Freelancers exploiting the hourly pay.

[80af4597]

I hired a freelancer here and that is the last time I am hiring here on upwork. 

He was to do proofreading and add 500 words to a section that was already written on. Now, He never did any proofreading and only added few sections in existing paper. Further, instead of adding 500 words, he understood that he was needed to write on that section. What is disturbing is the fact that as aproof reader he should have clearly seen the section was there but he, shockingly, went ahead to write on the sub-topic right below the existing one instead of editing and adding the 500 words.

The job was posted as fixed, but whatever happened when I was hiring and it changed to hourly I do not know. Anyhow, My biggest problem is that the talent was paid regardless of the fact that he clearly spent time doing no proofreading and adding an already existing sub-topic he was required to edit. 

I think upwork needs to review their hourly pay protection policy. Restrict it for highly valuable talents because someone like Eric Mutua does not exhibit any level of trust. Clients have been forced to pay for the lowest quality of job at the expense of exploitive individuals like him.

Who protects clients in this case??? Where one is forced to end up paying another individual or doing the job themselves???

As a client, I have lost money for work that I cannot even use. I had to rewrite it myself as I was not ready to loose more money.

I have an active job and once completed I am never going to hire here again. I would rather pay hire rates elsewhere.

[prestonhunter]

re: "Who protects clients in this case?"

You do.

[80af4597]

Anything constructive?

[prestonhunter]

re: "Anything constructive?"

Yes.

I told the original poster "you do" when this client asked who protects clients from bad freelancer behavior.

This may be the single most important thing that an Upwork client can understand:

A client protects himself from bad freelancer behavior.

Upwork does not.

[pdestefanis]

As you have found, UpWork will not protect you if that gets in the way of their collecting money. Even more, you will see that even if you leave a bad review, it will "disappear" before long. 

Reject shoddy work, keep complaining (most likely UpWork will continue ignoring you) and also shop around. UpWork is not the only player.

[80af4597]

Pablo, Dissapointing is an understatement and yes, once my current job is done i'm shifting. They seem to be liking the hourly pay, as that is the only way they can earn by protecting their pool of untrustworthy freelancers while exploiting the clients.

[gilbert-phyllis]

The contract did not magically change from fixed-price to hourly. As the client, you would have to send an offer for an hourly contract. If you did that without making sure you understood the terms, then you left yourself vulnerable to an incompetent and/or dishonest freelancer. On an hourly contract you pay for the FL's time regardless of the quality of their output. The only way the FL gets paid over the client's objection on an hourly contract is if he used the desktop time tracker exactly as directed including activity memos. You have five business days to evaluate the work product and the screenshots recorded by the tracker. If he was working on your project the whole time and tracking properly, then yes, he gets paid. If there are discrepancies in the tracked hours, though, you can dispute time segments. And if he logged hours manually, then you can simply refuse to pay. So if anybody has an advantage here, it's the client. But you have to use the system as it's meant to be used. 

[80af4597]

How is the client supposed "to use the system as it's meant to be used" for the freelancer to give quality job? When clearly, the freelancer spent time rewriting a section already in the article instead of proofreading and editing the exisiting one? 

Well, I would rather pay high rates at Guru. It was better there. 

[prestonhunter]

I have hired over 150 freelancers on Upwork.

I certainly don't expect Upwork to protect me.

I know how to use the client-side tools to manage projects and freelancers.

There is never a need for a client to ask Customer Support with that. As clients, we have all the tools we need at our fingertips. Including unlimited freedom to fire freelancers at any time.

Why aren't you using that freedom?

If you don't love the work that a freelancer is doing for you, then fire the freelancer. Assign the work to other people.

[80af4597]

You are clearly out of touch here. I have equally hired before hence your argument is uncalled for.

Just to save you, The project was paused less than 2 hrs in due to poor performance but upwork went ahead to deduct the monies less than 10 hrs later. Stop going around trolling clients with genuine concerns. 

[prestonhunter]

re: "Stop going around trolling clients with genuine concerns. "

I don't understand what you mean.

These clients DO have legitimate concerns, and some of what you are saying makes it seem like you don't take their concerns seriously.

One of the biggest problems I see clients cause for themselves is that they show more concern for freelancers than their own projects. A lot of the problems we see would be solved if clients put their projects first and stopped thinking that they "owe" underperforming freelancers some sort of extraordinary patience or attention.