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Solange's avatar
Solange B Community Member

Beware clients: time tracker is over charging you... like crazy!

Ok... so this is what happened. I just started my first hourly contract on Upwork (I just migrated here from Elance) so it was my first time using the tracker.

 

Yesterday I could see that on the real time tracker (the top part) it showed 5 minutes but below (total time for the day) it already showed 20 minutes. And believe me, I was very aware I had started 5 minutes ago...

 

Today I started working and I had been working for 29 minutes, when it already showed 40. So I contacted customer support. Their answer is that it charges in 10 minutes blocks, which would make sense... but there is a trick.

 

If you start at 11:59... you would believe it will charge another 10 minutes at: 12:09... but it doesn't! It does not track 10 minutes blocks in real time. It takes 10 minutes blocks by the clock... but this I mean:

 

If you start at 11:59 it already charges you 10 minutes for the block corresponding to 11:50 to 12 PM. And if you click Stop at 12:01 it charges you another 10 minutes for the block corresponding to 12:00 to 12:10... so you end up paying for 20 minutes instead of 3.

 

Now imagine if that happens 3 times in a day, you are already paying 1 extra hour. Now what if some one does that (not necessarily on purpose) more than 3 times a day? Which is possible...

 

After a long discussion, this is customer service's conclusion (literal): "It shouldn't be a big different in the time."

 

For you!! Because you don't have to pay for it. Imagine what this means for freelancers with the highest hourly rates!!

 

Also multipy this for every freelancer in the platform, working around the globe, 24/7.... it's a lot of money!!! that goes to automatic payment!

 

Needless to say: I have never and I'll never over-charge a client, so I'll talk to him about not using the tracker... But this is crazy!!! I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry....

118 REPLIES 118
Jess's avatar
Jess C Community Member


@Jan H wrote:

It would be unreasonable for us to demand or expect change but I'm very pleased to see that our voices are not going unheard. I would like to thank the Upwork team for listening to our problems and deciding to review this process.

 

Whether they decide to make any changes or not, I would like to ask if they could share some of the thought processes behind their final decision when it is made, maybe via a blog post. All services don't have to work the same and it can be interesting to learn the reasons for choosing the structures that you ultimately put in place.

 

They may also consider conducting a community survey that they could email out to all members to gather their thoughts on the time tracker, screenshots and billing process.


You're funny.

Stefan's avatar
Stefan C Community Member

Afraid they might be over-billing clients, concerned freelancers are looking to charge by the minute.

 

Meanwhile, in the real world, some random study reveals that the average worker (employee) is only productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes during an 8 hr working day.

 

Bananas.

Sierra's avatar
Sierra V Community Member


@Stefan C wrote:

Afraid they might be over-billing clients, concerned freelancers are looking to charge by the minute.

 

Meanwhile, in the real world, some random study reveals that the average worker (employee) is only productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes during an 8 hr working day.

 

Bananas.


 

 

In the real world, bosses don't barge in your office every 10 minutes, look at your screen and measure how many keys you hit on your keyboard. They won't cut your salary because you were clicking for 2 minutes rather than 8.

They won't fire you or put you through a dispute process because you had a few 10-minute segments when you didn't click around enough.

 

 

If I run the tracker 10 times for exactly 60 minutes, and Upwork bills it 1:10 every time, it's over-charging the client, but I'm not concerned about the client's wallet. I'm concerned that this over-charging will make me look like a fraud, cause clients to put me through a dispute process, or end my contract. Why - because I didn't start my 60 minutes on a round digit.

Tiffany's avatar
Tiffany S Community Member


@Ines H wrote:

 

In the real world, bosses don't barge in your office every 10 minutes, look at your screen and measure how many keys you hit on your keyboard. They won't cut your salary because you were clicking for 2 minutes rather than 8.


 Of course, in the real world there is no entity like Upwork standing by to pay you out of its own pocket if the client doesn't pay. 

 

I have absolutely no idea why Upwork has chosen to do that, but any and all time tracker issues can be avoided if a freelancer simply chooses to take responsibility for his own contracts and not rely on the Upwork safety net.

Isabelle Anne's avatar
Isabelle Anne A Community Member


@Tiffany S wrote:

 Of course, in the real world there is no entity like Upwork standing by to pay you out of its own pocket if the client doesn't pay. 

 

That's something I really appreciate about Upwork. It's come through for me twice when my clients' payment methods failed (although those clients did eventually sort out their issues and Upwork got its money back).

 

I have absolutely no idea why Upwork has chosen to do that, but any and all time tracker issues can be avoided if a freelancer simply chooses to take responsibility for his own contracts and not rely on the Upwork safety net.

 

Not sure which time tracker issues you're talking about here. I believe the main issue of this thread is that the time tracker usually overbills clients who don't monitor work diaries closely and whose freelancers don't have integrity and who can't be bothered with the hassle of deleting low-activity screenshots or starting their tracker at the right time to match the 10-minute mark.


 

Sierra's avatar
Sierra V Community Member


@Isabelle Anne A wrote:

@Tiffany S wrote:

 

I have absolutely no idea why Upwork has chosen to do that, but any and all time tracker issues can be avoided if a freelancer simply chooses to take responsibility for his own contracts and not rely on the Upwork safety net.

 

Not sure which time tracker issues you're talking about here. I believe the main issue of this thread is that the time tracker usually overbills clients who don't monitor work diaries closely and whose freelancers don't have integrity and who can't be bothered with the hassle of deleting low-activity screenshots or starting their tracker at the right time to match the 10-minute mark.


 


 

Wow ladies, what the heck. Smiley LOL

This shouldn't have anything to do with responsibility, integrity, or even hassles. The actual point of this whole thread is that a 10-minute block should be a 10-minute block. Period.

 

On one hand, we have Upwork's tracker as is now - a 10-minute block is only the one that starts and ends on a round number.

On the other hand, we could have a tracker where a 10-minute block is just 10 minutes, whenever it started. Even if it started on a round number (as is now), even if it started on a random number.

 

I don't even see a point in looking for any more reasons to do this - for those who like it the way it is, NOTHING would change. For those of us who work differently, on different types of contracts and different dynamics, the change would be a big improvement.

 

That's really all there is to it!?

Isabelle Anne's avatar
Isabelle Anne A Community Member

LOl, yes, but because we don't have the ideal tracker (as you've suggested), things like integrity and hassle come into play 😉
Sierra's avatar
Sierra V Community Member


@Isabelle Anne A wrote:
LOl, yes, but because we don't have the ideal tracker (as you've suggested), things like integrity and hassle come into play 😉

And then there's procrastination. Didn't start the tracker at :00 and was like ... oh I guess I have to wait till :10...

Tiffany's avatar
Tiffany S Community Member

Ines, my only point was that the only reason for all the big brother screenshot monitoring and all that (which you rightly distinguished from the "real world") is necessary is that Upwork is putting its own money on the line to step in and rescue freelancers when contracts go bad. 

 

In the real world scenario, we don't have the monitoring OR the protection.

 

Sierra's avatar
Sierra V Community Member


@Tiffany S wrote:

Ines, my only point was that the only reason for all the big brother screenshot monitoring and all that (which you rightly distinguished from the "real world") is necessary is that Upwork is putting its own money on the line to step in and rescue freelancers when contracts go bad. 

 

In the real world scenario, we don't have the monitoring OR the protection.

 


Gotcha. 

I wasn't really trying to talk bad about screenshots and activity monitor, just wanted to make it clear that the two situations are completely different.

 

I don't mind the screenshots that much anymore, and fully understand the need for them. Not just because of Upwork's money on the line, but people's money as well. You've seen a lot more complaints about hourly scams on the forums than I did, and I've seen a fair share.

 

So - yay screenshots! Nay 00-10-20! Smiley Happy

John's avatar
John K Community Member

Ines, I'm going to attempt a rationalization for the tracker being restricted to even multiples of 10 minutes after the hour. It would take a lot of development effort to modify it, and Upwork's development resources are already stretched fixing new features that don't work reliably without altering a key feature that is at least reliable. And given Upwork's record of making changes that don't work properly, do you trust it to alter the time tracker and get it right the first time? I don't, so I'd rather live with it, warts & all, then have a non-functional version and lose money because of it.

 

I don't want to be overly negative, but Upwork also has a past history of taking freelancer requests and implementing something else that nobody wants. For instance, it used to be, you could hover over the number of applicants in the job feed, and see a list of all freelancers who'd applied, with names, rating, etc (can't recall the exact data shown, but it was very useful). But some freelancers in the community were unhappy that when you clicked on the job, and looked at the applicants from there, the number of applicants was different that what was listed in the job feed. So Upwork replaced the running total of applicants with a range, like 20-50, AND INCIDENTALLY eliminated the capability of viewing the actual applicants, even though no one asked for that. And when that happened, scores of freelancers, me included probably, pleaded to have this feature restored, but our pleas fell on deaf ears.

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Sierra's avatar
Sierra V Community Member


@John K wrote:

Ines, I'm going to attempt a rationalization for the tracker being restricted to even multiples of 10 minutes after the hour. It would take a lot of development effort to modify it, and Upwork's development resources are already stretched fixing new features that don't work reliably without altering a key feature that is at least reliable. And given Upwork's record of making changes that don't work properly, do you trust it to alter the time tracker and get it right the first time? I don't, so I'd rather live with it, warts & all, then have a non-functional version and lose money because of it.

 

I don't want to be overly negative, but Upwork also has a past history of taking freelancer requests and implementing something else that nobody wants. For instance, it used to be, you could hover over the number of applicants in the job feed, and see a list of all freelancers who'd applied, with names, rating, etc (can't recall the exact data shown, but it was very useful). But some freelancers in the community were unhappy that when you clicked on the job, and looked at the applicants from there, the number of applicants was different that what was listed in the job feed. So Upwork replaced the running total of applicants with a range, like 20-50, AND INCIDENTALLY eliminated the capability of viewing the actual applicants, even though no one asked for that. And when that happened, scores of freelancers, me included probably, pleaded to have this feature restored, but our pleas fell on deaf ears.



Sigh... I'm still trying to be optimistic though - as long as the idea isn't discarded ("we won't/can't implement this"), there's hope. Smiley Happy

 

I don't know much about programming, but I have to think that the modification of the tracker is not more complicated and challenging than everything else that was built on the platform. There are so many features here that look a lot more challenging to develop than a tracker that triggers a random screenshot within X+10 minutes.

(Especially considering it's already developed - just needs a modification)

 

In any case... no, I don't honestly trust Upwork's devs to get anything right the first time. But since they're constantly adding new features, it's clear that whoever is in charge still wants to improve the platform and make it better.

 

And as long as that's the case, I think we should all give our input as to what could be useful and helpful, rather than staying quiet and letting Upwork think of new features on their own (which then end up being something no one asked for - but a lot of people don't ask for anything, anyhow, or they just let ideas die because "this might be too complicated for Upwork so let's just never talk about this again").

 

I don't know. If it's too complicated, they'll say "sorry, we won't/can't implement this". But it's for them to decide, not me. I don't want to "not" give ideas just because *I* think it may be too complicated. I think it's up to us to suggest, and up to them to review.

Wouter's avatar
Wouter J Community Member

Hi Solange, 
I have just seen your post and I am glad I have read the whole conversation. 

I am having doubts on a freelancer I am working with and I am not sure if I am right or not...I just know that even though this person has an up to a certain amount of hours per week, they get all used up regardless on how much work there is to be done. This has never happened to me before and I start to get worried about the bills.

I attached an example of what the work diary looks like - does it look quite normal in your view, when it comes to the nines?

Grateful of feedback in advance.

 

 

Preston's avatar
Preston H Community Member

Solange:

 

Wouter:

Ultimately, it is not about work diaries or numbers of hours any other kind of metric that Upwork can provide.


It is about results.

 

You have doubts about this freelancer.

 

How does this freelancer's work compares to the work done by other freelancers on the team?

 

If you only have ONE freelancer, how can you compare her work to the work done by others?

 

You can't.

 

But if you hire 3 freelancers to do the same type of work, then you can easily see that:

- Freelancer #1 is GREAT to work with and produced 300 units for $500.

- Freelancer #2 is polite and produced 300 units for $600.

- Freelancer #3 has lots of excuses and produced 300 units for $1500.

 

So... why are you still working with Freelancer #3.

Thank her for her work and close her contract immediately.

Solange's avatar
Solange B Community Member

Hi Preston,

 

Thank you for your comments, but I think you misinterpreted the thread since I didn't post any comments about any freelancers, or me doubting any freelancer's time, so was your comment maybe for Wouter?

 

Thanks!

 

Solange

Preston's avatar
Preston H Community Member

re: "so was your comment maybe for Wouter?"

 

Yes.

Sorry about that.

Solange's avatar
Solange B Community Member

Hi Wouter,

 

My original post was mainly about how the tracker works, technically and independently of the use a freelancer gives the tracker, it was about the software itself.

 

Regarding your comment, it can be a little complex. I suggest you read Preston's comment since he has a point. But also, many times I have seen freelancers use all hours or the same amount of hours for tasks of very different workload. There might be many reasons for that, and any decisions will be, like Preston said, linked to the results and the cost-benefit relationship.

 

I will suggest, what I always suggest to all clients: if results are good, just ask the freelancer. In a very nice but clear way, just present your questions about how he is using time. I'm sure you will either get a good answer or if not, you will find a way to make it work and come to a time allocation process that serves both. Hope this helps.

 

Note: I don't feel comfortable making specific comments on someone's work diary who does not work with me or for any of my client's teams since it would be a blind shot. Technically it doesn't seem to be nothing wrong with how the tracker is building the diary.

 

Thanks!!

 

Solange

 

Carl's avatar
Carl J Community Member

I agree 100% with the original poster. Upwork should change its system to 1-min segments. I see no reason not to, and to me, it's suspicious that they don't.

Carl's avatar
Carl J Community Member

Got the same problem. Freelancers cheat us all the time. We tell them, causes friction. We're moving away from Upwork as a result.

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