Dispute Process is a Sham

498ad460 · ‎11-30-2021

In the past two years, I have personally spent more than $60,000 on Upwork.

This is not an inconsequential amount.

Yet when I hire a developer on Upwork, as a non-developer, I expect the freelancers I hire to be worthy of the ratings they receive. This is a primary way to determine whom to hire. However, what I have learned in my most recent experience is that the Upwork dispute process is a sham.

When the freelancer you hire delivers something that is substandard and you can only find out after months of incremental payments towards a project that really has no value until completed, but they are paid on milestones, you effectively have no way of ever re-cooping costs if that freelancer never completes the project.

In my case, there were several weeks of work required and the freelancers demanded payment to continue - but at no time in that process did any of their interim work add up to anything. When things started to really drag out, and I hired outside developers to evaluate, rather than continue to throw good money after bad, I shut the contract down. But I'm essentially out $10k on this and have zero recourse.

The Upwork mediation process puts all of the power in the hands of the freelancer. They can refuse to mediate and refund anything. They can push out the clock so that you have no chance to mediate. They can just remove any bad review. This is Upwork basically telling top end customers that they don't care about you and you can shove it. It's infuriating.

Why anyone would spend any money on this platform is beyond me. I at least can (and have) cut ties with Upwork from my personal programs AND have cut all our Upwork vendors that were on the payroll through my company (I'm an executive at a company that was spending 7 figures with Upwork).

Upwork needs to get with the times and recognize that if it continues to let freelancers screw over its best customers, they aren't going to have any customers. I'm sure someone like the NYTimes would love to write an article about my experience.

prestonhunter · ‎11-30-2021

Refund thinking hurts clients.

petra_r · ‎12-01-2021

Marston G wrote:
When the freelancer you hire delivers something that is substandard and you can only find out after months of incremental payments towards a project that really has no value until completed, but they are paid on milestones, you effectively have no way of ever re-cooping costs if that freelancer never completes the project.

That isn't actually true. You could have disputed the entire contract had you disputed within 30 days of the last milestone having been released. You could have taken it to arbitration to get a legally binding decision.

prestonhunter · ‎12-01-2021

The Upwork system allows essentially unlimited freedom to the client to hire and fire freelancers whenever they want to.

Upwork views clients - not freelancers - as their true customers. The system heavily favors clients, which is as it should be.

But it IS possible for clients to have a bad experience.

The original poster’s experience is authentic, and not isolated. Did this client operate from an imperfect understanding of how the Upwork system works? Yes. But the fact that other clients have had similar experiences indicates that the Upwork system is still imperfect, at least in its messaging to clients.

It may be impossible to build a system that is perfect… one that somehow makes it impossible for clients to make mistakes in managing complex development projects.

In hindsight, I don’t know if there is anything Upwork should change in how the system works. The dispute process did indeed seem like a sham to this paying customer, and it looks like the experience was the last straw for him, as he says he is taking his business elsewhere after this. Maybe Upwork can look at its messaging and see if there are ways it can increase client awareness of how projects should be managed.

Or maybe the presence of a dispute process and the ability to ask for refunds is “fool’s gold”… a mirage that clients mistakenly think will act as a magical “reset” button if things go wrong. A more proactive, money-saving project management philosophy excludes the possibility of getting money back from a freelancer and instead focuses on firing underperforming freelancers while continuing to work with members of the team who deliver demonstrated quality results.

498ad460 · ‎12-01-2021

The ability to hire freelancers is not a benefit. Hiring freelancers is a means to an end and there are many places to go to do that - from low quality bulk platforms like Upwork to low volume, high quality ones like**Edited for Community Guidelines**.

The very fact that someone who spends $60k out of pocket on your platform can so easily get screwed is evidence enough that freelancers are whom you focus on.

Vetting of freelancers is the ONLY real way of having a credible platform. Having a process that at its very core provides freelancers with the ability to hide credible, bad reviews is not only unethical - it’s a bad business practice. You’ve lost me - and my business to the tune of over $1M/yr on Upwork.

Platforms only succeed and grow if they are deemed trustworthy and Upwork had proven they aren’t

prestonhunter · ‎12-01-2021

re: “The ability to hire freelancers is not a benefit. Hiring freelancers is a means to an end”

Your understanding of Upwork is incomplete.

Upwork offers three main services:

It offers clients the ability to find, hire and pay freelancers.

All other services and features are centered on those.

Hiring freelancers is “a means to an end” for YOU.

Your goal is to create something, such as a website.

To achieve that goal, you hire freelancers.

But for Upwork, hiring freelancers is not simply a “means to an end.”

It is Upwork’s central business.

Some clients mistakenly think that they can obtain a website or some other product from Upwork. But Upwork does not provide websites. It does not provide blog articles. Or book covers, or PowerPoint presentations, or anything of the sort.

It is possible to commission the creation of such things by hiring freelancers on Upwork. But Upwork itself is not the provider of those things.

When a client hires freelancers on Upwork to create a website, it is not Upwork’s responsibility to create the website. It is not the freelancer’s responsibility to make sure that the project succeeds.

It is the project manager’s responsibility to make sure that the project succeeds.

There are many effective techniques to use to make sure that a development project succeeds. But one of the most important keys to success is understanding whose responsibility it is.

prestonhunter · ‎12-01-2021

re : “Vetting of freelancers is the ONLY real way of having a credible platform.”

Upwork does not vet freelancers. Nor does it claim to.

Upwork has extensive identity verification protocols, far more than nearly any website you will encounter. And more than most freelance work platforms. But even these are not infallible. And - importantly - this is not the same as “vetting.“ At least not as you are using the word.

One of the keys to using Upwork successfully as a client is understanding how the tool works.

There ARE services which vet their freelancers or workers, and there are services which do not.

This makes a difference. A client should know what it is that the service they are using actually does in terms of vetting, so that he can use the tool in a knowledgeable and effective way.