Freelancer cheating with hourly contract

[#1]

That's not my first time in upwork.

A good reputation (>4.8 stars rating) and >10K spent on the platform are good enough to prove that I'm a good client and upwork user.

Nevertheless I've been cheated. 

Well it happens. No matter how hard you try to avoid scammers and cheaters.

They always come.

Nevertheless I'm really surprised of the basically no-action taken from upwork to protect the client.

To make it short:

I had an agreement with a freelancer for 1.000$.

Deliverables where:

1) A full completed business plan

2) An executive summary

3) A pitch deck

for those who don't know what these things are: basically when you're presenting your company or your product to an investor, you want to show them financial projection and market analysis (business plan), a super sammary of the project (executive summary), and a verbose/graphical presentation of 10 slides (pitch deck).

Well, this freelancer insisted a lot to have an hourly rate contract rather than a fixed price to 'increase his worked hours' in the counter. Of course for the same amount.

I wasn't super-happy. 

I hate not being able to verify and check what am about to buy before giving my money out.

By the way this guy sold himself really well, looked professional, he has a decent reputation (87% success).

I trusted him.

Now, just to make a comparison, it's like if you're asking someone to you build a car.

He needs to create the project first, work with some numbers, buy all the needed accessories and then, at the end, you'll have your deliverables: the car.

What he did was tracking hours showing that he was doint market research here and there for the Business Plan.

HOW IN THE WORK COULD I DISPUTE THESE HOURS ? Please UpWork, tell me HOW! 🙂

Well, when he reached 950$ charged in 2 and half weeks, he started to deliver one and half badly drafted page of the executive summary.

Ok, I don't mind.

I made a review, and sent back for amendments.

The day after the freelancer closed the job for "Other reasons" and just vanished.

I immediatly contacted upwork support telling the story.

Out of the 3 pieces which are the deliverables (whose weights are something like: 70% Business Plan, 20% Executive Summary, 10% Pitch Deck) I had a draft-not reviewed and amended version of the Executive Summary. All the rest was entirely missing.

I mean, it seems to me that it's my clear right to have ALL my money back, isn't it?

Nevertheless I proposed upwork to leave him 100$ or so for the bad draft.

He had to spend some time writing it so it seemed fair as a compromise.

Guess what?

I've been able to dispute just the last week hours (167$) but for all the rest UpWork said that I had to dispute that timesheets before it was too late... 

Really?

Are you kidding me?

I paid for something that I don't have and the cheater is safe?

On top of this I made a deep check on this freelancer feedbacks.

Strangely, all the hourly contract ones have "no feedback given"...

I'm seriously tempted to escalate this issue to the upWork management team.

Freelancers like this one and this kind of support is seriously compromising the entire platform.

Best,

Alex

[#2]

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Petra R wrote:

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Mega R wrote:

so I do get what you feel. but at least good to know you can stop auto-billing on Monday in case you encounter such a useless worker again. 

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Clients can not "cancel auto-billing"

How did you work 40 hours last week when your account was created on the 17th of April - as was your post? How many accounts do you have?

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Can you as a client see when a profile was created? The forum member date is not the same as the date when one creates a profile on Upwork.

[#3]

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Jennifer R wrote:

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Petra R wrote:

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How did you work 40 hours last week when your account was created on the 17th of April - as was your post? How many accounts do you have?

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Can you as a client see when a profile was created? The forum member date is not the same as the date when one creates a profile on Upwork.

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I am well aware that the forum date is not the date someone's profile was created.  Like your forum profile was created on Sep 15, 2017, your Upwork account some 3 months earlier.

Can clients see when a profile was created? Anyone theoretically could, if they knew where to look, but I doubt many do.

"Mega" created the Upwork account she was posting from on the 17th of April, the same day she posted her strange story.

So either the story she is telling is untrue as she can't possibly have worked a week prior to having created an account, or she has duplicate accounts.

More interesting - the profile she is posting from was rejected, so even if the date panned out, she could not possibly have worked from that profile.

It looks like sour grapes. Someone could not get on the platform, so posted somehorror story.

[#4]

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@Alessandro L wrote:
Dear Tiffany,
I'm sorry to say that you have absolutely no clue of how the hourly contracts works in real world.
And that's a shame since you are supposed to be a "Community Guru".

Let me try to explain with simple words so that it's easier to understand.

Fixed Price:
You pay for a deliverable which is provided to the customer in the agreed time and with the agreed specs.
No matter how long the freelancer will have to work on the deliverable, no matter how many reviews the customer asks for. That's the price. Pay/not pay and that's it.

Hourly based:
The complete shape and effort of the project is hard to evaluate and/or the freelancer is not keen to have infinite (unpaid) reviews to have the milestones released.
You both agree on a price range, a price x hour and you start working.
Either way the final outcome of what you are paying for is A DELIVERABLE not the time.
What changes is how you obtain it but not the final goal.


That's 'simply not accurate, and I can't imagine where you got that idea. It certainly wasn't from the Upwork user agreement or help materials. It also certainly wasn't from a comparison to the brick and mortar world--imagine having an hourly employee show up for work, work all day and not accomplish what you were looking for and so you said, "sorry, Joe...I'm not paying you for today." Joe would likely go home, file a few online complaints with various government agencies, and then play video games on your dime for the next few months.

I did checked ALL the time tracking during the hiring period and seemed in line to what the freelancer was supposed to be doing in order to produce my deliverable (market researches).

So what were you getting at with your post about now seeing from the screenshots that he was surfing the web?

Very close to the end of the formally agreed price (950$ out of 1k), he closed the contract for "Other reasons".

I don't have my deliverables but the time tracking looked in line, therefore it wasn't disputed.

Are you really telling me that this is what UpWork is offering?
It's a clear and easy way to cheat.

I'm in no position to tell you what Upwork is offering--I'm just a client and freelancer here. The only difference between you and I is the decisions we make about how to manage our contracts. I've never been cheated out of a dime or a minute's work as either a client or a freelancer.

No one will ever pay for "The time" 🙂
This is really funny 😉

It's interesting that you think it's "really funny" that I think the system works the way Upwork's system is designed to work, the way hourly payment works pretty much in every context in the western world, and the way you have discovered that it does in fact work on Upwork. I'm not sure why you think it's funny, since your failure to understand the system cost you nearly $1,000, but I'm glad that you're finding humor in the situation rather than becoming bitter.

I hope you misunderstood some of my posts!
No hard feelings, I'm trying to clarify an evident problem that could help other users preventing cheaters like the one I'm talking about.

Alex, I'm really not trying to argue with you for the sake of argument. The point I'm trying to make is that there IS a way for users to protect themselves against this type of thing, and it is to manage their contracts, check progress at reasonable intervals, ask for deliverables in stages to ensure that hours are being used efficiently if that is a concern, and carefully review screenshots and time logs. That's it. Using the system as intended is the one and only way to protect yourself, and is nearly 100% effective.

Best,
Alex

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[#5]

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@Tiffany S wrote:

Alex, I'm really not trying to argue with you for the sake of argument. The point I'm trying to make is that there IS a way for users to protect themselves against this type of thing, and it is to manage their contracts, check progress at reasonable intervals, ask for deliverables in stages to ensure that hours are being used efficiently if that is a concern, and carefully review screenshots and time logs. That's it. Using the system as intended is the one and only way to protect yourself, and is nearly 100% effective.

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Can't argue with that, but if a client isn't up to managing contracts, then there are alternatives, budget permitting, such as hiring a project manager, or even Preston's strategy of auditioning several freelancers by way of small test jobs. Lastly, in this particular case, the client hired a freelancer with 87% Job Success, and far be it from me to disparage 87% JS, but he might have been better off with an established mid 90 percentile JS freelancer.

[#6]

We have had the same experience with a freelancer - staring with a fixed price and then talking us into a hourly contract but promising to keep the fixed price but did not. On the contrary keept wanting more money.

This happens because some freelancers has found a trick to setup another freelancer officially working for them as a cover, while the real freelancer working on the job is hidden. This way the freelancer working on the job (in our case a very poor done job) do not get affected - his rating stays at 100% top rated (because you can only review the cover or fake  freelancer) and his hourly rate is not affaced if he agreed on a lover hourly rate. 

We did inform Upwork about this many times but I do not think they ever really understood the problem. The cover person might be a real person but that does not change anything - it is still a cover. So now I can vicit the real freelancers profile where it says he is rating is far above his "real rating" - it is actually 100% top rated and his hourly rate is unafected though he agreed to go down. So much for Upwork and their protection of their clients. 

We are not sure we will use Upwork anymore simply becuase it is so easy for freelancers to trick you!

[#7]

It is “okay” to look at a freelancer’s JSS when hiring. But it can also be an effective strategy to ignore JSS.

Either way, clients should not use JSS as a substitute for effective project management.

Effective project management includes hiring multiple freelancers, evaluating their work, and firing underperforming team members.

[#8]

Sir your cheater is active on this site I am telling you a sample of this

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[#9]

Ram, I read the chat transcript/chat log that you posted.

I think it is awesome that you realized this was a scam before you paid those scammers any money.

I know you are trying to help by posting the entire chat log. But Upwork prohibits posting chat logs in the Community Forum. Someone who works for Upwork will probably delete that content, or remove your entire post.

So I recommend that you edit your post. Remove the chat log and instead summarize what happened, in your own words. Try to condense the description down to two to four sentences that explain the key aspects of the scam.