combined with the fee (which is 10% on earned amount, so lower than Upwork) is reasonable cost so of course I don’t want people circumventing on PayPal.
2. The Basic subscription mainly allows you to hunt through and bid on public questions or projects as well as answer.
3. Regarding going around the system, I do realize that sometimes that’s better for the parties, so I do have a Power subscription, where you can meet with clients if needed or take them offline if necessary (consultants, high end freelancing etc.). Power subscription also allows you to hunt through all user profiles and put together and send work proposals to other users that will turn into a project for you if they accept it.
There are a series of cost assumptions that should control some of the market issues seen in Upwork. The lowest you can charge is $10, which assumes a minimum of about 1 hour of work. The Free subscription is passive income, relying more on someone sending you work based on finding your profile. This is a perfect tier to add a new profile and sit back, let a client come to you. You really do nothing, which is like LinkedIn with the possibility of being paid. The Basic subscription is more like Upwork, but charging $7 per month (up front on a 12 month cycle) puts skin in the game. So sure there are a lot of freelancers from India and the Philippines, but without putting the money up front, they will not be able to bid on public projects, they’ll have view only. Also, it prevents the client from being swamped with proposals. Finally, the Power subscription is like a gloves-off version of normal freelancer sites.
I would advise all of you to go to LevelQA.com and sign up for the free profile, and if you think of any improvements to the site once you’ve seen it, let me know.
Clearly this shows that Upwork is more concerned with their own capitalist agenda and not with maintaining great freelancers!
Does anyone have experience with Freelancer.com? I worry that it might be all too similar…
The email I just received:
Hello Courtney,
I am writing to let you know that your account has been permanently deactivated because you have asked to be paid OR been paid outside of Upwork.
This is considered “circumvention” and is against the Upwork User Agreement you agreed to when you joined Upwork.
Unfortunately, we must close your account, effective immediately, due to this behavior. You will be able to finish all open contracts, but you will not be able to work on any new jobs.
Please know our decision is final and cannot be reversed, and we are unlikely to respond to any correspondence regarding this matter.
Regards,
Lyneth
Upwork Trust & Safety
This might be a bit late, but I think I went through the same thing as you.
Earlier this morning I received an email saying I have violated their terms because of circumvention. But I was not taking any work or being paid from anyone lol.
Have requested many times for “evidences” that show my suspicious activity which make their reviewing committee jumping to false conclusion, but all I got were avoidance of the topic.
It is frustrating and I think their reviewing committee is not even credible because they don’t even dare to privately show me their proof for wrongfully convicting for something I havent done.
I have literally USD0 balance and no transaction history as I am new to Upwork (less than a month) in my Paypal how do they think I’m actually being paid?
The way they kick freelancers out of their platform is just relentless and weird
publishes original research papers and review articles related to building science and human interaction with the built environment.
My mistake:
– I could not finish the job for the client before that on time, so in panic mood, I created a client account to hire another freelancer to share my work. But the job could not be done. Of course, when the client asked for refund I did accept immediately. It was not a thing that I am proud of. That was my mistake.
Now anybody can help me how to close my account from Upwork permanently? I don’t want to have anything to do with them any more.
I could not even post to Upwork community. Sucks!!!
Thank you!
Let me know if you people are intersted.
Let me know if you people are interested.
They simply ate my 900$. Such a greedy people I have never seen before. I am a Top Rated and my Job success score is 95% almost every clients gave me 5 star rating.
This is the end result. They don’t even bother about my hard work and dedication. I am simply cheated by Upwork. Government should ban this company.
I am suffering from the same issue. Upwork has suspended my account too. I am opening tickets but they are keep closing them. I would like to initiate the movement against Upwork.
Thank you for the information. I would like to contact you on Skype or email. Please do ping me on Skype: jignesh.bonjour
Thank you
I am having the same issue. They have suspended my account without any ideal justification. I am planning to something where we all people can vote against Upwork and then we can sue them. Do contact me if you are interested
Skype: jignesh.bonjour
Regards.
A few weeks ago, Upwork suspended and closed off my account without any valid reason. The excuse given was that I was not generating enough revenue for them. So, it was my fault that Upwork is not generating enough income and the employers want to pay $20 for a $200 job. I have seen people working @$3/hr and apparently, Upwork is still allowing it. Upwork is just an extension of Odesk.com, which was just a cheap online labor market. It’s almost like fiverr.com mixed with very poor management skills of Stephanie Kasriel, the main culprit. The main blunder was to close off Elance.com, which was just awesome. I had made substantial income from Elance until that retard Kasriel came along. Not only that, Upwork also suffers from very frequent technical glitches and server downtime.
My advice will be if you really want to invest time and money into Upwork, do it as a secondary, tertiary, or some kind of a backup source of income. The only positive thing about Upwork is that tests are free but I seriously doubt how long it will stay that way.
I am also almost convinced that Upwork is going to be closed down by 2017.There are just not enough projects. The situation is so bad that Upwork ITSELF is posting projects just to make things look better. At the time of posting this on 1st September 2016, approxiamately 12:30p.m. IST, there are more than 2,330,000 freelancers and a little less than 130,000 jobs in total. However, out of which, less than 10% jobs maybe genuine(but cheap) clients because in many cases the payment method is not verified. There are many spammers posing as employers out there. Upwork is just stupid and a plain waste of time and resources.
-A former Upworker.
—
your comment using the “retard” shows just how smart you are! You deserve to be screwed at everything that you do
You are just making casual comments without any serious thinking. Freelancer has a way lot more listings than Upwork. I am also sure there are far better platforms than Upwork out there. Ever heard of Toptal ? Please do not make loose comments here and confuse people.
That being said, the platform sucks. I have no idea how you gave this platform a 8 out of 10 rating. I can tell you everything that is wrong with this platform.
I can’t help but reach out after such heartfelt comment. As a Co-Founder of a revolutionary platform recently launched who’s driven to make it all it can be, I’d be curious to know what an experienced freelancer like yourself looks for in a freelancing platform?
While we at Parttimerz are already different than all those who came before us in that we don’t charge freelancers at all and more over, reward the top performers by an extra paycheck above and beyond their quarterly earnings. In addition, we don’t put up with weak and underperforming freelancers either, as they are simply weeded out over time, I’d very much be interested to know what other things would make for a perfect user experience?
Cheers!
Dzenan
Better go to other freelancer platforms!
They are all Sucks, they love money too much so they will better go to Hell, i am a freelancers with different account in other site, thats why i am applying more jobs in upwork to better get a client but they close my account because the reason above. anyway Upwork.com will no space in this world wide web, I wish their site will be close soon.. with bankruptcy.
They owed me money and suddenly asked me to send a copy of my passport and other personal information.
When I said I was not comfortable sharing personal information that even credit cards and PayPal do not require, they told me they were keeping my money.
STAY AWAY if you don’t want to get ripped off!!!
Hello Robert Chappell,
We recently reviewed freelancer account histories and flagged accounts where a freelancer has bid on an extremely high number of jobs, none of which has led to earnings on Upwork. We cannot support these types of accounts. To maintain a trustworthy community, we proactively close accounts that incur costs to support, yet do not result in productive work for Upwork clients and other freelancers.
As for the communication with your client regarding your account status, we will just be the one to inform him about it.
I wish you luck on your future endeavors.
Have a good one!
Regards,
Oscar
High Value Support | Upwork.com
“Have a good one!” Is that a sneer or not?
THEY CLOSE MY ACCOUNT FOR ONLY GET MY $4
they say my posted job indicate a fraud, they suspend my contract, so I apologize to upwork, I have been hiring someone for only $5, but because the issue I cancelled it before it is becoming worse, and I have give $1 for freelancer my unfinished project and give her 5-star rating, and I close the job, and apologize to upwork.. But, now I only get more trashes from UPWORK! They close my account, and my remaining 4 dollar still inside their pocket!
What a shame from big company
Thank you for this awesome blog, sorry for my bad english
I don’t give fake reviews or testimonials this is my honest review, I don’t blame any client nor the freelancer! THEY ALL GOOD! THEY ARE GOLD MINES!
AND I SAY UPWORK IS A BIG FAT BOY THAT SUCKS YOUR SKILL(freelancer) AND YOUR MONEY(client)!!
THEIR FEES LOOKING SMALL BUT THERE ARE SO MANY BAD HIDDEN EXTRA FEES YOU DON’T KNOW
Thank you
https://www.staffhunts.com
Why Paying for find freelancer or work on other sites
It was never so easy and fully free to find Work and Freelancer. This platform is 100% free to use.”
How can you take that site seriously if they can’t write proper english? looks like another crappy freelance site.
You can check this vid for some tips in freelancing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDOnQaVrjdo
Last time I tried to increase my hourly rate, from 5$ to 7$, and one of my client went crazy, and then he ended writing me a poor feedback, and I am not sure why the f**k my job success downgraded from 90% to 80% with only that bad feedback I have ever had.
I am looking for the answer to this question for a while, and I really don’t think I could get one.
So you are one of those fiverr, er, sevener!
Last time I tried to increase my hourly rate, from 5$ to 7$, and one of my client went crazy, and then he ended writing me a poor feedback, and I am not sure why the f**k my job success downgraded from 90% to 80% with only that bad feedback I have ever had.
I am looking for the answer to this question for a while, and I really don’t think if I could get one.
IS there any really GOOD way to make sure I am hiring someone that is competent and trustworthy?
Yes, there are lots of competent and trustworthy, of course..Can I ask what kind of project?
Thanks! :)
Second if its a small project , competent people wont take it because they dont make enough money
Upwork raising freelancer commissions from !0% to 20% *and* also charging clients a small commission, is causing a flight from Upwork of the good talent, especially when business owners try to lowball the freelancers. The good freelancers will make the contract as not being a high enough budget and will move on.
In addition, I’m discouraged with Upwork for trust issues. How can business owners trust any freelancers to work by the hour, before they know if the freelancer is good or not, and how can any freelancer know how much time a project will take, when the specifications are unknown, and even if the specification is known, it’s still hard to know how much time a project will take.
I have a near perfect 5-star rating and have scored in the upper 10% on Upwork’s Swift programming exam, but I’m moving on from working on small projects and looking for continuing employment with one or two clients that will pay me by the hour.
Can’t believe e-lance was dismantled for this!
Upwork’s management should look into this.
Experts are not hired at $5/hour.
Anyways, all of the reasons not to work (cheap, rudeness, cheapness, slave labor, etc) for Upwork are true. Me, I write high-quality articles, hours of research, and I am a medical student plus have a masters on the side. These loons want to charge me $10 for three articles. Are you nuts?! Try $10 each! Dude, I work hard and long on these articles, I am worth more than that. Slavery, has been abolished eons ago.
I’ve had a client who tried to make me work for free and outside of Upwork. I reported him, and I got in trouble! I am going to finish my project from that dump (in which I incredible can’t stand. This client acts like Zuckerberg and is super micromanaging. I am payed below my worth, I will never do this again because I am new to freelancing)and leave that non-supportive sweat shop!
They with drew money from my account, then refused to pay my contractor…and so the contractor began harassing me to pay them out of pocket (using paypal to their email address)
I contacted upwork support, and they said they were waiting for id verification from the contractor…and they would release the funds after the id was verified.
well, lo and behold, the id 2 months later, they still didn’t release the funds. The contractor became adamant that I pay him using paypal…i contacted support…and (i have screenshots) support tells me to pay them via paypal….something clearly against their TOS! I never paid the guy out of pocket because I knew then upwork was a fraud.
2 weeks later I AM BANNED because their support told me to do something against their TOS….and they pocketed my cash, didn’t pay me or the contractor.
Upwork is a fraud. 100% they are supposed to provide a place for contractors and clients to work independently on their business….instead they shove their fingers in everyone’s pie and get all inside your business.
I used to like elance, because they were about quality and left you alone and let you work independently….but Odesk ruined it.
i will NEVER EVER EVER use upwork/odesk
Look, I am SW developer myself. Such systems are not my specialisation but I have full understanding that such system is not the rocket science.
And necessary funding can be easy collected with CROWDFUNDING. Many freelancers (including me) will be glad to take a part in it: I promise at least 100$ and some free work on requirements of such system and as beta tester.
So can somebody just start the investigation about the money reservation and then start crowdfunding campaign?
May be the Upwork can do something against the competitor but only in case if this system will be US based. But it can be headquartered somewhere in Europe, is not it?
Note, problem of guarantees of payments is the international problem so such system will be definitely used WORLDWIDE.
Just one important moment: both Upwork.com and Freelancer.com are overpriced. For long term contracts it is better to pay reasonable weekly subscription per team member then up to 20% which is higher that state taxes in many countries.
The Minimum Marketable Feature for such system is money reservation service for deals and automatic time registration with screenshots (and weekly automatic billing – reserved sums will be used for payments after some safety period following the exactly worked time).
Note, key feature is NOT the database of freelancers or jobs. Because in many cases we are asking the found at LinkedIn clients to use the system with money reservation exactly to prevent the situation when the client just do not wants to pay for used time.
Further developing is the adequate mediator service between freelancer and client for which it can be used the peer-to-peer approach based on involving the respectful persons with good reputation.
Moreover, it can be later be enhanced to a sort of international trade union, much more effective and powerful then https://www.freelancersunion.org/ or working in collaboration with it.
I am willing to work with you on this project.
I do transcription, and whereas before I was charging a minimum of $30 per audio hour (which isn’t amazing, considering the 10% they were taking and exchange rates to euros) but now it seems impossible to get work over $20 per audio hour and with Upwork doubling their fees the only work I can actually get is for around €3 per hour which is absolutely ridiculous.
I find it crazy that I have ‘top rated freelancer’ status and they were e-mailing me the other day because I’ve been with them a year and am a really good freelancer etc. – I’ve never had an issue and the lowest rating I’ve got is 4.5 stars, so why can’t they reduce the fees a little? Have some kind of idea where if you have been with them a certain amount of time fees go down? 20% is absolutely ridiculous, and I’m starting to take some of my clients private – I wouldn’t normally do that because i know you’re not meant to, but this is getting crazy and it’s starting to kill my business. If anyone’s knows of any better freelance agencies, let me know because the sooner I can come away from Upwork the better.
As programmer I can tell that this system itself is not very hard and expansive in implementation, most of efforts are related with managerial part of project.
Really a lot of IT freelancers will ready either to take a part in crowdfunding campaign by own money and advices or in developing of backend prototype of such system as open source project.
Just somebody in the world must start the PR of this idea and work on it. Why not you or somebody of your friends?
And even the attempt to develop the simplest system which implements just the service for money reservation and infrastructure for remote per hour workers can bring at least the popularity. But on success it can brings the billions – especially if instead of paying percents of every income it will be reasonable per team member per week payment.
So if the first stage will be implementation of exactly that features of some protection which is the single reasons of why freelancers proposing to their clients use the service like Upworks or freelancer.com
As a freelance practitioner (PR and comms) for over 30 years I’m interested to know the alternatives (aside from Linkedin). Any ideas?
Which country/regions do you cover and can you leave your contact? I am looking for freelance PR.
Thanks
Pari
Thank you for taking the time to research this and present it! You have verified many of my concerns. I am a 15+ year software architect with multiple patents and some major employers under my belt. I’ve focus on c# since it came out in 2003 or so.
I had a LOT of issues signing up, I simply could not believe how buggy their site was, I was floored!
Once I did get signed up I noticed that many of the customers were very demanding and wanted basically nothing!!! I am used to making $70 an hour.
It seems to me that customers on this platform are looking for basically free work.
Upwork Really SUCKS!!!!
https://www.change.org/p/give-freelancers-what-they-deserve
Sure it cost them money to run their business. But they do not show us any real-world evidence that they NEED to take out all this money in order to (how didi they put it) “…Make the client and contractor experience much better”???? Huh? What experience. They provide a chat portal and a way to hold money. I could do this with gmail and paypal. So where is this alleged “user experience” we are supposed to be apying for?
Fucking hate Upwork now and am leaving, gone, goodbye, see your later mother fudger!
I will not be hiring nor using their platform nor prostitute myself out.
As a marketer offering services on Upwork, I was surviving, some months were great but when I started on Upwork/Odesk, I had ZERO debt, through down times, no work, hanging on there, I managed in 3 short years to rake up $18,000 in debt!
85% had to do with keeping me afloat during no work time. Odesk worked fine until the idiots from Elance bought them out.
Now you know you are not dealing with bright sparks, when they decide to buy Odesk, because Odesk is eating Elances lunch! So these idiots buy Odesk and change it into Elance, under a new name “Upwork”!
Which part of Elance sucked didnt they get when the market voted by using Odesk instead? Ah but like all corporations, they dont care, they just screw you as it pleases them.
Nice hey! Yip! These are the geniuses we are dealing with.
Then they decide you have to write a unique cover letter for each job that you apply for!
REALLY! Yes, now the question is, why should I or you buy connects, when the applications go to spam?
Now they had added a 20% fee on top of all of this. So before, I could survive earning slightly above the UK min wage rate but now, in order to compete and get clients I have to drop my rate even lower to about min wage rate in the UK to get the same amount of work.
And this is when I said, enough is enough. No more, I dont get paid holidays, I dont get paid sick time, contracts can get paused at a moments notice, clients are actually more demanding on Upwork than in the UK working for a boss, you think working for 1 boss is bad?
Try working for 4 demanding bosses at home at the same time, with no bonuses, no sick pay, nothing – you do your job, you bend over, they rape you and in some cases they rape you and complain it wasnt good enough, you didnt bleed enough for them.
No! Sorry, I am done, finished with Upwork, my only regret was being stubborn for so long and sticking with Upwork for this long, I could cry for being such an idiot – I could have in 3 years had 3 months paid holiday, a lot less stress, no debt, happier, made more money, had proper weekends off.
You never have time off from freelancing, I would encourage people to rather build a business than prostitute yourself on this site – at least you will have something or could have something at the end of 3 years.
Freelancing is like a hamster wheel, you run, run, run, run to make ends meet and the wheel just turns and turns….
For the low amount of money you make, it is not worth it.
The minute they started that s**t with the connects, hiding applications, algo changes, I should have left and closed down my account.
You can tell the CEO knows f**k all about freelancing with the s**t that comes out of his mouth. In fact at one stage watching an interview with him regarding these new bullshit 20% extra charges, I was waiting for the a******s head to start spinning in the exorcist with the amount of s**t that he was talking.
This CEO is so clueless about the market place, that his investors will kick his ass out of there in a few months.
The whole point in outsourcing is to SAVE money, not to end up spending the same amount of money – then you might as well hire a local!
They completely fucked the market place up! Now I can apply for (not joking) 70 positions and not get anything back! 2-3 years back, I would apply for 5 jobs and get one.
But then the applications were for free. Now I have to spend $10 (Not much I know) but get ZERO in return for it.
But according to f**k face CEO of Upwork, Upwork seems to help freelancers find work! How? By allowing people to post jobs?
That is his version of freelancers getting help! No, upwork help fleece freelancers!
Its a losing battle now! Its over, done dusted.
Dont get me wrong, if you have a partner who is a bread winner, dont need a huge salary, like parachuting then Upwork is for you.
It will be like no parachute jump you have ever done, one moment you will be ecstatic with tons of work, the next minute you will be free falling clutching for any job/position.
This is the reality!
Anyone who sells you the dream of “work from home” is bullshitting you!
Its like working in your back room for clients who dont give 2 shits about you, who will pause your contract and never tell you, who will sing your praises today and end the contract tomorrow.
Its like walking on egg shells. I wish I was not so thick skinned & threw in the towel 3 years ago. The only regret I have, is staying so long god only knows I hate myself more for not leaving!
Trust me, you dont need a 3 year experience. I thought it would get easier raking up 4,000+ hours, 100% feedback – it should be but then dick head Elancers buy up odesk, change it to the same s**t as Elance & then charge you for applying for jobs.
No!
F**k you very much, enjoyed the ride but moving on now and oh by the way I WILL NOT BE HIRED NOR BE HIRING ON UPWORK ever again!
Sorry for the foul language, it is there to warn you, Upwork is as over as Elance was. They are being beaten by others in the market and this will escalate and increase over time.
The more they get beaten up in the market, the more drastic, illogical, thieving changes they will make. They are and will do anything now to make their acquisition cost back & do anything to make extra while losing out to Fiverr.
Anyways, done dusted 3-5 weeks I will be working somewhere else.
Upwork is s**t, their CEO – I have no words for this guy other than MORON!
You’re welcome to try our newly launched freelancing platform called Parttimerz which is truly freelancer friendly and you may like it. In case you decide to give it a try, here’s the URL https://www.parttimerz.com
Cheers!
Dzenan
P.S. Feel free to drop me a line with your candid comments.
I would suggest you to atleast try toptal. They have a great slack community.
Are you the Preeti Parikh who posts on GNB? What a coincidence finding you here if you are!
I am really fed up with upwork..but the million dollar question is..where has all the business that was coming at Elance gone?
Are you the Preeti Parikh who posts on GNB? What a coincidence finding you here if you are!
I am really fed up with upwork..but the million dollar question is..where has all the business that was coming at Elance gone?-Ashok
now i get an email advising my id has been accepted and I am “right to go”. Another wasted 20 minutes chatting only to be advised “my account is still under investigation” for what? Despite repeated requests I am yet to get an explanation. F**K YOU UPWORK
I have been a client for over two years – spent thousands on the platform hiring freelancers. I decided to try my had at getting work on Upwork as well…first job I accept – they have “issues” with my client – my account has been suspended for almost a week without any explanation (save for we have suspended for your “own security) and now been asked to submit my ID documents for the SECOND FUCKING TIME.
F**K YOU UPWORK
E.G. had profiles on both Elance and Upwork. Her Upwork job success was always around 75% (job success being this low usually involves multiple jobs that were canceled or refunded due to poor performance). Of course, not many Upwork clients were hiring her. As Elance was winding down, E.G. started being hired for mysterious private jobs on Elance – over three dozen of them. Her job success score immediately started to rise. You know what happened today? Her Upwork job success has reached 100%.
Now, let me tell you what E.G. does as a translator:
1. She translates “kidney” as “liver” for a piece of healthcare product description.
2. She translates “Section 202 of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990” as “Section 202, Article 1,990 of the Americans with Disabilities Act” for a US governmental project.
3. For a game translation project, “Save (as in rescue) the sheep” becomes “Store the sheep.”
These are some of the more egregious errors that E.G. makes on every single project that I have reviewed and according to her clients, she didn’t even bother to ask any questions to clarify those terms.
When do the clients find out about these errors?
When customers complain about why the program or service is not working as it is described, or maybe after the company spends thousands of dollars in accommodating the increasing number of customer inquiries.
There was also a time when one of her Elance clients canceled a project because of, as the client explained to me, her attitude of bidding low and raising the rate later. E.G. quickly marked the job as “completed” to avoid getting her scores drop.
Another problem is:
E.G. used to be hired for large projects on Elance. Not anymore with these errors. Now, I am seeing that ProZ is getting the higher dollar value jobs, which means Upwork is losing clients with large translation projects.
Upwork encourages (young and relatively inexperienced) freelancers to bid on every project and make as much money as they can. In return, Upwork makes them look like they are truly top rated freelancers. Upwork captures the freelancer’s highest job success score during the period of 6 months, 12 months and 24 months, so even if a freelancer has had many canceled or refunded jobs, they can still work their way up to the 100% top-rated position (perhaps by creating many fake jobs instead of by improving their skills).
From what I saw in regards to rating, Elance knew what they were doing. I can’t say the same thing about Upwork.
Dear Upwork, if this modus operandi does not work to improve your bottom line, when is the next big hit coming to us long-suffering freelancers.
It’s true that Upwork management did mention recently that with the over-inflated new fees implemented, they plan to spend dollars on marketing campaigns.
So, this is it, the hardest-hit freelancers on Upwork have to bear the grunt to pay for this NEWLY RECRUITED executive’s package (hello long-suffering Upwork freelancers).
This FAT CAT better deliver the goods and does what he was hired to do otherwise another doomed failure to add to the current Upwork’s CEO’s constantly getting longer list of fcuk-ups.
If it’s true that the CEO of Upwork has an engineering background and engineers generally do not have business acumen and they just don’t. The company communication policy is average at best. Performance-wise, Upwork is not delivering at all. Therefore, Upwork’s demise is imminent unless they change leadership at the top level, me thinks. Watch this space.
*****
Upwork Welcomes Industry Veteran Eric Gilpin as Senior Vice President of Sales
Gilpin Joins the Leading Freelancing Website to Help Drive Awareness of Online Staffing
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA–(Marketwired – Apr 25, 2016) – Upwork, the world’s largest freelancing website, today announced that Eric Gilpin has joined the company as senior vice president of sales, effective immediately. With nearly 15 years of staffing industry experience, Gilpin joins Upwork from CareerBuilder, where he led the company’s staffing and healthcare groups, overseeing more than $200 million in global revenue. Gilpin’s unique perspective on the evolution of the industry has been featured in CNBC, Forbes, CBS MoneyWatch and at industry-leading events including Staffing Industry Analysts’ Executive Forum and the American Staffing Association’s Staffing World.
“We’re thrilled to have Eric join our organization,” said Upwork CEO, Stephane Kasriel. “He has a deep understanding of the industry and the pain points of businesses as they try to build teams effectively to get more done, often with less resources. The way people work is evolving rapidly. Eric will play a key role in empowering businesses to tap into talent online and break through traditional hiring barriers such as finding the best people and reducing time-to-hire.”
“Traditional models often struggle to find and efficiently engage qualified talent,” said Senior Vice President of Sales, Eric Gilpin. “Upwork is truly innovating how businesses find talent, making it easier for companies to quickly find and engage the quality talent they need. Online hiring is the future and as organizations increasingly create flexible teams distributed around the world, Upwork will be the site they turn to to help build these teams.”
Gilpin holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business.
https://www.marketwired.com/press-release/upwork-welcomes-industry-veteran-eric-gilpin-as-senior-vice-president-of-sales-2117821.htm
“…to charge me for whats left,”
“..I suggest a good sit such as…”
“…across all free lance sites …”
Probably not qualified to judge quality work, I’d say!
My next complaint is as the company hiring. As I got busier in business I put up a post to hire a worker. It scares me that people around the world think they can do American taxes and they think its normal to ask for $5 an hour for it. SCARY. I finally filtered through 300 applicants and found someone asking for a legitimate price who had a nice resume with American jobs, but after two months of wasted training videos and constant clean up of what she did wrong, I finally gave up.
All in all, this site is crap!
F**K UPWORK AND THE PEOPLE THAT WORK THERE
I’M GOING TO START A SITE TO COMPETE WITH THESE INCOMPETENT A******S.
Anyone can help me, Upwork Trust & Safety Team put my account to limited financial status for being suspected using auto clicker they said they can reinstate my account after my contract ended and now my client end our contract because of the issue but my financial account is still limited and I can’t withdraw my earnings. Upwork Trust & Safety Team said they will not reinstate my account and I still have $425 earnings they freeze. Please help me here because they are not responding my request. Please help me. Thank you..
The so-called 12-hour review always took only 12 seconds.
Raising ticket only invites more automated replies and automatic “SOLVED” status.
Posting to their forum, I got a borderline racist remark about being from Indonesia, a minor help (wrong timezone, had selected UTC+6 instead of +7).
I replied courteously asking for more help since changing said minor detail still only earned me another 12 second automated rejection…
Instead I got blocked from the forums, those posts removed, and her reply also removed. It is still in my email, proof and reminder to forever avoid upwork.
racist white moderator Margarete M. https://community.upwork.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/44998
Firstly, the lady whose name you mention is NOT a moderator. Secondly, Upwork probably rejected you because you either do not have the experience or qualifications needed for their site at present, or because your profile was stolen (as so many people tend to do), or because it was incomplete.
Lastly, as a frequent member of their forum, I can clearly state she was not being racially insulting in any way. Stop blaming other people for your personal failure
https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/defamation
But I miss oDesk.
Upwork Sucks.
They now taking more money.
But What to do?.
I freelance…
I just posted a question on upwork why suddenly I cant submit a proposal, which I could up until a few days ago, and instead of answering me I got this message when I tried to see my question again in the forum.
Do you see the problem here? At Upwork, freelancers are not treated as independent users. They were not recruited or hired by Upwork, yet Upwork turns them into its own slaves – whipping occasionally to mint more gold coins out of each contract.
So, what does this new service fee policy mean? If you are a low budget client with a $20 project and are incapable of paying $24 to cover the service fee, get the fak outta here! Oh, wait! Some freelancers still need to make money so they might stick around and charge only $20. Who will they be?
Upwork seems to be gambling. It proves that they are already in huge trouble. Tens of millions of dollars have been invested and Upwork has failed to meet its investors’ expectations.
Upwork’s excuses might have been that the system is flooded with low budget clients and the situation will be improved by chasing them out of the system. Guess what! It won’t. The situation will be improved when Upwork starts admitting its flaws and fixing them before it’s too late.
The thing is freelancers like me don’t enjoy using a system that manipulates its users. Decent clients like mine don’t like the fact that their freelancers are being squeezed to take more money out of their pockets.
Upwork has a serious attitude problem and we cannot expect decency or business ethics from this organization led by a group of moronic pirates – soon to be short-lived.
For now, we have no choice but to comply with Upwork since Elance is now completely gone. Perfect timing, eh? So, is Upwork one big short-sighted, sneakily greedy b*****d or what?
Shifting its business paradigm to supporting only “quality clients and freelancers” with its everlasting shitty attitude? How longer will Upwork be able to thrive?
Many people are offended and shocked by the changes, but I personally think that it might be a good thing?
I think we should all come together and support crowdfunding a new online jobs platform https://medium.com/@LevelWorkingField/do-you-like-new-pricing-or-higher-fees-upwork-is-changing-again-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-6c755e245fb7
This new service fee structure might be yet another Upwork’s business strategy either immature or cunning. Let’s look further inside.
Upwork’s only strength has been the largest user base simply because it has been around for a long time, not because it is the best freelance platform. That said, LinkedIn is looking to expand their freelance business globally (possibly selectively – not sure if they would want their system to be flooded with low budget clients for low quality freelancers). It might be choking Upwork as LinkedIn has all the best capacities to take over the freelance business worldwide in no time. When that happens, I will definitely close my Upwork account and bring all my Elance and Upwork clients to LinkedIn. And I know many will do the same.
Now, we wonder if Upwork is trying to chase all the low budget “poor” clients out of the system before this “war” begins or it is just raising immediate revenues to meet investor goals. Upwork has been manipulating freelancers to create fake jobs and payments by lowering their job success score (JSS) for no comprehensible reasons. Low JSS means no clients and thus no earnings. You are forced to participate in this “self-payment” scheme. It also enabled privacy of the client’s identity so people who view one particular job are no longer able to see who this client has previously hired. Birds of a feather flock together. Upwork’s investors do not care where the money comes from as long as it continues to come in.
Upwork has also been promoting its “oDesk Payroll” and “Upwork Payroll” agencies. You can see their job success rates are always over the top. By raising the service fees, clients will be forced to hire the Upwork agencies instead of individual freelancers because they can open one contract and continue to add more milestones to it until it reaches $10,000, then the service fee goes down to 5%. I have been contacted by the Upwork recruiting personnel and rejected all of their offers because their payment is as shitty as their system. This means only low quality freelancers are working in the Upwork’s Payroll system. I wonder how they maintain such high JSS all the time…
Due to the introduction of this new service fee structure, Upwork may (intentionally) lose low budget clients and low end freelancers or it may (accidentally) lose countless quality customers who have had enough and are too pissed off to stay. Pretty soon we will get to see if Upwork’s new strategy was cunning or immature.
It is utterly ridiculous that choosing the age group and gender of a voiceover artist results in suspension based on discrimination grounds.
They told me if I wanted the temporary suspension lifted, I would have to write an email to them promising never to do it again.
It is completely patronizing to be treated like a little child. I told them where they could shove their suspension, and I voluntarily closed my account.
With the UpWork policies today, their greed and ignorance, I am leaving them altogether and doing something else.
Hi,
I’m writing to share an important update to Upwork’s pricing and Terms of Service. Starting in June, we will change our fee structure so that the more business you do with your clients on Upwork, the more earnings you keep.
Upwork will charge a sliding fee based on your lifetime billings with each client (across all hourly and fixed-price contracts you’ve ever had with them on Upwork and Elance). These are the fees you will pay:
20% for the first $500 you bill your client across all contracts
10% for total billings with your client between $500.01 and $10,000
5% for total billings with your client that exceed $10,000
For example, if you begin an hourly or fixed-price contract with a new client for $600, you’ll be billed 20% on the first $500 and 10% on the remaining $100.
Also, when you work with one of your Elance clients on Upwork, we’ll continue to honor the fee you paid on Elance or the 5% fee when applicable.
Here’s what your net earnings will look like over time, as a percentage of what the client is billed:
Pricing Structure
When the new pricing takes effect, we’ll honor the previous 10% fee for all active contracts, unless you’ve billed over $10,000 with a client, in which case we’ll automatically lower your fee to 5%. On all new contracts, the new pricing will apply.
These changes will reward long-term work and cover the costs of small projects, which are more expensive for us to support. I realize these are significant changes, but I believe they’ll allow us to deliver you a higher level of service and opportunity in the future.
We’ll follow up with an update before these changes roll out in June. In the meantime, visit our pricing page to learn more about this change as well as a new fee for clients.
Thank you for your business,
Stephane Kasriel
CEO, Upwork
The ranking or “points” system they use is focused on rewarding long term frelancers and penalizes short term or new workers. I wish I could find the link but this was something I read on a[nother] search for “UpWork is a Dick” search and read that most of the jobs are rewarded to “select” freelancers that are either part of Upwork or are only the paying freelancers. If you do not pay for a subscription to Upwork then you do not get reasonable consideration factored into their scoring system.
If you look at the parameters of the ‘system’ which, by the way are hard to actually find a full list of these factors AND their blog even admits the rating factors are “not fully published to keep the rating system fair” you will find how skewed the factorings are leaning toward paid workers.
Yes, everyone is in business to make money. But If you keep getting greedy you scare away good workers. I have been trying Truelancer and despite the low pay for most jobs, I have had some luck getting serious customers that pay decently. Truelancer is focused on India as a Country of preference to freelancers but I get most of my clients from Canada or UK, when I search for work. It seems that these clients will pay the US price ranges much faster if they know they are getting quality work.
Here is a little secret (I should not share but the author of this blog was kind enough to share his SEO secrets in this article—linked—so I will contribute to the freelancer world, for Americans): I always put in my proposals a sentence something like this, “…Price is negotiable as I want to compete with other foreign bids; yet remember I provide secure communications and 24/7 support.”
It seems to help and I never get negative feedback from Truelancer support, which I have had to use once in a while. They held a payment for a long time. (this was shortly after I commented in one of their blogs about the above and how India provided poor quality work, basing my assumption on what the freelancers in India charge. Update: had I known how little it cost to live on in that Country, I may not have made such a statement.
even my reputation migrate from Elance was top 5 :)
what a terrible monkey-bannanas come-on!
Thomas Jefferson famously wrote “In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.”
Recently I had an opportunity to learn exactly what he meant, as events have brought to my attention, that the community forums are not a means for customer support, nor are they for the community to engage in honest discussion, but rather a way for Upwork and it’s representatives to control the dissemination of information. Rather then provide factual answers in regard to the validity of Upwork policies, the moderators censors instead post canned responses full of placating rhetoric, and if you continue to search for genuine answers, they resort to censorship by editing messages, or removing them altogether, accompanied by threats and intimidation. As George R.R. Martin wrote “When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say”.
Is it not reasonable to be open to critical feedback? Constructive criticism is good for growth, and feedback of this sort, when listened to, can only make a product stronger, as it provides the means to give a new perspective and valuable insight. I’ve always tried to offer genuinely helpful constructive feedback, out of respect and a wish to be helpful. Not to mention when paying for a service, is it so unreasonable to expect answers to your questions, or to have any concerns adequately addressed? Does Upwork not want to improve their brand?
However in these forums, in preference to authoritarianism over democracy, no one can say or mention anything critical about Upwork, otherwise they ban you. Other members of the community are also not allowed to speak of the banned members, as if they didn’t exist. How disturbing is that? It brings to mind the words of roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero, “when you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff”. Unfortunately in this case the plaintiff is also a customer. What kind of business makes a habit of abusing it’s customers?
In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire says ““Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people–they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.” And what are moderators other then leaders of this community?
Terry Pratchet once remarked “authority that can not be questioned is tyranny”. That would seem to be an accurate description of the behavior exhibited by the moderators in these forums. If this is tyranny, does that make the moderators tyrants? The Oxford English dictionary defines a tyrant as “any person in a position of authority who exercises power oppressively or despotically”. Considering the highly repressive nature of the moderator’s actions, is this not an accurate definition of the tactics they employ? How viable is a business strategy that advocates the systematic tyranny of it’s customers?
Imagine if freelancer profiles worked like the forums, everyone would have a five star ratings because one would simply remove any negative reviews from their profile. Adding further insult to this injury, is that many questions that involve the Job Satisfaction Score result in condescending replies about how one should strive to offer better customer service, all the while ignoring every opportunity for themselves to do the same. In the time I have been with Upwork I have not received a single factual answer and none of the support tickets I’ve opened have been resolved, and although their messages to freelancers seem to indicate they are familiar with the concept of service and support, it is something they do not practice.
Obviously these forums are a platform where open discourse is not only discouraged but actively prohibited. As such, knowing that honest debate, and factual intercourse are unlikely to transpire, I feel the community forums to be a waste of time and effort, and as I raise the tyrannical boot of oppression from my neck, and the weight lifts, so to does any loyalty I felt towards, and respect I held for Upwork. As these are the actions of it’s representatives, and these actions are indicative of contempt, therefore the logical conclusion is that it represents Upwork’s contempt towards the freelancers who give up 10 per cent of their earnings. I now recognize them for the cheap exploiters they are, having a price but no value.
As such I will not be surprised when this message too gets deleted for exposing the inherent insincerity actively engaged in by Upwork and it’s representatives, while this will sadden and anger me, it will also irrefutably prove the above statements. Still I will do what I can, to see that the truth is spread, in an attempt to educate potential freelancers, as to the rank subjugation they face at the hands of Upwork. After all as William Lloyd Garrison said “With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.“.
To anyone reading my rant this far, I wish you luck on those forums so ripe with misinformation and rhetoric, may you somehow manage to find the truth. In closing, some words of wisdom:
“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.”
Emile Zola
1) brainless monkeys who think they are worth something more than 2.43$/hour (though 2 bucks is usually too much for someone who makes SEO optimisation or do some other sorts of bullshit works)
2) dick sucking mom’s fucking dreamers who spent their last 5000$ to build some useless s**t and now are trying get their money back to rip off contractor they’ve hired
Yes, Elance made that dream possible for me since joining them in 2008. I have never had to compete with lowballers due to a relatively high number of select clients willing to pay for high quality output on Elance. I enjoyed a ery high rate of repeat business from high-budget clients. You work hard and have honest dealings with your clients, you reap the benefits.
In just over a period of 6 months post transition from Elance, Upwork successfully managed to kill my admin freelancing career. To date, I’ve only made a measly 10% on what I typically made on average over that lengthy period of time with Elance. So many admin freelancers in Upwork compete for a very small amount of projects posted on a daily basis and seems alarmingly decreasing if you’re closely monitoring the feeds. What a total disaster!
And, the new clients I have had to work with on Upwork are used to paying for quality work for next to nothing. They want to use feedback as a means to pay for quality work. JSS is a bargaining tool for them and they know how to use it to to their maximum advantage.
Side note – if you’ve got an established 100% JSS after moving to Upwork from Elance, my advice is never work for new customers who are used to paying peanuts. They will desecrate your 100% JSS and it will take mammoth efforts to get that back. Work with this type of client at your own risk!
Complete Freedom for Freelancers.
https://www.thecreativecafe.org
But now it is bad
Upset all Freelancer
25 Mar, 11:42 am
I need my reputation reset or something. I had a 90+ % reputation then my score goes to 67%. I don’t know why its changed.
Thank you,
Paul X
25 Mar, 12:32 pm
Greetings Paul,
Thank you for contacting Upwork Customer Support
To further assist you with your concern, may I please ask for your kind patience while I forward this to the appropriate department for review and assistance. Rest assure that I’ll come back to you as soon as possible once I have an update.
Your patience is highly appreciated in the meantime.
Regards,
Hazel
Upwork Customer Support
Joan (Upwork Help Center)
25 Mar, 5:46 pm
Hello Paul,
Thank you for contacting us about your Upwork account. I have re-reviewed your activity on Upwork, and unfortunately, I cannot reinstate your account.
Regards,
Joan
Upwork Trust & Safety
Hazel L (Upwork Help Center)
After that my account is “suspended”
So I write back..
Paul X
25 Mar, 6:09 pm
I email UpWork(see below) and now when I login to upwork.com, i get a notice that my account is suspended. WHAT THE F**K?
-Paul
Joan (Upwork Help Center)
27 Mar, 4:48 pm
Dear Paul,
Unfortunately, our working relationship must come to an end.
Our commitment is to maintain a safe and trusting platform for all users. As a private company, we also have the right to determine who can engage in our platform and at this time we have come to the conclusion that your participation can no longer be supported.
This decision is final and there is no appeal process. While we respectfully ask that you not contact us again, we do wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors.
Regards,
Joan
Upwork Trust & Safety
Just real shitty. No reason to ban me. I haven’t had any policy violations and no complaints from clients.
Anyway it was a kick in the dick. Now I’m just expanding my options for finding new clients beyond using sites like UpWork/Elance/oDesk.
Trust me. I’ve been around for a long time.
The only thing we can do is to wish for a decent freelance platform to emerge. Hallelujah!
https://www.amazon.com/Business-Professional-Services/
Anything will turn out to be more credible than Upwork, and as long as we all keep voting with hours and dollars to use them its proving a good model for them..
I would encourage customers and freelancers to try the amazon business services venue.
Upworks management is a mess, they wont get better becuase they dont know how.. no Leadership.. no results..
We are clever enough and having all the capabilities to do so…
I am a Freelancer and Contractor sometimes!
Enough is Enough!
This is a mob that just keeps shooting themselves in the foot all the time. They are their own worst enemy. Are they masochists? You bet….they seem to enjoy embarrassing themselves over and over again.
I’m absolutely convinced management is surrounded by BUMBLING ADVISERS WITH NO REAL BUSINESS EXPERIENCE whatsoever or as rightly described above.
I also have a feeling of COMMUNICATION ISSUES being a major factor in their failure to deliver professional services to their customers (buyers and freelancers alike). The platform is just unreliable if not super UNPREDICTABLE. Company announcements are vague if not confusing.
Perhaps, it’s to do with English comprehension (speaking, writing and understanding the language are all different things….therefore the codes perhaps are riddled with LANGUAGE TRANSLATION issues???….kinda like with majority of their CS staff who cannot think for themselves because being able to read a script in English does not mean you actually understood what you read (not funny at all).
Status Quo. Apparently, it seems the best working solution to any IT engineering problems they can’t/unable to fix is to MANAGE FREELANCERS’ RESPONSE/REACTION. If you keep telling your freelancers there is no problem, they’ll eventually believe you. It’s-you-not-us spin. It’s easier and less-costly this way, you see. There, problem solved.
Just yesterday/today, another Upwork employee bravely (or stupidly) owned up to another fumble, admitting to another lie, AGAIN, and then outrightly asking for suggestions from members on how to fix this new major problem they’ve just created. Who does that? Yep, only at Upwork. Anyway, I hope she get’s rewarded for such bold move (not). You know, I actually almost felt sorry for this employee. You might as jump off the cliff, babe!
Oh, they also just announced another feature in-the-making about managing their ever increasing world-class spammer clients. That sounds like a great initiative only if you make sure the on-the-job-trainee IT guys don’t f&ck it up and cause another problem in the process of doing so
In summary, yes, it’s still a feckin mess over there at Upwork – consistently a total fiasco. You get a breather every now and then, your faith restored then BAM, that very old issue comes back
with a vengeance and this time, the fix they used then no longer works.
Ergo, I so agree that Upwork has more than enough factual material to bring to the table for Netflix to consider that Upwork will make a good, compelling satirical TV series. I for one will pay to watch it as long it does not clash with an episode of GoT or House of Cards:)
You have some serious issues… What the hell is up with the “Eastern European” thing? (Or other regions and ethnicities that you’ve hated on here) You are a hateful little creep. By the way, I’m from Eastern Europe. I’ve been trying to get some experience on upwork for the past month and a half because I can’t get a job in my country, even though I have a BSc, a MSc, and hopefully soon, a PhD (all in the physical sciences and computational science). Why can’t I get I get a job in my country? Because my country is s**t. Why is my country s**t? Because your government came, exploited and left. So maybe now the economy is bad, and I can be competitive as a freelancer because I can work for very cheap hours. Well, honestly, I don’t feel a shred of sympathy for the self-entitled westerners that may loose a job over me, or that are whining incessantly because their prices are being brought down. It’s not like any of those people had sympathy for me when US war planes were flying over my head. Thanks to which an entire generation suffers from chronic anxiety in my country (including myself).
As for cheapness on freelance websites. I can tell you that US clients are the cheapest people out there. I have had some horrible experiences, working for extremely low hours, or being scammed in to working for free.
As for cheap foreigners not speaking English properly, as you can see, I speak English properly. I doubt that you speak another language, though. But then I run in to jobs that are like “only English natives living in US, please. Don’t apply if you’re not native”. Well, actually, I am native. But, because my name sounds scary to western people, I can’t really apply to any of these positions. The level of discrimination is astounding. And not to mention the stereotypes for eastern European women.
Another point about discrimination. I couldn’t really raise my rates even if I wanted to. Because no one would hire someone based in a “developing” country for a higher rate. Although I have seen how US people work, and I can tell you, they work terribly bad. Again, the self-entitlement. They work bad, but they wouldn’t ever assume it. They have no sense of responsibility, or genuine devotion to the work that they do. They even write badly.
Anger towards you aside… I think that in spite of everything, upwork and other such websites are a good place to start and get some experience if you’re a beginner.
Particularly for people like me, that are fresh out of the protective womb of academia (stolen metaphor), it’s a good way to get a sense of the real world and the global job market. For example, I quickly realized that the programming languages and the software used in academia is not used anywhere else in the world. Unfortunately, the world is ruled by triviality, and wordpress people like you are much desired professionals. Because the most important thing in this world is a nice website that’ll get a lot of clicks…
You may need to get your feet wet and learn to differentiate clients through their words and attitude.
You will eventually get to the point where you learn that the Upwork world is quite different from Elance and it requires quite a few adjustments.
I guess the author could have put things in a better way. I agree with him about the problem of global labour – you always have somebody to undercut you and devalue your labour. It forces people from richer and poorer (economically speaking) countries to compete and it creates a hostile environment for workers who end up screwing each other over to get a crappy amount of pay for skilled work.
But that aside, I have seen what you say play out in front of me, non-native speakers with ‘scary names’ not get jobs and get utterly screwed over on the job market because of their accents and origins. Yes, it sucks and it is demeaning. Your post was bang on the money.
I recently had a dispute with work over $4,700 where they wanted to give me $100 back for customer satisfaction… I fought this and got $1000 back. However, this is NOT ENOUGH to complete a project that I budgeted $5,000 for. I was wondering if you would be able to help me. Below is the email I sent
Good evening,
My name is Diamond Riley and I am writing in reference to ticket #1984717. I have been in contact with upwork Dispute mediation since March 5 and will be pursing legal action if I am not refunded my proper amount.
I hired a freelancer from Upwork named Jonas Swift whom was working for $5,000 on a hourly contract. He was ultimately paid $4,700 before he became unresponsive. Jonas was paid after he showed me a deliverable. He also would put hours in on Upwork. Both the deliverables and the hours worked sufficiently demonstrated that he was actually doing work. In late Feb he became unresponsive and did not produce a product. Thus I have paid $4,700 and do not have a product.
I subsequently took the problem to Dispute Mediation on March 5 which lasted until March 25. I was told that I would only receive $100 for customer satisfaction. I fought that and subsequently received $1000, less than 22% of the money given. I was supposed to use this $1000 to find a subsequent freelancer. Therefore, I was being asked to find a freelancer for a $5,000 job at the rate of $1,000. I asked that the case be kept open in the event that I would need additional funds
I spoke with Amir and Michelle from Talent Acquisition and who helped me to find a subsequent freelancer. In conversations with at least 7 freelancers I was told that my offer of $1,500 was not enough [$1,500 = $1,000 refused plus $390 refunded from my other freelancer +$108 given to me for customer satisfaction] as shown in the attached documents. I raised the price to $2,000 which is $500 more and I was able to negotiate with a freelancer for that amount. I contacted Rosita and Charlene at Upwork and was told that the amount of $1,000 was my limit for a refund. This is unacceptable and I would like to pursue legal action. Upwork has established a community where it exudes trust. The website even speaks about trust and safety and the protection both a user and a freelancer would receive based off an hourly contract. I have not experienced this trust nor have I experienced the ease of mind that Upwork purports. I currently have an app on the market, I have a very large following on social media networks, email marketing and in the startup tech space. I have used Upwork many times before this encounter and have recommend Upwork to everyone, however now, I will never do so because the protection that you all claim actually doesn’t exist. The FACT that I have struggled , called Upwork everyday, multiple times a day, waited weeks for responses, had the deadline of my project pushed back two months does not seem to matter to Upwork and that is a shame. $500 out of $4,700 is all that I was asking and it is unbelievable to me that Upwork cannot issue that.
Due to the above reasons, I would like to pursue legal action for the full amount owed which is $3,700 due to the fact that Upwork is personifying a dishonest image of community and trust. I am reaching out in an attempt to see if there is anything you can do before I pursue this claim.
The problem with Upwork is that it has this peculiar rule that lowers your job success score if you have open contracts that are inactive. They somehow count it as a “bad egg” perhaps assuming that the contracts are open and the payments are processed outside of the system, and it is probably because many people indeed prefer to send payments outside of the system because no one wants to deal with Upwork. It is a vicious circle that cannot be stopped.
My client is not happy and I am truly sorry that I cannot accept this offer simply because the contract will remain idle until we have an actual job and it will continue to lower my job success score.
As Upwork treats its users like criminals, I do not expect it to improve its system to support higher quality clients and freelancers. However, I do expect another smart company to heed this advice and develop an elite platform where only the best professionals will survive and these ridiculous rules will not be necessary.
My question is this. How do freelancers get clients in real life? I know many do through networking, but have any of you just walked into a business and just asked them? I’ve done it for my (fledgling) novelty T-shirt business, and so far 1 retailer has agreed to stock my goods on his shelves (it’s a start). However, I’m having a much harder time with freelance graphic design though. Do you guys have any tips?
I had to dig through my old chats with another client to find this good enough freelancer who knows what she’s doing so that I could save my client from dealing with another rubbish “professional”. Then, I “attempted to” search for more freelancers in the specific area to help out my client with more options.
Nope, this is not the first time my clients asked me if I knew any decent freelancers – ’cause it’s effing difficult to search through the “sucking” Upwork pages!
You know what? The Upwork Job Success rate is garbage. Elance displayed accurate data. Why can’t Upwork do the same? I know why – the Upworksphere has been invaded by brainless monkeys!
To Upwork morons who might be reading this: Continue with your fabulously incompetent services and you WILL disappear soon, then we can all migrate to a new land where both clients and freelancers will live happily ever after!
Thanks for destroying any point you were trying to make about Upwork itself. I shall not be returning to this turgid underarm of the interweb, let alone be hiring or recommending your WordPress company for anything at all. Your attitude is detrimental to your own company and this article.
It comes as no surprise that clearly, these third world f*ck face owners living in lands where it is deemed socially acceptable to sell your mother or lease your sisters out to local brothels in your disease-infested towns, would take advantage of educated but financially desperate individuals by providing this third-world-f*ck forum as a means of prostituting oneself for unbelievably meager rations.
To all who are qualified and believe they are actually worth more than $6-$10/hr (I would scoff at anything less than $50) I say this: You need to SELL YOURSELVES, NOT PROSTITUTE YOURSELVES TO THIRD-WORLD F*CKFACES. How can anyone demean themselves like this.
And as far as I’m concerned, just about all of the clients posting work here are opportunistic pimps looking for suckers. I can do a lot of the writing, engineering and technical work offered here but I WILL NOT allow myself to be humiliated with sucker sharecropping rates. If you want quality be prepared to pay for it!!
Upwork reps refused to remove feedback left for us.
They are not interpreting Upwork feedback policy correctly.
Feedback policy is:
“Feedback containing the following types of content may be removed:
…slanderous, libelous,…”
The worker was Indian and the upwork staff was Indian…go figure.
#1 THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for posting this publicly. You are the man. May you be rewarded for this. May this post live on long!
#2 Long, bad story here, nothing unlike what everyone else is saying. Simply put. The “cheapo” era of pricing services lives on Upwork. Because. It’s what makes THEM money they’re most worried about. I was banned and will NEVER offer my services as a copywriting agency on there again (and on Elance, I was earning $90,000 when the “top manager” who I reached let me know I was banned for life – it was Christmas week, no less, and I thought my livelihood was gone, thank the Lord for direct clients and how that window was opened up to me – thank you, craptastic manager that thought making me cry was the highlight of your day!). I was banned for no bad reason and secondly I saw my company entirely copy/pasted, recreated by several Indians and that was promoted/kept by Upwork.
#3 They have a short term life. I predict it. Let’s all raise up and be firm on this vendetta against them. Freelancers UNITE!
-Julia
CEO, Express Writers
And what’s more, I’ve personally seen freelancers get banned from their “community” forums for daring to criticise the business decisions or the crappy website.
Clients’ feedback matters less now. After months of experiment and analysis, I have realized that in order to maintain high Job Success rate, you have to be tricky!
1. Be a user for over 12 months and your clients’ poor feedback doesn’t matter anymore – this is bad news for clients because they might be hiring low-quality freelancers if they trusted the Job Success rate.
2. Never decline job invitations – if you don’t like to be bothered by low-quality clients, which are a majority on the Upwork platform, keep your profile private. The thing is good clients do not usually have to invite anyone as they receive plenty of applications.
3. Never withdraw your job applications. My Job Success rate dropped by 4% for this one. During that period of time, I only received ratings of 5 stars with 100% recommend rates and by the Upwork Job Success algorithm, their own criteria are prioritized more than clients’ feedback.
4. Close ongoing projects – clients understand that Upwork is completely unreasonable. Ask your clients to close the contracts so that open contracts cannot affect your Job Success rate – Upwork is using everyone to create new jobs because they seem to have failed to expand at the rate they promised to their investors after the merge.
5. If there is any problem, DO NOT confront any Upwork CS reps. They are like extremely sensitive teenage girls. Do not piss them off if you wish to maintain your high Job Success rate!
If you are a client, instead of trusting the Upwork Job Success rate, you will have to go through all your candidates’ previous jobs and their clients’ feedback, individually and thoroughly!
I had solid 5 star ratings and 100% recommend rates from all of my clients. I have never had any jobs delayed, cancelled, or refunded due to poor performance. Upwork still lowered my Job Success rate because I hadn’t done any of the above. I now understand the games they play.
When they say “The percentage of this freelancer’s jobs that resulted in a great client experience” for the Job Success description, in reality it is the Upwork’s arbitrary opinion based on partial information which is not set up to protect the client but to maximize the job counts and revenue that upwork can claim they have. That may explain why they are so adamant against revealing any part of their Job Success algorithm.
There are many plugins that help with upwork
I use this chrome app to auto fill my job applications, which made my life simple.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/auto-fill-upwork-job-appl/afelmibomgpiihlfkaiaambbfhdcenlm
There are many plugins which help you to work with upwork easy.
Kudos,
GVS
There aren’t as many options when posting a job, you can only choose one region as opposed to many with Elance.
The payment system is HORRIBLE a freelancer just charged me an hour on my credit card, I didn’t even have to approve it. You set the amount of hours allowed a week and then I guess you have to trust them that they won’t charge the credit card for the maximum amount and leave because the freelancer just charged my card without me having to approve anything.
That’s it, I am done, I am not using Upwork anymore, I will find an alternative unless they go back to using Elance exactly as it was before.
The average earning range dropped drastical
Alex stated: “During this period we have paid them over $70 000 of fees”
I assume this is fees to Upwork, and not salaries to his staff.
70k in Upwork fees does not appear to be outrageously small to me.
They are pretty good. The first one is full of jobs but full of freelancers also. The second one does not have so much jobs but also doesn’t have many freelancers and much lower fees.
UpWork is really upsetting me and I’ve lost a month of work there. PleAse revive Elance, PLEASE!
The current system, however, doesn’t really allow those paying the bills to authorize payment. I never even received a listing of what work had been completed, and they dinged my CC for two payments of $125 each, without as much as a list of what had been accomplished toward meeting the projects original objective.
So I put the job on pause. My original objective was to acquire help with MySQL, PHP, and HTML5 web pages to allow multi-user access to a database. I’m currently researching WpDataTables as a plug-in to WordPress. I may not even need a freelancer, but my issue is, I just don’t have a lot of time to do the “fun” stuff of programming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=essNmNOrQto
I have filed a complaint with Better Business Bureau in the US and I have written to numerous bodies in India like the Advertising Council of India etc.
Website was so bad that my insurer Lloyds would not insure it because I would get sued by end users and Google termed it so poor in quality they wouldn’t list it!!!!
In my case the person I hired performed none of the work and instead my work was sent out to junior developers without my consent or knowledge.
This is what their legal counsel wrote in response to my Letter of Demand:
UPWORK STOP DELETING THIS MESSAGE FROM VISITOR POSTS IT’S CENSORSHIP – PEOPLE SHOULD BE AWARE OF YOUR PRACTICES INCLUDING THAT YOU DON’T GUARANTEE OR CHECK EVEN THE IDENTITY OF YOUR USERS WARNING to others – Upwork freelancers V T Nezwelt ripped me off $10K and didn’t have the qualifications to complete the work despite claiming on Upwork’s website that they did – this is the response from Upwork’s legal counsel when I asked for help in getting my money back for an end product I can’t use: Upwork makes no representations about, and does not guarantee the quality, safety, or legality of, the Freelancer Services; the truth or accuracy of Freelancer’s listings on the Site; the qualifications, background, or identities of Users; the ability of Freelancers to deliver the Freelancer Services
Basically there is no point hiring anyone on Upwork because they don’t even know who is on their website.
i did well on eLance – even though they, at one point, kicked my fat ass off the site. But every business relationship has its spats and I’m an Advertising Copywriter so if I don’t get regular hate mail and endearingly misspelled death threats, I’m not doing my job.
But eLance, like Pagemaker™ is gone and gone forever. There will be no United Artists of Freelance site to save you. So learn to work with UpChuck or just curl up and die. Essentially those are your options.
I did the forced Trail of Tears migration to UpChuck a few months ago but so far haven’t bid on any jobs or had anything to do with them. Luckily for me old clients have sniffed me out and new ones have somehow found me. Not that I give much of a rats ass as I do this mostly for fun.
However it seems from the tenor of the complaints against UpChuck, that most freelancers are stumbling over minor pebbles in the great freelance highway of life. Reviews? Disputes? Site crashings? Writing Proposals? Cheap assed clients?
Here are a few startling things to consider.
REVIEWS DO NOT MATTER. What matters is how many clients come back for repeat business. Work on and treasure that.
DISPUTES ARE A WASTE OF TIME. You are selling your time and you only have so much of it. Don’t waste it arguing with some nitwit in a mud hut in a 3rd world country who is furiously pedaling a stationary bicycle to power up his Apple II. Just let it go. Be like royalty – Don’t complain- Don’t explain. Move on and do paying work.
WRITE ONE PROPOSAL. A proposal is essentially selling yourself as the one to do this job. It’s like a resume.. Your USP does not change for every job you bid on. Just put together – or hire someone like me to put together for you – a killer proposal. Then just change the names and a few details to match the various jobs. Done. Then use your time on paying jobs.
CHEAP ASSED CLIENTS. Just say no. You don’t have to do years of work for $30. If your proposal is good enough, you’ll winnow out the clients who just want cheap stuff and get those who want what you have to sell.
Look, you could have been a brain surgeon but you chose, instead to be a freelancer. So deal with the environment you find. Not the one in your dreams. Dont be saber tooth and think here is only one way to feed yourself. Because, guess what, you’ll go extinct.
If UpChuck has sent your life to hell in a hand basket, then here’s a tip – RULE IN HELL.
That’s it;
Dennis Thompsett
Official Unpleasant Person
[email protected]
Let them complain more. Upwork should be embarrassed and realize that it’s not such an incredible community for freelancers and clients but for themselves.
Recently, they at least started to explain why their customer support is so sluggish. We will make improvements, or else someone smarter will build (or is already building) a better community for us.
These complainers including myself have nothing to lose in this game. If there’s nothing for you to lose, it’s good business.
And I have also noticed a very interesting tendency. Indian freelancers/agencies are looking for freelancers/agencies to outsurce their projects.
Why Upwork customers don’t see this “double outsourcing”? Are they OK with it?
It’s ridiculous!!!
My entire profile was copied for 4-5 times within a month or two (that is how many times I had to report to Upwork). There are no preventive measures to catch copied profiles and Upwork does not seem to care. You will have to perform this investigation by yourself. If you catch someone who copied yours, do not use the Report button. It does not work. Contact Customer Support. They will warn the freelancers who violated the policy. However, there does not seem to be a permanent measure for this either, so these people will continue to copy your profile. You just need to continue to investigate.
My story: this freelancer who copied my entire profile did get hired and I think they received a 2 star rating. The client was very unhappy of course. Upwork did not care because they still made money.
If I were a client and did not have enough time to deal with all these major and minor issues on Upwork, I would just use Upwork to find freelancers and contact them via LinkedIn.
Cheers!
#1. Calculate your own feedback score.
All my clients gave me 5 stars with 100% recommend rates on both Elance and Upwork until very recently I received one 4 star rating (I will soon follow up with another tip to avoid unreasonable clients). So, now I have sixty three 5 stars + one 4 star. Upwork calculated it as 4.94. I calculated it as 4.98. Upwork dropped my Job Success rate by 4%. I submitted a request for an explanation. It has been two weeks and still no response from Upwork.
NEVER trust the Upwork calculation. Check your own feedback score frequently.
Mathematically speaking, Upwork seems to have chosen to make a greater portion of the mediocre freelancers look better than they should rather than make the old 10% of the truly “successful” freelancers stand out. All the low-to-medium level freelancers won’t need to worry because the Upwork’s Job Success algorithm will continue to evolve to support you.
Many quality clients will bleed and leave.
Upwork will disappear as Elance did.
If you google “Upwork”, “Sick of All The Down Time – Freelancer.com” comes on top of the search results and this “Upwork Sucks” article on the same first page.
Upwork indeed sucks – big time!
The site has been non-responsive or crashed (for a very limited amount of time) only twice for me in the span of one year.
Some of my clients told me things about Upwork. I am witnessing their points now. In fact, more Upwork clients than ones from any other freelance platforms wanted to hire me outside of the system, not that I have ever worked outside of the system… yet.
Given how unreliable the system has been and all the poor reputation that Upwork managed to build over such a short period of time, I myself wouldn’t trust my funds with such a website if I were a client.
The last time I tried to install the Upwork Time Tracker, my security program detected it as a “hazard” and I am still unable to use it, not that I really need it anyway.
I have been discussing the Upwork issues with my associates. We kind of have a theory that Upwork has “pissed off” too many nerdy programmers and it is constantly being under cyber-attacks – probably why my system won’t allow me to install their Time Tracker. Otherwise, their frequent system down-time and errors do not make sense at all. It’s actually DownWork.
The only thing that is accurately being processed on their platform is their taking the service fees every time my clients pay me for my services.
I have communicated with an Upwork customer support manager regarding very ridiculous errors they are reluctant to admit and fix. At this point, I see no point of reaching out to their executives. I can see what’s going on inside their office right now. I am ready to give up on them and will no longer try to help them make it a better place for both clients and freelancers.
In my entire life, I have never seen anything like Upwork. In the past I have had incidents with companies that are household names. After about a couple of emails, their managers or directors call me to apologize. I have never publicly revealed their errors, nor have I ever even publicly mentioned their names.
On the other hand, Upwork interacted with me for over three months on such a very simple request. Every single time they come back to me with more errors and lies. I calculate and analyze everything, then confront them with more questions, and they redirect my inquiry to another person. It starts all over again like that and that is how I eventually was able to talk to one of their managers – after three months, during which period of time they created more grounds for a possible lawsuit.
However, LinkedIn seems to be on the right course now. The only merit that Upwork has had was their huge user base – simply because it has been around for so long. I wonder what will happen to them in a year or two. Instead of suing them and dealing with more moronic responses for any longer, I decided to watch this interesting process.
Maybe and hopefully, Upwork will learn something then; although, it will have been too late.
Will someone just build us a new Elance?
https://status.upwork.com/
The downtime for a company of this size is staggering and absolutely unacceptable.
Elance was amazing. oDesk was a pain, but useful. UpWork is horrendous and nearly useless.
Please someone come up with a good alterntive.
For free. Lets see how it will grow
https://www.telecommutingjobsearch.com
My experience has been positive. Upwork rewards the best workers with featured profiles and entry into their Pro program.
I know that the bugs and outages started post UPW, but I think the benefits outweigh the negatives. Their Top Rated program Job Success rating set apart the best freelancers.
Competing with people who charge $5 an hour sucks, but we have the ability to search for jobs that pay Expert wages. We also have the ability to filter for reputable clients.
I will say that I haven’t gotten as many job offers, which is disappointing, but I don’t think that negates the benefits I mentioned.
All in all, I agree UPW has bugsand quirks, but in the end it pays the bills. It’s either UPW or finding an office job where your boss, not you, calls the shots.
neil seaton
the dispute has been done and he accepted that i should not have been billed
you should be able to see that in my account
Anna
I understand. Yes, I was able to see the refund. However, since the job is hourly and the charge is automatically done by the system, you will see on your Transaction History page that the refund is not yet processed because we have not yet received the payment from you. Once the amount is charge to your payment method, we will then process the refund.
neil seaton
I am not doing that!!!
It was fraud
you had all of the information
this is pointless as you seem unprepared to resolve this
I will just use the other site the freelancer is on
as he is on both
i thought it would be the right thing to do to give Upwork the oppourtunity
but clearly not!
Anna
I am sorry to know that, Neil. Let me escalate your concern to our Support Group to check what we can do about this, but please note that this would not guarantee a positive response since this is the current process we follow for hourly jobs. Also, if the charge fails, our Mediation team will review the freelancer’s work diary and will reverse any hours not covered by payment protection.
neil seaton
Do you realise what you have just asked me to do????? PAY FOR A FRAUD TRANSACTION and then wait for a refund?????? Would you do it?
Anna, you are not understanding me, just close my account, there is NO WAY on this earth I am adding my card details to pay for a FRAUDULANT TRANSACTION that you are aware of and has been cancelled!!!
Just send me the transcript of this conversation and close my account
Anna
Yes, after this chat a ticket will be generated containing a copy of our chat transcript. Unfortunately, accounts cannot be closed when there is a pending balance on the account. I completely understand your concern, Neil. We hope you understand as well that we have policies and procedure to follow especially that your contract is hourly, which the charge is automatically done by our system and we have dispute process to follow should you have not agreed with the hours logged. However, I am escalating your concern to our Support Group so they can review your case. If you could wait for an update on the ticket that will be created after this chat.
neil seaton
Anna, If this is not resolved, I will make others aware that even though Upwork are aware of a FRAUD TRANSACTION you still want to charge me as ‘everything is automated’ what a load of rubbish!!!!!
Anna
I understand and I respect your decision, Neil. I will update you once I have a progress of the issue. I will provide you an update within 24 to 48 hours. Anything else I can help?
neil seaton
close my account
Anna
We cannot close accounts with negative balance, Neil. We hope you understand.
Many of the problems Upwork/Elance has are from them. Whatever they save, they lose much more because of that. They need to clean that up.
I’ve come to the conclusions (even after low balling) that US citizens need not apply.
READ MY EXPERIENCES BELOW!!!
neil seaton
tag_working_with_freelancers,tag_cl_work_issues, tag_cl_other_work_issue_cf
theft
Upwork Customer Support
Hello! Thank you for contacting Upwork. One moment please, and an agent will be right with you.
neil seaton
contract #15801321
Customer Service
We apologize for keeping you waiting. All agents are still busy at the moment. Please continue to hold, and one of our agents will be with you as soon as possible.
neil seaton
hello?
hello is anyone there?
hello?
Grace G joined the chat
Grace G
Hi Neil, my name is Grace. How may I help you with the said contract?
neil seaton
hi Grace
my freelancer has charged work to my account from another client, I need to be able to delete all of his hours and have your assurance that i will not be billed tomorrow
Grace G
I’m sorry for the inconvenience caused. Have you already informed your freelancer about those hours?
neil seaton
(i can pass to you the skype conversations confirming this)
yes
Grace G
And did he mention about deleting the hours?
neil seaton
[13:30:41] Techsha: I am apologies for that
[13:30:52] Techsha: Please delete the screen shot
[13:31:04] Techsha: that is not related to your work
[13:31:23] neil seaton: This is not good Anjan,
[13:32:18] Techsha: I am extremely Sorry Neil
[14:05:54] neil seaton: Hi Anjan, How do I remove those from yesterday?
[14:06:43] Techsha: there MUST BE have option to select and delete option
[14:33:26] neil seaton: Hi Anjan, I have just spoken to Upwork, they have said to pause the contract while you delete the hours / screenshots, I am unable to do it
[14:33:56] Techsha: Okay
[14:34:13] Techsha: Send me screen shot I will try to delete from my end
[23:18:25] neil seaton: hi Anjan, nothing has altered on upwork?
[23:29:19] neil seaton: Its Neil
[23:29:20] Techsha: Hi Nail
[23:29:38] Techsha: Sorry
[23:29:48] Techsha: Neil
[23:30:20] Techsha: Actually Odesk is not allowing to delete time due to pause time
[23:30:49] neil seaton: That is not true, upwork said it was possible which is why they have told me to pause the contract
[23:30:51] Techsha: Could I try to delete in my day time
[23:32:02] Techsha: Now I can
[23:35:04] Techsha: Odesk is not allowing me to delete the time
[23:35:40] Techsha: Could you please allow me to work on in my day time
[23:35:54] Techsha: I have to sleep now
copy of the coversation
Grace G
Deleting hours are an option available from freelancer’s end and not on a client’s account.
neil seaton
that is rubbish, i am informing you of a problem now
you can see via the coversation and i can send screen shots
Grace G
If he won’t delete the hours, you may file dispute for those unauthorized hours. Since this is an hourly contract, you will still be auto billed. However, we won’t release the funds to your freelancer until Dispute Team has provided resolution.
neil seaton
he must be lying then. it is upwork who will charge me
YOU ARE NOT AUTHORISED to charge my card, if you cannot resolve this put me onto someone who can
Grace G
Neil, I know that this can be frustrating but this is per system design. All hourly contracts are auto billed per the hours logged by freelancers.
neil seaton
you have the confirmation from the freelancerv and i can provide further screenshots
NO that is not acceptable,
you are able to stop it
please put me onto someone senior
Grace G
I am on a supervisory level Neil. There’s no option for us to delete those hours. Only your freelancer can. I can send him a message about this. And still, just in case, he won’t delete it before the Work Diary locks, you may file dispute.
neil seaton
no that is not acceptable
[23:35:04] Techsha: Odesk is not allowing me to delete the time
[23:35:40] Techsha: Could you please allow me to work on in my day time
[23:35:54] Techsha: I have to sleep now
[23:36:44] neil seaton: Anjan, if my account gets charged for this, I will treat it as theft and take the necessary action appriotiate. Neil
[23:37:56] Techsha: hey no need to worry abut your payment Myself start to take care of your work
he is lying by saying it cannot be deleted
so either you delete it or put me onto someone who can
Grace G
I’m sorry again but there’s no option for us to delete it.
neil seaton
you have the copies of information there
Grace G
The only option is available from your freelancer’s account.
neil seaton
that is rubbish, yes you do, give me a contact number for someone who can deal with this please
Grace G
Our Phone Support is available to take calls from 9:00 PM Sunday to 11:59 PM Friday. All times in PST.
neil seaton
tag_working_with_freelancers,tag_cl_work_issues, tag_cl_other_work_issue_cf
theft
Grace G
You may call them at 866-676-3375866-676-3375 (press 3 for General Support), so you can call the team directly. I can also send this to them and request to call you back.
neil seaton
this is rubbish, you are aware of a situation that is going to cause the theft of monies from my account but you are refusing to do anything about it
Need help now? Call us at:
+1 (855) 676-3375
that is the number is see? which is it and what country am i calling?
Grace G
That’s the correct number and that’s a number in U.S. I can ask them to call you back. Which number should they call you back at?
neil seaton
this is a disgraceful way of doing business
+441228562828
when will they call?
Grace G
I will ask them to call you back as soon as possible.
neil seaton
that is not an answer to a time
Grace G
Unfortunately, I can’t provide you with an exact time as I don’t want to add frustration but I will indeed ask them to call you the soonest possible time.
neil seaton
As I am now copying all of this conversation, if Upwork choose to charge my card, i will take that as theft and take the appriopriate action as you are aware there is a major issue
Grace G
I understand. A copy of our chat transcript will also be sent to you both via your email and Upwork account.
You may also want to check this link for further details as to how hourly contracts work: https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211062138
neil seaton
that is rude
how dare you quote rules / your policy when you are aware of an inpending problem
are you unwilling to stop the charge to my card?
even though you have the transcripts and futher information available?
Grace G
This is per system design Neil which is out of my control too. All hourly contracts for all clients are auto billed. That’s why I have suggested about our dispute process.
neil seaton
rubbish. you have the ability to stop the charge
are you going to stop it or not
simple question#
Grace G
There’s no option for us to stop the auto billing.
neil seaton
you are not high enough in your companty then, put me onto someone who will stop upwork from stealing from me now please
Grace G
Please hold as I check if a manager is available. One moment please.
neil seaton
what is the dialing code for the USA from the uk?
Grace G
+1 866-676-3375 is the direct number to dial. It’s a toll free number.
neil seaton
i have asked for the full code, +1 866 does not work
Grace G
Please hold, let me check.
Thanks for waiting. You may dial 00 + 1 866-676-3375.
Sorry, that’s 00 1 866-676-3375.
neil seaton
put your manager on now please, somethimg you should have done ages ago
Lanie joined the chat
neil seaton
I demand to speak to your manager now as I have just got throught to your telephone system that refers me back here
Lanie
Hi Neil, my name is Lanie and I am a Supervisor in Upwork.
neil seaton
A supervisor or manager?
Lanie
I am both a Supervisor and in charge of our High Value Support.
neil seaton
Grace G
I am on a supervisory level Neil.
grace has already quoted she is a supervisor
Lanie
My level i higher than Grace, Neil and I believe I can address the issue you have with your account in Upwork.
neil seaton
I have requested a manager to deal with a serious issue
Lanie
Yes I understand the importance of the auto charge in Upwork and I am here to clarify this issue.
neil seaton
not clarify, Lanie, it needs to be stopped. It is theft.
Lanie
Unfortunately per Upwork Policy found through this link: https://www.upwork.com/legal/ Section 6.8 Payment Methods states:
Client hereby authorizes Upwork, EEC, and Elance Limited to run credit card authorizations on all credit cards provided by Client, to store credit card and banking or other financial details as Client’s method of payment for Services, and to charge Client’s credit card (or any other Payment Method). Credit cards and PayPal accounts and, if applicable, bank accounts in most countries will be charged by EEC. Notwithstanding the foregoing, credit cards and PayPal accounts in Australia, Canada, the Eurozone, and the United Kingdom will be charged by Elance Limited, an Ireland registered company which is an Affiliate of Upwork.
It shows that the contract you have is an Hourly contract.
Upwork Payment Protection is our promise that an hour worked is an hour paid, and an hour paid is an hour worked. It’s our way of showing respect for the work getting done on Upwork.
neil seaton
you charge my card, even though you are aware of the issue, it is theft and i will deal with it as such
you have the ability at this point to stop it,
it is your choice as to whether you choose to or not
if you are unable to do this, then i am speakeing to the wrong person
Lanie
I understand and I do apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you. We provide the clients 5 days review period, this is when you have the time to review the work being done by your freelancers. You can file disputes during this time and if the dispute is awarded to you then we refund any payment charged to your payment method.
neil seaton
I have provided all of the information to confirm this
Lanie
Apologies but this cannot be done.
neil seaton
no Lanie, it can you are choosing not to
Lanie
If you wont mind my suggestion? Have you tried hiring a freelancer under a fixed price job instead?
neil seaton
OMG! #
have you really just took the decission to type that?
Lanie
Apologies Neil, I do understand you want us to stop auto charging for your hourly contract, but as much as I would like to, this is not possible.
neil seaton
i will stop it from my bank now
and i will publicise every point of this
this is disgusting
not a way to run a business
Lanie
I understand and we have clearly clarified informations about our payment policies on our User agreement. My sincerest apologies for this inconvenience Neil.
neil seaton
rubbish
you have chosen to ignore a problem and deliberate theft
Lanie
Im sorry if you feel that way.
neil seaton
your choice
and i will persue this to the upmost
Lanie
I understand your situation, but as much as I would like to, for hourly contracts, you are automatically billed after the work week, based on the hours logged by your freelancers.
neil seaton
which i have told you and your staff, which has also been confirmed buy the freelancer it was fraud!
and you are now refusing to reslove this
are you thick?
really?
it is getting very annoying
Lanie
Apologies but may I know what you mean by confirmed by the freelancer that it was a fraud please?
neil seaton
the freelancer has confirmed it should not have been charged but he cannot or is refusing / is uable to delete the hours
as explianed previously
[23/01/2016 13:30:41] Techsha: I am apologies for that
[23/01/2016 13:30:52] Techsha: Please delete the screen shot
[23/01/2016 13:31:04] Techsha: that is not related to your work
[23/01/2016 13:31:23] neil seaton: This is not good Anjan,
[23/01/2016 13:32:18] Techsha: I am extremely Sorry Neil
[23/01/2016 14:05:54] neil seaton: Hi Anjan, How do I remove those from yesterday?
[23/01/2016 14:06:43] Techsha: there MUST BE have option to select and delete option
[23/01/2016 14:33:26] neil seaton: Hi Anjan, I have just spoken to Upwork, they have said to pause the contract while you delete the hours / screenshots, I am unable to do it
[23/01/2016 14:33:56] Techsha: Okay
[23/01/2016 14:34:13] Techsha: Send me screen shot I will try to delete from my end
[23/01/2016 23:18:25] neil seaton: hi Anjan, nothing has altered on upwork?
[23/01/2016 23:29:19] neil seaton: Its Neil
[23/01/2016 23:29:20] Techsha: Hi Nail
[23/01/2016 23:29:38] Techsha: Sorry
[23/01/2016 23:29:48] Techsha: Neil
[23/01/2016 23:30:20] Techsha: Actually Odesk is not allowing to delete time due to pause time
[23/01/2016 23:30:49] neil seaton: That is not true, upwork said it was possible which is why they have told me to pause the contract
[23/01/2016 23:30:51] Techsha: Could I try to delete in my day time
[23/01/2016 23:32:02] Techsha: Now I can
[23/01/2016 23:35:04] Techsha: Odesk is not allowing me to delete the time
AGAIN
Lanie
Okay, this is what we can do. After this chat a ticket will be generated. Please attach a screen shot of that chat you had with the freelancer and we will reach out to the freelancer to have the log hours deleted. Just in case he wont delete it before the work week ends and you get billed, I suggest you file a dispute immediately. When in dispute this payment will not be released to your freelancer.
Once a decision is reached and the dispute is in your favor, then we refund the payment to your payment method.
neil seaton
you are seriously not getting this are you? you are aware of the issue
if you charge my card tomorrow it is theft
so stop the charge now
Lanie
I do understand, but unfortunately we cannot stop charges on your payment method.
This is why I am offering you an alternative way to resolve the issue.
neil seaton
yes you can it is your website
that is not an alternative to fraud
you are aware that Upwork will charge my card
Lanie
Sorry Neil, but we cannot over write the system from charging your payment method. The freelancer can delete the log hours on his account before the work week ends.
neil seaton
you do it
Lanie
Yes, as stted on our policy which you agreed to when you signed up with Upwork.
neil seaton
that is fraud
and you are aware of it
you are quoting laws that do not cover this
(policies)
this is blatant theft
and you are refusing to acknowledge it
Lanie
Im sorry Neil, but you will only be charged based on the hours logged by your freelancer, unless he deletes it before the work week ends or before Monday 12am UTC (January 25)
neil seaton
you have the ability to over ride this,
you are choosing not to
Lanie
Unfortunately no we do not have that ability Neil.
I’m no longer seeing your responses, so there must be some sort of connection issue. Please re-initiate a chat, so we can continue to address your concerns. If you have difficulty re-connecting, please reply to the ticket (in https://support.upwork.com ) that will be created in just a moment when I close this chat session.
Grace G left the chat
Lanie left the chat
neil seaton
wait
Upwork Customer Support
Hello! Thank you for contacting Upwork. One moment please, and an agent will be right with you.
neil seaton
im still here
tag_other_category_cf,tag_undefined
THEFT
Grace G left the chat
Lanie left the chat
are you now not responding?
My experience has been positive. Upwork rewards the best workers with featured profiles and entry into their Pro program.
I know that the bugs and outages started post UPW, but I think the benefits outweigh the negatives. Their Top Rated program Job Success rating set apart the best freelancers.
Competing with people who charge $5 an hour sucks, but we have the ability to search for jobs that pay Expert wages. We also have the ability to filter for reputable clients.
I will say that I haven’t gotten as many job offers, which is disappointing, but I don’t think that negates the benefits I mentioned.
All in all, I agree UPW has bugsand quirks, but in the end it pays the bills. It’s either UPW or finding an office job where your boss, not you, calls the shots.
“Something is not quite right here.”
“Our apologies, but we can’t complete your request now. Try again soon, as we’re fixing this now”
Everything about Up Your Work is not quite right. And we clients are trying to use Fiverr etc but there too we face challenges with separating the good from the bad. Everything from Fake FB Follower gigs to article spinners it is a mine field despite their feedback system.
But you want to know the insult to injury? The Top-Rated freelancers who were either on Elance or oldoDeskers and their unbelievable arrogance in the forums. They actually seek out people that are new so that they can criticize their profiles One person in particular, Jean S., is the worst. She’s rude and claims that she has been responsible for getting the CEO to makes changes within the website. She verbally attacks everyone. Why is she allowed to continue violating TOS? Because she is a Top-Rated client who makes them money. These people in her little circle (and I could give you each and every one of their names) will go so far as to brag about how they are making thousands on Upwork and do not hesitate to belittle everyone else.
The website is horrible. Stay away from it. It is being run like an employment agency, and if you run a search of articles, you will see employment agencies like Adecco are all over it. Why? Because the CEO is connected to all these European companies and that is why the American freelancers are getting the shaft.
They millions more freelancers are signed up than legit jobs posted. That’s not a mistake. Pay attention to the numbers, freelancers.
Many of the complaints here are legitimate and there are still some technical glitches in the system as well as in the user interface. I can list about 100 of them but is this really necessary? We have all been living these problems for some time.
However, Upwork has improved significantly over time and customer service also has done its best to be up to standards. Things aren’t necessary OK yet but there is some hope.
My only concern is that Upwork early woes has scared off a significant number of talented freelancers and important clients. As a result, so many good opportunities have evaporated. Many of the freelancers who used to rely on Elance for a steady stream of income are now left in limbo. There are hardly any good meaningful job posted these days and business has plummeted for us to a record low.
On Elance, I used to have many excellent regular jobs in my niche. Business was booming, I was really happy and I enjoyed that sens of freedom and control based on my stellar reputation. Then, after the move to Upwork, I was lucky enough to keep working with a couple of old, long term clients on repeat projects. Now, all this has gone. It’s been an entire month since I last worked on a project and this situation left wondering what happened. The sky is literally falling down and things breaking apart. Something has gone wrong, very wrong with this move from Elance to Upwork. It’s the world upside down and inside out.
Unless something drastic is done both on the technical and business levels, the whole Upwork project will certainly come crashing down.
I sincerely wish that Upwork prevails and the good old Elance atmosphere and success returns and rains down on it.
Long live Upwork!
Thank you
MTK
Their contracted workers are causing the errors.
Ask yourself why most of the errors are concentrated in specific critical areas. These workers believe they’ll have opportunities if they cause these problems, and of course they are very wrong.
But I disagree with one thing you said – their front end is NOT pretty. It looks like Mickey Mouse threw up.
Admittedly, I was foolish to rely on one source, but I’m astonished at the number of low quality jobs (both in terms of poor descriptions and absolutely ludicrous budgets) available on Upwork. Additionally, the site IS as buggy as hell.
I’ve been lucky enough to secure one long-term client on the site, but they invited me to the job and had very specific requirements which I had experience in. In terms of almost everything I’ve put a proposal in for, I’ve either not heard back and the job’s left open, or it’s gone to someone else. I’ve also lost a major long-term client who refused to go over to the Upwork platform and has now hired someone in their physical locality.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I have to be in the UK for relationship reasons, I’d emigrate abroad and work in a country with a much lower cost of living to make freelancing more feasible.
And here starts the brand new story: Upwork. More and more e-malis from Elance that I must remove my account because oDesk and Elance will be merged soon… well, I wasn’t too happy but that’s what I finally did. As I had a very good reputation on Elance, I quickly received some “Top Rated” status and since then I regularly find in my mailbox job proposals and invitations. Anyway – prices are often extremely low, invitations usually don’t fit my skills… I have a feeling that it’s a “river” full of cheap workers, unfair proposals or even people who are looking for projects made for free. Work description are very often unclear and unaccurate, and I have a feeling that Upwork has no restrictions or solutions to deal with those problems.
Now this article also gave me food for thought – indeed, spending a lot of hours on consulting potential clients for free, polishing your Upwork profile, reading dozens of e-mails with useless job proposals – well, it can be funny on the start. The truth is that both „giants” – Freelancer, as well as Upwork – became quite sad and trashy options, where company owners submit the amount over quality. I don’t know if in their case any return to the old, better times (Elance?) is possible. The one that I know is that from now I’ll rather focus on some other, more effective, job options.
Thanks and good luck!
Can we do something to get Elance back?
Lets do a votepost on collegetimes FB, or something that helps us get Elance back.
Elance earned be bread and butter, and I am sure Upwork already has started to starve me!
Please help, Thanks.
There is TopTal but that’s more for developers than anything else. I think there is definitely a market for niche-specific sites e.g. writing, graphic design, etc. but with specific criteria before applications are accepted in order to differ from the existing sites in terms of quality of jobs and freelancers.
All Upwork has to offer is ticket renewals, delayed responses, that’s it!
Upwork sucks!
I do have to agree that freelancing job board websites like Upwork and Freelancer are not the best places to look for work. In fact, almost all the downsides mentioned in the article and the comments are true.
This is why for people who are looking to build a long-term, serious career out of freelancing will need to use these sites in a different way. I believe one of the hardest challenges a newbie freelancer faces is building a portfolio and experience for potential clients to view.
I mean, sure, anyone can put up a website and advertise to the world that they can do writing and graphic design – however no one is going to buy into anything unless they see actual hard proof and experience.
That is where websites like Upwork, Freelancer, Guru and alike could come into play. A freelancer might as well use them for a long-term advantage.
I believe that the first 3-6 months should be used to build up a portfolio on these websites, along with gaining actual experience (to see what kind of work you like doing or not). At the same time, a freelancer must have their own website up, actively creating unique content on a consistent basis, and making genuine efforts to search for clients on their own.
Eventually, the freelancer should be able to transition from finding work on job websites to working with clients they brought in themselves. It all boils down to how much effort and motivation is involved.
Staying for an extended period on these job websites, in my humble opinion, is probably not going to offer long-term satisfaction and income potential to a freelancer. I know from my short time of being on Upwork that competing with other job seekers on a pure cost basis is a recipe for financial and emotional disaster.
I would suggest making every possible effort to creating your own presence on and offline to get the most out of freelancing. Plus… your creating something that is truly yours.
Darcy Cardinal
I enjoyed this article. It was right on target and couldn’t have been better written….Thank you for this article and I hope it gets through to anyone thinking of joining this sad organization by making people think twice…DON’T DO IT!!!!!!
and was very happy with the results.I have another small project and just found out that it is now Upwork. None of my previous project details are available which is very distressing. Anyone have an opinion about freelancer.com?
While we are all entitled to our opinions, when one is in a position to influence millions with their opinions, a certain level of responsibility is required – stereotypical statements such as the those highlighted above, are hardly the way to get a valid point across. Instead they fuel hate and closed-mindedness. Yes there are unskilled freelancers out there, yes there are freelancers whose ‘English’ skills suck, yes there are skilled freelancers in such dire financial straits they will work for nothing just to get a foot in (just as the author of the article says he did when he started out). Surely such freelancers are found in both First and Third World countries and their presence on Upwork is but a consequence of the appeal of virtual work. Globalisation, the nature of competition and a plethora of other internal and external factors are to blame for Upwork’s current struggles. Furthermore, Upwork’s Iack of stringent methods to weed out chancers from all over the world is quite problematic, I hardly think that all those other derogatory statements about freelancers from Third World countries were necessary.
Regards
Illiterate Black Girl From Africa
This is not a fight. Let me clarify that this is not even a racial issue. I was not trying to prove you wrong. On the contrary, I was inviting you to consider a more objective perspective that does not involve pinning blame on just a certain group of people. I am not refuting the fact that a solid 90% of Third Worlders on Upwork are indeed lazy and or unskilled. If Upwork actually cared about the industry, WAY, Way tougher measures would be in place to separate the wheat from the chaff. There are a lot of things wrong with Upwork at the moment and you stated these things quite succinctly in your article.
HOWEVER, what about the Third Worlders who are skilled and actually take pride in their work? What about some of the First Worlders who have the very same characteristics you abhor in Third Worlders? These characteristics are hardly endemic to a certain group of people, people who happen to come from developing geographical areas. All I’m saying is that chaff is chaff no matter where its from and hardwork, regardless of where its from, needs to be appreciated. If we as freelancers continue to label each other and ” devalue” the standard of each others work based on ” World ” rankings and not actual output, the industry will continue to lower its standards and automatically DEMAND that people from certain places (Third Worlders) work for lower rates – resulting in the degradation of the value of freelancers work and the rates they can charge WORLDWIDE. Pride in ones work is fantastic however, pride does not pay the bills nor put food on ones table. So eventually the Third Worlder whose economic climate and financial state is worse than the First Worlders, is forced to accept what the buyer thinks they’re worth – Peanuts. So as I mentioned earlier, I was inviting you to consider a more objective perspective, especially since you are in a position to influence people with your words. What the freelancer industry needs is for freelancers to unite and set a bar, not sling mud at each others faces. On another note, yes, stereotypes exist for a reason and one reason alone – the unwillingness to venture out of ones comfort zone and give people a chance to prove who they really are!!
Regards
Illiterate Black Girl From Africa
You are right about Upwork and its current business process, no doubts, but I got offended as well. Don’t feel superior. Many native English speakers know just their own language. They already lose with the market share. Simply I beat you in free market environment. This is your problem to find niche to get paid and work in the way you want to and with whom you want to. If you weep about something like Upwork which is running its own business find better place or if you are real entrepreneur create new one because you are not alone on your opinion. That is a niche! Free market babe, adapt or disappear or change and create.
There will always be people who will want to get cheap services and products and bad quality & expensive services and products and great quality.
There are tons of shitty workers from “leading” economies and there are tons of great workers – same as in all countries.
VYTAUTAS
Besides, you seem to think that those who don’t speak English like you do, are probably not as skillful, well you are wrong and naive and childish, pretty immature in your thought process. I work with folks from all over the world and they don’t speak what you may term good English, but they communicate enough to drive their point home. You may need to go for lessons in tolerance, patience and humility too, what counts more than English itself, is the ability to communicate and get your self understood. If you are interested in rather competing with English speaking freelancers alone, because you have a better chance to win a contract, then go off to some other racist site where non English speakers only are accommodated. We have passed the times of Slavery, we have moved into a generation of freedom for all, if that angers you then I’m afraid you will have to live with it because slavery (although not totally gone) will definitely go. You really have no right to pick on Freelancers who don’t speak as fluently as you, why do you even have to be threatened or bothered? The client makes a choice of the most suitable freelancer,in which case he may prefer medium English speaking with great skills to a fluent English speaking freelancer with poor skills, again, its the Clients choice, why are you concerned?
To Illiterate Black Girl From Africa – you need not tolerate the ignorance of people who have never been to Africa or understand the politics of power and government. If Jesse has a good sense of History and Economics, he would respect Africa and all other so called third world countries, whose resources have been plundered from generation immemorial till present by the so called developed or first world countries.
English speaking really does not make a good freelancer. Having character that allows you to recognize the freedom of others, respect for all, and love for all is more important than an English rattling freelancer without character.
You need not converse with Jesse again. As a Client who hires, I’ll never settle for someone like Jesse who appears short sighted, besides I have continued to outsource more to Jesse’s so called “Third World” countries because I provide the opportunity for them when people like Jesse don’t and I remain amazed as they complete my job with dexterity and accuracy and at such a price that makes sense to me as a Business person and I believe to anyone who understands business.
I rest my case for now. Just a word of advise to Jesse. Mind your own business and never say what you don’t know, leave the clients to decide who to hire.
I want to thank you — thank-you’s are not what I usually write, but SOMEBODY needs to thank you and nobody has, at least not yet.
After all the poorly thought-out comments I have read above, and sometimes they are even hateful comments, about Third World countries and their residents, I admire your discipline to reply with a carefully considered and very thoughtful entry.
The world has too few people like you, and that same world could benefit from many more such people. So please accept my compliments on your commitment to be able to read hateful entries and then still to respond with a respectful and thoughtful reply. I don’t know your name or even your country, but I hope someday to have the privilege of meeting you in person. Of course, I won’t know that it’s you, but I know that if we had such an encounter, I will come away from it with better appreciation of the good human beings that sometimes arise from the worst of conditions. As you know (because of course you were using the word “illiterate” ironically), you are an intelligent and much-needed contribution to the mass of people we call “humanity.” I can only hope that God (or whatever we want to call the ultimate deity) will contribute more people like you to our population. If that happens, we wil all be better off as a result.
Gratefully,
-Jeff
Thank you again for your thoughtful contribution to this “discussion,” and please keep holding your head high and proudly. You make the world a better place.
Gratefully,
-Jeff
HIS EMAIL ADDRESS IS: [email protected]
TELL HIM THAT THE ENTIRE UPWORK MUST MOVE TO THE ORIGINAL ELANCE PLATFORM (EVEN IF IT IS RENAMED UPWORK).
MAKE THIS REQUEST TODAY, LET US ALL PUSH TO RE-INSTATE THE ORINGAL ELANCE WEBSITE/PLATFORM (THEY CAN NAME IT WHATEVER THEY WANT).
BUT THEY MUST KILL THE CURRENT UPWORK PLATFORM.
MAIL THE CEO NOW.
I think the comment “An Inherently Flawed Business Model” says it all.
I posted for A QUALITY dev on 12/9/2015 and I couldn’t even submit the job. The page gave errors, and forced me to revert to the classic page. I had to type ALL of the information over again.
After finally getting it submitted, the View Job page won’t load. It just spins and spins.
I am shocked. Seriously. How could they screw up such a good thing?
The idiots in charge should be fired. They should just revert back to the Elance platform.
This is what too much money and too little brains produces. They ruined an awesome product.
Absolutely shocking. How could you fail so magnificently?
There’s a key phrase in your article that really speaks to me: ‘This nightmare was the result of me breaking one of my own rules’. You really nailed it there. When you start making compromises, then it’s time to move on. This is what i did and i think that’s a clear sign you need to do something ! And the only thing left to do is to move on. It was a good trip overall but I’m not sure i will do it again. And since most of my clients are from US, i’ll end with one of their sayings: don’t put all your eggs in one basket !
Bring Elance back!!!
any recommendations for an alternative Elance like website to switch to?
At Demly we screen all of our freelancers to ensure a 100% professional community, and we handpick freelancers for our clients. Stop wasting your time and start getting paid what you’re worth. Join Demly.
I decided in June 2015 to give the VA world a try. I found Upwork.
Many clients/scam artists want u to do work for the interview.
After 2 jobs/scams & about 48hours later. That was enough. The people were horribles to communicate with, etc.
I walked away from Upwork & ventured back in November. This Rebecca Walton character sought me out for this great job as a data entry clerk/VA with Visma, a Norwegian based company. I went through a Skype interview, received a 5 page acceptance letter to sign, was in touch with HR & then assigned a supervisor & even went thru orientation. So, my first day expecting to start the job, Im asked to do these pretasks. The first was to write an essay min 650 words listing and Training the characteristics of a data warehouse. I was given 2 hours. I finished, but just felt like í wrote some kids college paper.
So í was to be graded….ok. Next day í had ANOTHER pretask & í began sending my “supervisor” a series of questions about the legitimacy of this Job with Visma. Which when u Google Visma í find they are very reputable & Glass door revie 4/5 stars.
So í contacted Visma directly, which my supervisor said there was no need for me to do that, to check the validity of my new job & the REAL Visma HR responded immediately & said it’s a scam. She also wanted all the communication between me & fake Visma company.
Does Upwork not do ANY kind of client verification???
DO NOT USE UPWORK TO GET VA JOBS! I know people really do get work on there, but u end up killing yourself for $3.00/hr just to have logged hours to get better jobs or u end up getting scammed.
So, that’s my experience & í imagine there are many more with the same or worse.
In regards to the freelancers on Upwork: I’ve found the quality not as good as Elance once had. If Elance hadn’t shut its doors, I wouldn’t even consider Upwork. Currently, I’m considering working with my current vendors offline or just peer to peer. It’s a shame that Elance f’d this one up so badlly.
I found this today, which might explain a lot…the keywords on the Upwork home page:
“Offshore outsourcing, Freelancers, India, Russia, Ukraine, php Programmers, Coders, Developers, Writers, Web Designers, Website Design, Technical Writers”
I don’t understand why I cannot join it.
Is there anyone else getting identical RSS issues?
Anybody who knows the answer can you kindly respond?
Thanx!!
Great post Jesse, just wanted to keep the social engagement up on this eye-opening piece and warn others to look elsewhere.
Upwork is everything wrong with capitalism: hype.
So my guess is a lot of clients are leaving upwork, those who are staying know how to screen.
From the other hand freelancers are not protected, I have now two clients who are freaks, they stopped replying me, even they were happy with the job and they should be because I did good job. But now I am afraid they will leave me “no feedback given” if I stop the contract.
So the system is screwed.
But I wonder where did all the clients go after they are disappointed in upwork? Do they use some agencies to find freelancers? Or network?
I would like to work with someone who understands how to measure quality.
Second deducing from your reasoning, it comes out clear that you assume that it is only those people in First world countries who offer jobs on upwork. That’s false. I have worked for clients in African, India Pakistan and Chile (and by the way they pay good money). So I guess you need to work on your ego and accept the fact that we also employ you first world people.
Lastly this observation has been made almost entirely from a freelancer perspective. How then does a freelancer searching for a gig the same way that I am doing would suggest that I am unskilled yet I have never worked for him. I also highly doubt if any of you bashing the third world have ever posted any job on up work. I suggest you wake up from you slumber and realize that the tide is changing. While you are busy blaming your own woes on us, we are busy sharpening our skills and grabbing what you previously thought was yours.
Now if you would excuse me I have a porcupine to hunt for lunch…..
Lastly, the term “third world” does not refer to locations, but under-developed or developing countries. ACtually the term has been abandoned already in the Political Science world, but most people still use it to refer to poorer countries.
For the record, I have no problem competing with highly skilled freelancers who charge less than me. But the burden of proof is on your (their) side to prove that $2/hour freelancers from India offer as quality (or better) work than their higher charging counterparts in richer countries. As far as my years of experience, its “poor” Indians (etc) nearly always to blame for poor coding or sites being hacked, etc — not the other way around.
Bringing beer to share with your porkypine.
Ah, do the suits really care? If they did, for the ultimate survival of the genre and of their reputation, it behooves them to do a great organizational job by now. But I suspect that the merged Upwork was overwhelmed or unprepared for what would follow. Visionaries anyone?
Oh yes, I did a few online jobs a few years ago and on Freelancer got stiffed by an Indian client (non-payment) and another simply didn’t work out. So I quit the waste of time, and now I read that UW will also for a myriad of reasons suck too.
Ah, but where are the good client companies for a creative and specialty tech writer like myself. Anyone got a tip on a high-integrity site with clients itching to get quality work by which to land lucrative contracts in their own line? Glad to hear back.
I will take offence however at the sweeping statements you’ve made about freelancers from 3rd world countries. Just because there are freelancers with unreasonably low rates doesn’t mean that all workers outside the UK or USA are unskilled workers.
Thsee blanket statements just take away from the objectivity of your piece which tackles genuine concerns.
so obviously they will not get quality work in this rate.
i was working at elance since last 3 years and got good high paid clients but just starving at upwork. :(
(And let’s forget about the fact that the India you a******s seem to hate so much right now is where you were looting all that money you currently have for two hundred years, I mean lets hate them for being poor and ignore the reason why, cool!)
Clients should start appreciate designers, freelancer more and pay them more that’s their business. But rather they find some low guality from India and you think that you can get good look for 60$ or 5$ dream on.
I don’t even hire anymore freelancers from India. I did and when I saw quality of their work I rather pay 1000$ for good quality logo.
I don’t need Upwork any more, but would recommend it as a newbie starting point.
Can you give any suggestions how you did this, and what pricing strategies you used?
Thanks again! [email protected]
I’ve starter in 2012 on Elance and back then it was quite good place to get good clients (small businesses mostly). Then something happened (around 2013) and number of good clients went down seriously. I’m SEO and SMM consultant, so you can imagine that there is no lack of jobs on this market. So what actually happened? Why it was now much harder to get a good client?
The answer is: cheap freelancers from India, Pakistan etc. Nothing new here right? Sure but in fact they are destroying this market, and even worse – mostly they just can’t deliver.
There was a time when I was winning jobs just by saying that: I’m not cheap Indian “SEO specialist” who will kill your business and make Google ban you forever”.
Unfortunately after some time even this didn’t work.
And now is mighty Upwork that is 1000% worse than Elance was in its baddest times.
Solution?
Freelance website ONLY for US, Canadian, Australian and EU freelancers.
Well, I don’t have skills to build something like that but I bet there are skilled people who could do this on a budget (and grow then it slowly).
Upwork sucks balls!
Surely there must be a business as you suggest.
You all need to face reality and move away from the past. Here is a secret for you, Third world freelancers have been continuously updating their skills and getting better and ready for competition at a lower price.
Yes, lower price. Do you know hwy they accept lower price? Because the so called “developed countries” have relegated them for a longtime, spat at them as inferior and laughed them off. Many have gone back to the drawing board, education takes first place in Third world nations agenda and it is no wonder that an average professional from a third world country as two masters degree. As a matter a first degree was sufficient to get a job in Africa, later as more students were graduating it moved up to Masters, today, you really have to have two masters degree or a Phd. Therefore if you are complaining about third world freelancers, perhaps its time for you to realize that they are really skillful contrary to your perception, not just academically, but by virtue of training too.
I wish you good luck with your all first world freelancer.com site but for sure history and economics knows that “penetration price policy” is the only way for the down trodden and the innocent who has skills. He will enter the market with quality at a lower price. Finish
people like you are the enemies of America, you represent greedy, ruthless business interest” who want to exploit America (and everyone else), while enjoying safety, quality of life, and numerous protections of the law here in the US.
I truly wish you to end up in the Third World (where I’m originally from): there, you’ll have the corrupt and mafia come after your little “business” and take everything you have, including your life, in a blink. Well, the greedy ones deserve this: it’s karma.
The job posted on this platform seems to be dummy moreover stats that they show are also unrealistic and unreliable.
Only a fraction of genuine business both freelancers and clients might have started using this premature rubbish.
they got this s**t on WordPress and other bits and pieces of some useless PHP chunks got together by some of the worst programmers and hacker, code peepers together thinking that they can rule the future of the Freelance market.
The very basic fact is that almost all best of Elance maybe the odesk freelancer in terms of cheap price and least skill (though doubtful if odesk had any good freelance asset at all compared to Elance) were collected together to make the new upwork all of them including the stake holders, proved to be the mesh of ultimate disaster.
That is what is called making a nail out of the ship’s hull.
The planning and handling of the enterprise seems at worst.
It seems that the genuine jobs if any, which come across on upwork are grabbed by over 600 freelancers team which made or is still making upwork itself.
The remaining which they can not handle they relocate to others on this platform for even cheaper rates.
That’s how it is working they have created dummy enterprise of service providing among themselves, therefore there is no chance of getting work on this platform until somehow it self spills out of the native bunch of gangs inside the platform.
How it is working now the jobs are posted but doubtful whether 8-10 % of them are genuine.
Second the most of them are grabbed by internal teams themselves.
Third to keep the innocent freelancers bidding and providing drafts of proposal to them so that they can remix it up and grab the genuine jobs themselves at higher price, if they can not do it pass it to others at 10-100 usd.
How this can be realised, the answer is, Who says that Genuine clients know who is genuine bidder.
Thats how you dream to keep hold of raw manpower who is out of job working voluntarily for you for long time without realising the truth.
The remedy is new platform by the public and for the public with no partiality to anyone but the most deserving in any terms at that time.
We must stepup to make a new better Workplace where trust grows every time a job is posted, won and completed all whether freelancer or client know what has happened why they got what they got job or no job good work or bad work good employer or bad employer good freelancer or bad freelancer. exploited or cheated all in front, not in the back somewhere which can not be explained.
Upwork will soon die as they want to make every one their slave. They have just forgot that they don’t own any one here. it is just matter of a new honest and transparent platform taking birth.
Looking for lawyer to organize a class action suit. Budget $30.
You will certainly get 40 bidders at a minimum.
Mising Elance Check appOpera.com
Mising Elance Check https://AppOpera.com
Upwork is very bad, very bad.
Do not work with upwork.
Do not try to build profile on upwork. They will end your career. They have zero value of your account and career. TRUST ME! I am over 6 years experience in upwork. I was very honest.
I worked with upwork and they suspended my high reputed account without any notice.
Elance wasn’t better either. I had an account (paid too) with 8 5 star projects and extremely good feedback.
I also had a client who didn’t want to pay for the work because he didn’t want to continue his project but because the project was per hour and my work was tracked he was forced to pay by Elance, though, he was allowed to give me feedback and of course a bad one.
My account was banned because of low quality, WTF ELANCE, after 8 projects with 5 start and one bad rating (which wasn’t even my fault) ban me ? WTF!
I’ve been in the translation industry for the past few years. I used to work on oDesk with great satisfaction. Then… one bad day, they decided that a well-working system had to be altered in order for millions of workers to be heavily frustrated. They changed their feedback system to a ridiculous children game (not to mention their irritating “did you know” facts on loading pages). Their client support staff is also very inefficient… they are only able to say “we are sorry for your concern”, automatically closing the request and asking you to rate their support. You can re-open it if you want, but that will be more or less useless.
It’s time for serious freelancers to move on…
Fortunately, I was able to keep my best freelancer and move together to PeoplePerHour. Good experience there so far.
I wanted to get back to work quickly and offered refund for already completed work.
First Mediation would reply after 7 days to your message.For one reply seven days and that way it took months to complete though they say mediation would take only 30 days.
After giving half refund to client because yet account is suspended and I can’t withdraw my earnings either. This site has gone from bad to worst lately. No support at all. Only good for Clients.
Upwork is awful and I ma really disappointed
I am looking for serious partners.
I am seriously interested in your project, can you contact me at [email protected]?
Thanks,
Leonardo
Skype: nelson.brs
[email protected] or skype: thisnicknamewasfree.
Go ahead if need to create one which can scale better with better enterprise ethics then present craps.
I will help
Skype Me: prashant.angra
All I can say to that is just WOW!!! Talk about an out of touch CEO.
Unfortunately, Upwork is awful. The classification system is broken. $$$ = 0.2 cents/100 words!?!? I dread to think what $ means.
The jobs are all freelancer.com style rubbish. No detail, no useful information at all.
Throw in all the other annoying crap associated with the technical difficulties and Upwork is a pure dud. They’ve taken the worst of Elance and the worst of Odesk and created a freelance lowest-common denominator platform.
I can’t spend hours and hours going through jobs that pay $20 for a book or $10,000 for 1 million articles… so it’s time to quit and set up a different method of working.
Although i made quite good monney , i reckon 95% of jobs descriptions are jokes. No decent spect if any spec at all , and prices about 1/100 of a realistic price.
On the contractor side , i had to team with the cheap one , and as far as Java was concerned they where worse than when was a begginer. So i back the global trend.
Nothing to compare with the freelancer that contracts though a well established agency. Internet contracting is still largely unprofessional.
I joined Upwork also in fall 2014 as virtual assistant/writer/translator doing underpaid jobs to get credentials and positive feedback and also develop my skills. Beginning of 2015 things were looking good. I was able to slowly raise my clients base as well as rates (do not get the impression that Eastern Europe is a cheap place where 50 bucks will get you through the week!).
However, in May (roughly the same time when oDesk changed to Upwork and merged with Elance), as several of my projects ended, I started to notice big difficulties with securing new jobs. Naturally, I invested my time in updating profile, portfolio, CV etc. I even got the “Top Rated” badge.
In July, I pushed myself really hard to get new contracts: browsed Upwork job feed every day, immediately applying work I felt competent about, used all my 30 proposals allowance. Result? Several time wasters asking me questions regarding my competence and 1 hire- the lady claimed she needed help for 4-10 hours a week, then after giving me one task (that took 1,5 hours to complete and that she was satisfied with) she went all silent, no further work and never replied back to my messages.
I took August off because I could not deal with this frustration. Starting again in September, I noticed changes on Upwork that are putting me off for good: apart from their super slow loading speed, in order to apply for new jobs, I now need to join their $10/month membership. So they are going to milk me twice: once to apply for a job, second 10% for every worked hour!
I am glad I came across this post because I began to be really frustrated with quality of projects (24/7 availability, $2/hour, kiss-my-ass attitude)
A question, though: What is the plan? Where are you going to search for new clients?
Thank you for your advice!
I really feel your pain as a freelancer. Here is a tip from me. I am a Client and I hire many freelancers. Currently I have about 6 freelancers working actively for me and I have another 4 who I put their contract on hold till I find something for them.
Here is what you need to consider, you are a freelancer, and I’m a client. Put yourself in the shoes of a Client and then you might realize why you are no longer getting jobs.
I believe that I only advertised 1 of the numerous jobs i posted. The others were based on invites due to referrals from other Clients about a freelancer. As a freelancer, you want to make good money but as a Client, I also want good quality at a reasonable price not necessarily the $2 you referred too :). I don’t care what anybody says, the truth is this, all Clients want to spend less, no client wants to hire a freelancer with very high charges per hour especially on a virtual interface. I have encountered scenarios where I invited freelancers because of the price and quality advertised and then in the course of the interview, I’m being told of how much they will actually consider. When I ask about what was advertised,they simply let me know that the advertised rate is the lowest they will take for an easy job.
What I’m saying invariably is this, no client will go for a $100 an hour freelancer when he can find another with equally better profile with about $30 an hour rate. There is no thinking about this my friend, its straightforward.
You shouldn’t give up, but you need also to know that people who outsource online are not really big organizations. Big organizations have their own in-house crew and maintain a lot of privacy and wont even let a freelancer who they have never met to touch their applications.
If you really want to compete online, let your rates be comparable overall and if you cant, then you might need to seek employment with a physical organization. For me, I only invite and I don’t think I’ll place my job for bidding anymore, that’s just crazy, getting swamped all over with proposals.
As a client, my job is to seek for a freelancer. As a freelancer, your job is to make yourself attractive to me, how you do it, I don’t know, that’s up to you, but I can assure you that I’ll only go for the best rate and the best skill.
greedy worker exploitation-based business like you, wants to enjoy safety and comfort of operating in the US: well, there’s a price for this, honey. Let me break it for you: soon we’ll make ones like you pay it. If you want to continue to enjoy operating in the US, under the protection of the law here, where life happens to be very expensive, you’ll need to hire American workers, and pay American-level wages. If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to move to Pakistan, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Wish something would replace it real soon. I hate the F^$& site, s**t support, the excuses they make, the cheap clients (90% of all clients) the payment method.
I wish the entire thing would f$%^ crash and burn.
Cant someone or a group of people put a list of everything they doing wrong and simply create a new platform ?
Would love to talk to you and any other experienced UpWork / ODeskers as I am working on a project now to combat / because of / and in the face of many of these issues: freelancers being undervalued, huge, poorly vetted talent marketplaces, ignorance and the issues that arise from abusive clients (also, generally not vetting or banning bad actor clients).
Please get in touch on Twitter – would absolutely love your feedback as I develop a solution: @leaartis or drop me a comment here: https://katalartis.com/contact-us/
Looking forward to that ebook!
Cheers,
Lea
My UpWorks/Odesk story: Probably too much time spent looking for clients, but it was a decent 3rd of my income stream last year. Then it changed to UpWorks. I got 3 great clients (one was kind of coocoo) and then nothing but tumbleweeds. I emailed them asking if I was doing something wrong… nope, my profile was fine. Whatever. It’s nearly useless.
We need a cooperative business models for freelancers. An exchanged owned by all of us. Like a credit union, or a mutual.
It is a mixture between modern slavery and a scam: Both the client and the employee feel like they have been cheated, because they both were sold a fairy tale from UpWork instead of the cold truth: Skill is expensive. A complex project can be defined on the back of a napkin; and the amount of hours required to complete it can’t be decided by a clueless employer on a whim; or an employee who does not have enough experience or information to determine it.
I have accepted jobs which took way longer than they should have; and had to code many extra hours for free (like 5-10 for every hour charged). Now I am more skilled, I have a real job, and I am not willing to sell my services for the shitty 30 USD/hour I was selling them before.