Business Ethics

ca2d6df0 · ‎08-28-2018

I am a little disappointed. I post a job. In that post I entered a dollar amount I will Pay. I receive bids, some less than what I say we will pay. I spend hours back and forth with these people. Everyone I talked to say "YES" they could do the job for the pice I listed, then after hours we get to the OK, if you can do what you say for the price we posted we will move on and hire. Response, well, we can not do it for the price, its going to be 3x, 4x, 5x, of what we posted.

Wait, the person in one example says his rate is $30 an hour. But the cost will be $2500 a day???? SO, he already said he could do the job for what I posted. None of it adds up. I am beginning to wonder what the real value is here.

Why are freelancers not held to some kind of standards here??

bobafett999 · ‎08-28-2018

Well Otto: I hear you. There are several reasons let me list two main ones.

1. The freelancer is a scammer. He wants to extract more money from you.

Or

2. The job posting did not have much details, you underestimated the time it may take. More often than not buyers purposefully or innocently 'forget' to include key details. Once the project scope is fully defined the freelancer can estimate how much it will take him. If it was simple you wouldn't be going back and forth for hours would you?

In my case if the details are sketch or if the budet is low I stick in my hourly rate and say in my proposal that once the project is fully defined I will give you a better quote.

What can you do? Basically nothing. Only you can decide if going forward with that freelancer is worth it or not. Some buyers use the phrase that 'Budget amount shown is non negotiable'. In my observation those postings do not generate much interest.

Not long ago there was a buyer who complained about the same thing. In his case he had received quotes from local freelancer. He then decided since this is Upwork (and on Upwork people work for next to nothing) he can arbitrarily offer one fifth of what the local guy would charge.

gilbert-phyllis · ‎08-28-2018

Setting aside the possibility that all FLs are scam artists...

Needing that much back-and-forth discussion suggests you did not provide anywhere near enough specifics in the job post to start with. In addition to setting you (and interested freelancers) up to waste time, that generally keeps your post from attracting the most experienced FLs.

If you spent "hours and hours" discussing it and then were blindsided by unreasonable fee demands, then you need to up your game when it comes to interviewing candidates effectively. It also suggests the candidates you were dealing with were not prepared to interview you efficiently, if it took them that long to figure out what the job would really involve.

martina_plaschka · ‎08-28-2018

@Otto O wrote:
I am a little disappointed. I post a job. In that post I entered a dollar amount I will Pay. I receive bids, some less than what I say we will pay. I spend hours back and forth with these people. Everyone I talked to say "YES" they could do the job for the pice I listed, then after hours we get to the OK, if you can do what you say for the price we posted we will move on and hire. Response, well, we can not do it for the price, its going to be 3x, 4x, 5x, of what we posted.

Wait, the person in one example says his rate is $30 an hour. But the cost will be $2500 a day???? SO, he already said he could do the job for what I posted. None of it adds up. I am beginning to wonder what the real value is here.

Why are freelancers not held to some kind of standards here??

I don't believe the poster was scammed, that only works if a freelancer is hired and produces little or no work to rip off the client. So that leaves only what the other posters have already hinted at - unclear job posting.

prestonhunter · ‎08-28-2018

Personally, I do not like to spend time going back and forth with freelancers. So I hire freelancers with little or no discussion if they claim to be able to do what I need.

Then I monitor the work and if they can't do what I want, or if I don't think they're providing value, I simply thank them for their time and close the contract.

One key to this approach is detailed descriptions about what I want done. This way people who can't do the work are unlikely to apply.

In practice, I rarely hire freelancers who can't do the work. Most hires are great.

If I think somebody isn't a good fit for a particular task, I can usually see that fairly quickly.

kat303 · ‎08-28-2018

@Otto O wrote:
I am a little disappointed. I post a job. In that post I entered a dollar amount I will Pay. I receive bids, some less than what I say we will pay. I spend hours back and forth with these people. Everyone I talked to say "YES" they could do the job for the pice I listed, then after hours we get to the OK, if you can do what you say for the price we posted we will move on and hire. Response, well, we can not do it for the price, its going to be 3x, 4x, 5x, of what we posted.

Wait, the person in one example says his rate is $30 an hour. But the cost will be $2500 a day???? SO, he already said he could do the job for what I posted. None of it adds up. I am beginning to wonder what the real value is here.

Why are freelancers not held to some kind of standards here??

If you are spending hours and hours with multiple freelancers who've sent you proposals, then you have not clearly detailed what the job actually involves and have not provided samples. If your job description is vague freelancers are only submitting proposals on what little is contained in the job's description.

For example, if you say, I need a 10 page document retyped, the freelancers are basing their proposal on that description. Then when they find out it's handwritten and the handwritting is extremely illegible and it contains special formatting, multi level outlining and macros to be created, that would certainly cause them to up their proposal amount.

As for the freelancer who's hourly rate is $30 but then quoted you $2,400 a day. I can't comment on that because I have no idea what your job description was, what was discussed for hours and hours, and what the actual work turned out to be.

Upwork doesn't hold anyone, not clients nor freelancers accountable unless they violate Upwork's TOS. Upwork is just a site that allows freelancers and clients to connect to work and get work done. it's a clients responsibility to properly vet a freelancer. To look at the jobs they did, the feedback they received, the prices they charged/received, their JSS scores and how long they have been on this site.