13 ms·
Tell HN: Oops Upwork did it again
I've read some horror stories like this, but never thought that this would happen to me.
Upwork, out of the blue, suspended my account, oh, and my payments are lost like tears in the rain.
This past Friday Upwork informed me that the were some "account overlapings" with an specific client, I provided Id's, answered questions, even provided long ass screens recordings of the conversations with this client, so they could check how much of a boring illustator I am.
Still they've decided that I was doing something shady and suspended my account with no further explanation ):
I guess I'm posting this to get it off my chest, but also to warn others as to how capricious and arbitrary these platforms can be.
- McPoopie24 4y ago[dead]
- DontBeASnoop 4y ago[dead]
- ButterySocial9 4y ago[flagged]
- TheBrickStall 4y ago[dead]
- ScreenQueen33 4y ago[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- yieldcrv 4y agodamn, you should have just sold drugs to Iran paid with fake upwork invoices.
- natt_coppola 4y agohahahha, maybe I should. Legit work is for dummies T_T
- rom-antics 4y agoIf you did the work and they withheld payment, that's damages. Lawyer up.
- natt_coppola 4y agowell, I'm afraid I might lose more money and time in a lawyer, that what they are withholding :/
- Waterluvian 4y agoYou’re probably right. The just option and the satisfying option is probably not the pragmatic option. Eat the loss, write about it (like here, thank you!) and don’t beat yourself up over it.
- kilgnad 4y agoLots of lawyers only collect a percentage of your winnings. And courts often award lawyer costs. Find one of those lawyers. For this the incentives are aligned.
- brianwawok 4y agoIf it’s $500 no lawyer is going to go to court for $250. I doubt they have a $20,000 upwork balance.
- kilgnad 4y agoOf course. Gotta do class action. The lawyer sues on behalf of MANY people. Then collects a percentage of that. A lawyer will do this and suggest this if he sees it's possible. If not likely he won't take the case.
- rom-antics 4y agoI would at least get someone to write a letter. That much isn't expensive and there's always a chance they'll give in at the first sign of legal trouble. If that doesn't work though, and the amount isn't worth a legal fight, I don't know if there's much you can do, sorry :/
- jsemrau 4y agoUpwork is a terrible platform that I would recommend everyone to stay away from as far as possible.
- natt_coppola 4y agoYep, I learned about it too late x.x
- Gualdrapo 4y agoWhich one do you recommend? I just started on upwork a few days ago, haven't got anything - it's super competitive.
- jerriep 4y agoI think you are going to run into problems on most of these platforms. Either issues like the on mentioned by OP, or just having to compete against people that are willing to do the job for 1/10th the price that you will do it for. For me, I got my clients through my personal blog about programming where some people contacted me and asked to hire me. You can also just start being very active on the relevant communities in your niche and build up a reputation. All of this takes time, but I believe it to be the most reliable long term strategy to get work from high quality clients on your own terms.
- ipaddr 4y agoI was able to scrape some clients and ending up making thousands using a normal first world rate. It is difficult to win bids because people are on there because of price. I left because they started charging for you bidding. Bid quick, often and always go hourly so you do get paid. Clients expect the world for nothing (typical project is google for $125) so learning how to deliver within the requirements is an artform..always go hourly so you get paid something when these projects don't live up to unreasonable expectations. Be prepared for someone to scam you, try to go off platform, etc. Stay on the site.
- convolvatron 4y ago
- kbrackson 4y agoShitty. I don't want to use them due to the stories I've heard. They've quite the reputation.
- atlasunshrugged 4y agoAnd now they want to do actual placements! It's a shame because I've also found just incredible talent on Upwork and I don't want to not be able to find great people from around the world (for everything from development to jewelry design) https://www.fastcompany.com/90847879/exclusive-upwork-is-revamping-its-business-model-to-support-full-time-hiring https://www.fastcompany.com/90847879/exclusive-upwork-is-rev...
- natt_coppola 4y agoYep, the stories are true. I can tell
- poisonta 4y agoAnybody willing to start an Upwork alternative?
- ilaksh 4y agoI tried to start one, with the concept being that it would be free and run by participants. It was almost completely ignored. I think people just didn't see many posts on it and decided it wasn't popular or something. I think part of the issue was just that the website didn't look cool enough. It looked fine to me but I think that people judge things in a very shallow way.
- dustinls 4y agoSounds like Matt Barrie must be running things over there
- joombaga 4y agoI'm not a sports guy. Thought you meant "Matt Berry" at first.
- dezb 4y agowhat work were you doing / selling via Upwork?
- natt_coppola 4y agoGraphic design, but mostly character designs/concept art illustrations /books for books.
- DoctorNerd09 4y ago[dead]
- lmlogiudice 4y agoI'm very sorry to hear this happened to you. I'm hopeful Upwork will reverse their position or you'll manage to find a better alternative :)
- tou23 4y agoI had an uncomfortable experience with Upwork. I hired a freelancer to work on my project. I noticed some issues with honesty and ethics in his work and communication with me. I got a really bad feeling about him and we ended the contract. Then I did some research on him and it turns out he is a convicted felon for distributing child ____. His case was covered extensively in international news. I alerted Upwork to this and also showed them proof of his dishonest behavior with me (all communication with him was within the Upwork messaging system). Yet as far as I can see nothing changed and he is still very prominently featured on their platform. (Also he has changed his name now.) He left me a quite vengeful review & rating (turns out he does this with many of his clients). He was working on a sensitive area of my business. Feels stressful to have a conflict with someone like him. I felt nervous even reporting him.
- natt_coppola 4y agoI think that is way more horrific than my experience
- tou23 4y agoYep really disturbing...and true story unlike the various spam being posted in this thread.
- ScreenQueen33 4y ago[flagged]
- natt_coppola 4y agoGood for you kween
- selcuka 4y agoYou're talking to a bot.
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- makeset 4y agoThis whole thread seems overrun with fresh sock puppet accounts reciting ChatGPT.
- selcuka 4y agoYeah, but some of the posts are actually positive, so I don't know if this is their initial prompt went wrong, or someone is performing an experiment.
- natt_coppola 4y agoI came back to the post to I see what's going on, and was banned here too. Guess this is not my week. XD
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- user32489318 4y agoFor me, this is a general freelancer market problem. As a freelancer, I have experienced what you’re describing. This is not different than anyone in your company who’s getting swamped in one project and has to drop the ball on everything else. Having said that, as a freelancer, I find it extremely important to be honest and set realistic expectations. If I cannot deliver, you don’t pay. If it starting to take more time, we have to talk before we go further. I do underestimate by nature; everything sounds easy until you start doing, it takes experience to guesstimate correctly.
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- rich_sasha 4y agoErm I have no idea either way, but posted by a new account and currently 20+ comments (big majority) all by totally new users too. Like, registered 3 days ago and a single post to their name. My naive bayesian classifier says: suspect. Further: many of the account names look like they are generated by the same process. Two words, camel-cased, plus a number. All the ones I randomly clicked are 3-4 days old and have a single post to their history (i.e. the one from this thread). EDIT the bots just keep on coming! Every few mins. I suppose at the pace if ChatGPT generation pace.
- yawnxyz 4y agoRight, I thought I was going crazy here. Has this ever happened on HN before? Maybe it’s someone testing HN cloning
- deely3 4y agoHuh, you right, that definitely looks like someone playing with ChatGPT.. question: why this one article? For testing, jokes, or because some error?
- rich_sasha 4y agoIf you look at the bots' posts, they seem to be active on one or two other threads (all the same), like one about worst code ever seen. There they seem to post random nonsense, looks like poor AI-generated "content". Very weird!
- mprime1 4y agoI think posts complaining against some bug Corp are the easiest way to farm karma points. If I was trying to grow a portfolio of human looking accounts, I’d have them participate in this kind of threads.
- natt_coppola 4y agoI was hoping to get to #1, and make Upwork regret their decision, but a social experiment... haven't though about that.
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- digianarchist 4y agoIs that title a Britney Spears pun?
- natt_coppola 4y agoyeah, hahahhaha.
- d_sc 4y agoIf you’re frustrated with sites like Upwork that are not giving you the customer experience you are hoping for while charging you noticeable commission of the work you’re doing you should check out contra.com for building your independent / freelancer business. Contra does not charge a commission and there is an active Slack community for members to engage with each other and Contra staff. Full disclosure, I am part of the software engineering team at Contra. I was an independent freelancer for years and was drawn to Contra’s mission of building a better platform for independents to thrive and be successful. Core to that mission is not charging a commission on someone’s hard work. An interesting fact, nearly everyone in the company has been an independent freelancer. We design and build from a place of experience, understanding and empathy. We also recognize that the needs of independent freelancers evolves so we talk with independents and clients daily to make sure we’re sure continuing to build something they will love to use.
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- lma21 4y agoWhat the hell is happening here with all the bot accounts?