Loose Money in Upwork

[#1]

I recently hired a fake or unprofessional freelancer.

He was charging for doing something out of our work instruction. Eventhough if he did work according to our instruction, he ended up never giving the work nor proof of his works. I've been asking for his work evidence since 4 weeks which has passed by.

On the other hand, Upwork has time limited of 4 weeks for dispute. In total, we lost money amounted charged $150 (on $4/hr rate). I can't imagine if he was charging at a much higher rate.

So, I personally would want to pay higher to someone who has a unique skill/talent that I need as well as professional. But if he does not have any of that, why would a client pays these guys higher ?

Why would a client pays a higher ammount on this platform to a replacedable freelancer where/whom you can pay to in a lower amount ? (asume SAME QUALITY!).

p.s

Do NOT correlate PRICE with QUALITY in this discussion !, because it is NOT correlated at all what so ever ! 

It's more about correlation in beetween of PRICE with UNIQUENESS !.

So I hope upwork find more freelancers whom are tagged as unique to increase the platform's UX and income !

[#2]

Hi Ilham,

I'm sorry to hear about the bad experience you've had. Could you please click on my name and share more details (contract title or freelancer name) with me via PM so that I can assist you further? Thank you.

[#3]

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Ilham B wrote:

I recently hired a fake or unprofessional freelancer.

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Again.....

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Ilham B wrote:

(on $4/hr rate). 

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There's your answer.

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Ilham B wrote:

Eventhough if he did work according to our instruction, he ended up never giving the work nor proof of his works. I've been asking for his work evidence since 4 weeks which has passed by.

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Your "work evidence" is the freelancer's work diary.

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Ilham B wrote:

On the other hand, Upwork has time limited of 4 weeks for dispute.

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On an hourly contract, you have 5 days to dispute, and you can't dispute any deliverables (or lack thereof) at all. Only if the hours were tracked correctly or not. You pay for the freelancer's time, not a deliverable.

[#4]

re: "But if he does not have any of that, why would a client pays these guys higher? Why would a client pays a higher amount on this platform to a replacedable freelancer where/whom you can pay to in a lower amount?"

This is a great question. On Upwork, freelancers are available at a wide range of skill levels and pay levels. It IS possible to hire freelancers at low rates to do impressive work. But generally speaking, higher-skilled freelancers will require higher pay in order to hire them. Many clients prefer to hire higher-skilled/higher-paid freelancers in order to ensure that they get work done at the level of quality they need.

At lower rates, a client may be searching for a "diamond in the rough." This means that lower-paid/higher-skilled freelancers ARE available, but they are harder to find.

For example, if you want an excellent blog writer specializing in articles about dogs, you may be able to find one who will work for $5/hour. But you may need to hire 10 different freelancers in order to find that person.

If you need 100 or more different articles, then it may be worthwhile to hire 10 different freelancers to write one article each, and then choose the best one to stay on and write all 100 articles. This way you will have been able to compare 10 different freelancers in order to find the one who provides the best value/quality/price combination.

But: If you only need ONE article written and if your budget is limited... It doesn't make sense to hire 10 different writers. You could hire the best writer that you can afford. OR you can hire very inexpensive writers in a serial manner. The thing you can NOT do is hire a very low-rate freelancer and assume that her results will be usable. If you hire using very low rates you simply must be willing to pay for work that you can't use, and then hire the next person on the list, and hire the next person on the list, etc., until you obtain usable results. It is NOT worth your time as a client to mentor and teach low-skilled freelancers until they develop their skills to level that will be sufficient to meet your needs.

[#5]

I don't agree to all your guys theory. We can still hire a very expensive freelancer with low quality in Upwork. you will end up just loose your money like I did toward the cheap freelancer.

Upwork should eliminate all unprofessional or fake freelancers what's so ever so clients does not loose money at all.

So I always chose to hire many and cheap so if I am unlucky get a bad freelancer I won't loose as much.

[#6]

re: "I don't agree to all your guys theory. We can still hire a very expensive freelancer with low quality in Upwork."

You are absolutely correct.

It IS possible to hire a very expensive freelancer who provides low quality work.

I don't think anybody in this thread has said otherwise.

re: "you will end up just loose your money like I did toward the cheap freelancer."

Yes, that is possible.

Upwork does not guarantee outcomes.

Upwork provides a service through which clients can find, hire and pay freelancers.

We know that very-low-pay freelancers are more likely to provide low quality work. But it IS possible to find very-low-pay freelancers who provide quality work, and it IS possible to provide high-pay freelancers that provide low-quality work. These are simply less likely. This is the same everywhere.

re: "Upwork should eliminate all unprofessional or fake freelancers... so clients does not loose money at all."

It would be great if Upwork did that. How do you suggest Upwork does that?

[#7]

Upwork policy tells you pay for work not for time.

If they work then there's a deliverable.

You can charge in Upwork while spending time playing online games, then Upwork policy will refund that time !

[#8]

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Ilham B wrote:
Upwork policy tells you pay for work not for time.

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Not with hourly contracts. Please do read the terms of service, where it is clearly explained to you in nice and simple terms. As long as the time was spent working on your project, had meaningful work memos and the activity levels were OK, you can't win a dispute. You can also only dispute the previous week.

Ilham B wrote:
So I always chose to hire many and cheap 

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Exactly. And you are constantly having trouble.
Q.E.D

[#9]

'Not with hourly contracts. Please do read the terms of service, where it is clearly explained to you in nice and simple terms. As long as the time was spent working on your project, had meaningful work memos and the activity levels were OK, you can't win a dispute. You can also only dispute the previous week."

==>

Either you are right or not, this is why many client will loose money because of this SOP.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

This is how a fake freelancer abused your upwork's SOP :

Week 1 work very well

Week 2 charged diary without actually are working according to our instruction, so client ask him to deliver the work.

Week 3 he makes fakes promises, like will be back next week can't work because out of town, blabla bla bla etc (but they will still charge some little money at this week without even actually are working)

Week 4 He again said, sorry sir still not back, will be back next week. (but they will still charge some little money at this week without even actually are working)

Week 5 He said, ok I quit, So by this time client can no longer force refund for the week 2's work nor even the week 3's work, but client can only get the so little amount at week 4.

If you can't remove these type of freelancers from your platform, please at least let me knows how to avoid them.

Thanks

"Exactly. And you are constantly having trouble."

==>

Nope, that's where you're wrong when you persisted quality is correlated with price. 

I did have some bad experience with expensive freelancers but also I did have some good experience with cheap freelancers. So AGAIN, I say to you all, PRICE IS NEVER CORELATED WITH QUALITY.

So I loose money here NOT because of price issue !, but because upwork's poor algorithm which still needs to have some improvements !

[#10]

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Ilham wrote:

If you can't remove these type of freelancers from your platform, please at least let me knows how to avoid them.

Make better hiring decisions.

Manage your freelancers and your contracts better.

Accept that you get what you pay for. I know it's not what you want to hear because you hire at the very bottom of the barrell.

Ilham wrote:

Final Warning !

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Warning? Or what? 
You don't get to boss people about in this forum. That may work with your cheap freelancers, it does not work here.

By the way.... You paid the freelancer $3 an hour (not $4 as you said, not that it matters, $3 and $4 is both bottom of the barrel). For android app development. The job post is worded in such a way that only a certain type of freelancer would consider applying. Professionals certainly won't.

Ilham B wrote:

I can pay low and have no issues !

That's not what your posting history (Or your client stats) would indicate. Lots of problems, really poor feedback...

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Ilham B wrote:

try your self be a client and hire cheap vs expensive (but do it for so many times like I did, thousands hire or more).

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No, you didn't hire "thousands". 546. All cheap

[#11]

re: "You can charge in Upwork while spending time playing online games, then Upwork policy will refund that time"

This is true.

As a client, if I hire a freelancer using an hourly contract, and I see in work diary screenshots that the freelancer is playing online games or doing anything else other than working on my project, then I can dispute those time segments.

Upwork will review the work diary and REMOVE the time segments that show the freelancer playing games or doing something else from the time that I have to pay for.

As a client, there is a five-day time period after the end of each week during which I may dispute that time and get Upwork to remove it so that I do not pay for it.

[#12]

$4/hr will definiately attract the bottom of the barrel freelancers. Granted there are good quality freelancers from countries with lower costs of living, but most applicants will be lower quality. 

Think of it this way. You paid $150, but got no value in return. Now you have to hire someone else or do it yourself which will cost even more money. Or you could pay more and get better quality and more value. Good quality freelancers are also very efficient. So while you may be paying a lower rate for someone, they may charge more hours vs a good quality freelancer who can do the same work for better quality in a fraction of the time. Perhaps you can even save money. 

Also check the reviews before hand. If someone has good reviews and a higher JSS score, the chances of getting good quality work are higher. You can even video chat with them to make sure they are legit. And as a tip, always request proof of work as they are working on the project where possible.

[#13]

There is NOTHING WRONG with having a desire that Upwork improve.

There is nothing wrong with using Upwork as a client and experiencing some disappointments, and then making recommendations about ways that Upwork can change to address those issues.

But as Upwork users (whether clients or freelancers or both) it never helpful to ourselves and others if we confuse "recommendations for future changes" with "advice about using Upwork in the present."

The Upwork platform is not a philosophical idea. It is a real, already-existing platform that works the way that it does.

I think some of the original poster's comments in this thread are unclear about whether they are discussing how to use Upwork effectively the way that is now, or discussing recommendations for changes that Upwork could make in the future.

Also, some types of recommendations are not very useful if they are simply suggestions for goals that Upwork already has, yet do not include concrete actions. The original poster has recommended that Upwork have "no fake or low-quality freelancers." That is already Upwork's goal. Upwork already has extensive identity verification protocols in place that address the original poster's complaint about "fake" freelancers. Upwork has freelancer feedback, rating systems (JSS, etc.) in place to address the original poster's concerns about freelancer quality.

Some things are something that Upwork can not really control. In the original freelancer's comments, one might sense a desire for Upwork to continue to have very-low-cost freelancers but ensure that these freelancers only provide very-high-quality work. That isn't really Upwork or anybody else can ensure in a broad sense. There is not conceptual algorithm or user interface button that Upwork could add to its platform that would accomplish this in a guaranteed way... as this is essentially a recommendation to re-work the way the world works. The principle "You can have it cheap; You can have it right; You can have it fast" is a real principle that all clients should keep in mind. This is not something that Upwork can "choose" to just negate.

I love the fact that the original poster is actively thinking about ways that Upwork can be improved for its users, and I hope that he will continue to engage in discussion about the platform. For the sake of his own success, I hope he will continue to learn about both "universal principles" that affect hiring and project management, as well as about unique Upwork-specific concepts.

[#14]

Why are you all keep talking about QUALITY ?!?!!?

I am sick and tired of y'all correlating PRICE with QUALITY !

The initial discussion is about loosing money.

You can always loose money when you hire high price OR low price, whatever it does not matter. This is about how to find UNIQUE vs GENERAL freelancers.

Final Warning !

[#15]

"QUALITY IS NOT CORRELATED WITH SALARY LEVEL"

Any poor performing freelancers can inflate their salary.

I hired this guy named**Edited for community guidelines**at $4/hr and he did worked terribly and leave in the middle of the contract. Then when I look at his profile, he recently was hired at $28/hr where he gets a bad review similar to my experience. 

I hired him when he did not have any poor review at all, in fact some he had some good reviews.

"A good quality freelancer are really depends on the relationship between client on the freelancers, like if they liked each other, connected, same mind, same vision,  etc which simply a match !"

[#16]

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Ilham B wrote:

"QUALITY IS NOT CORRELATED WITH SALARY LEVEL"

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So, why do the cheapest, lowest paying clients always have the biggest problems and have them most often?

If it has nothing to do with the fact that you hire the cheapest of the cheap, what do you think you keep doing wrong for you to have so many problems with the people you hire? Where do you, as the client, go so badly wrong if it has nothing to do with the fact that you only pay peanuts?

[#17]

I can pay low and have no issues !

If I do have issues, then just kick them of the contract and find another one untill I get best price and best quality which I usually did successfully.

If you want to get kudo and be recognized as a good answer, try your self be a client and hire cheap vs expensive (but do it for so many times like I did, thousands hire or more).

p.s

Do NOT correlate PRICE with QUALITY in this discussion !, because it is NOT correlated at all what so ever ! 

It's more about correlation in beetween of PRICE with UNIQUENESS !.

So I hope upwork find more freelancers whom are tagged as unique to increase the platform's UX and income !

[#18]

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Ilham B wrote:

"QUALITY IS NOT CORRELATED WITH SALARY LEVEL"

Any poor performing freelancers can inflate their salary.

I hired this guy named**Edited for community guidelines**at $4/hr and he did worked terribly and leave in the middle of the contract. Then when I look at his profile, he recently was hired at $28/hr where he gets a bad review similar to my experience. 

I hired him when he did not have any poor review at all, in fact some he had some good reviews.

"A good quality freelancer are really depends on the relationship between client on the freelancers, like if they liked each other, connected, same mind, same vision,  etc which simply a match !"

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I really don't understand what you are trying to argue. You hired someone to work for a cheap price. So you got a cheap result. No, paying someone more does not guarantee a better result, but, in general, a better quality result is going to cost more than what you paid for a poor result.  And yes, you are correct: the quality of the work often does rely on a good working relationship between the client and the freelancer. 

So what is your point?   You refuse to pay more and expect to get a better result? You know the colloquial definition of insanity, right?   Doing the same thing over and over and expecting  a different result.  If you want a better result YOU need to do something different when you hire and work with a freelancer next time. That could mean more vetting, that could mean paying a higher price, that could mean more supervision (since you're hiring  likely less experienced freelancers as well). Remember the success or failure of your project really rests with you, no one else.  What can you do  differently to change the outcome?

[#19]

Going by my own experience as a freelancer, there IS correlation between hourly rate and quality of work, but it’s an imperfect correlation. In an ideal world, there would be no “unprofessional or fake” freelancers, but in reality those exist. So if I was hiring, I would take time to vet freelancers carefully. Only consider freelancers with extensive AND recent experience, and whenever possible, don’t simply read reviews but click the job title to get to the original job listing so you can see if the client has a plausible hiring history. That way, you reduce the possibility that the freelancer did a bunch of sketchy jobs to collect 5 star ratings. It’s a lot of work but hopefully you will get better results.

[#20]

The initial discussion is NEVER about quality !

Just some **Edited for Community Guidelines** in this discussion start correlating price on qualities.

[#21]

Do NOT correlate PRICE with QUALITY in this discussion !, because it is NOT correlated at all what so ever ! 

It's more about correlation in beetween of PRICE with UNIQUENESS !.

EDUCATE YOURSELF WITH THESE ECONOMIC TERMS :

- Bidding vs Auction

- Demand & Supply Equilibrium (adam smith invisible hand theory)

=> So you'd know that there's NO CORRELATION between PRICE vs QUALITY.

What drives quality are :

1. Individual's Characters

2. Individual's Work Ethics

3. Individual's self motivation / passion

4. How the Clients/Boss's leads you

5. Talents

Etc

You may be self motivated when you hear a high salary, but overtime, when you are told to do something you are not passionate about with a high salary, it will demotivates you thus possibly the quality.

[#22]

re: "I can pay low and have no issues! If I do have issues, then just kick them off the contract and find another one untill I get best price and best quality which I usually did successfully."

This is all true.

I think this thread has some "cross talk", with many participants - maybe including myself - discussing points that are not of interest to the original poster.

Ilham:

You have developed a successful strategy for hiring freelancers while minimizing cost.

If a client hires very low cost freelancers and simply ends the contract with those freelancers if they don't work out and then hires another low-cost freelancer until a viable freelancer is found... that IS a legitimate hiring strategy.

Even if your strategy is not what some Upwork users prefer, it doesn't negate the fact that you have had success with it.

I think where there was some misunderstanding is that this is a public forum, and there is nothing wrong with various thread participants having viewpoints that differ from yours. You are not being attacked.

Thread participants may inject topics into the discussion that you don't think are directly related to your original post. And people may make points which younthink are false. But that is the nature of a public discussion forum such as this one.

This thread is more useful for having more than one viewpoint.

[#23]

"re: "Upwork should eliminate all unprofessional or fake freelancers... so clients does not loose money at all."

It would be great if Upwork did that. How do you suggest Upwork does that?"

=> Improves their SOP / algorithm.

This is one of the way (might be more) how a fake freelancer abused your upwork's SOP:

Week 1 work very well

Week 2 charged diary without actually are working according to our instruction, so client ask him to deliver the work.

Week 3 he makes fakes promises, like will be back next week can't work because out of town, blabla bla bla etc (but they will still charge some little money at this week without even actually are working)

Week 4 He again said, sorry sir still not back, will be back next week. (but they will still charge some little money at this week without even actually are working)

Week 5 He said, ok I quit, So by this time client can no longer force refund for the week 2's work nor even the week 3's work, but client can only get the so little amount at week 4.

If you can't remove these type of freelancers from your platform, please at least let me knows how to avoid them.

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"I think where there was some misunderstanding is that this is a public forum, and there is nothing wrong with various thread participants having viewpoints that differ from yours. You are not being attacked."

==>

You may be right, but because of that, I never really get the right answer.

The original questions are (note, I hire for long term) :

1. I personally would want to pay higher to someone who has a unique skill/talent that I need as well as professional. But if he does not have any of that, why would a client pays these guys higher ? (asume SAME QUALITY!).

2. Why would a client pays a higher ammount on this platform to a replacedable freelancer where/whom you can pay to in a lower amount ? (asume SAME QUALITY!).

[#24]

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Ilham B wrote:

"re: "Upwork should eliminate all unprofessional or fake freelancers... so clients does not loose money at all."

It would be great if Upwork did that. How do you suggest Upwork does that?"

=> Improves their SOP / algorithm.

This is one of the way (might be more) how a fake freelancer abused your upwork's SOP:

Week 1 work very well

Week 2 charged diary without actually are working according to our instruction, so client ask him to deliver the work.

Week 3 he makes fakes promises, like will be back next week can't work because out of town, blabla bla bla etc (but they will still charge some little money at this week without even actually are working)

Week 4 He again said, sorry sir still not back, will be back next week. (but they will still charge some little money at this week without even actually are working)

Week 5 He said, ok I quit, So by this time client can no longer force refund for the week 2's work nor even the week 3's work, but client can only get the so little amount at week 4.

If you can't remove these type of freelancers from your platform, please at least let me knows how to avoid them.

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"I think where there was some misunderstanding is that this is a public forum, and there is nothing wrong with various thread participants having viewpoints that differ from yours. You are not being attacked."

==>

You may be right, but because of that, I never really get the right answer.

The original questions are (note, I hire for long term) :

1. I personally would want to pay higher to someone who has a unique skill/talent that I need as well as professional. But if he does not have any of that, why would a client pays these guys higher ? (asume SAME QUALITY!).

2. Why would a client pays a higher ammount on this platform to a replacedable freelancer where/whom you can pay to in a lower amount ? (asume SAME QUALITY!).

This is possibly the best answer(s) to your own question(s) you will ever receive. Well done!

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[#25]

Lol nice joke, I assume you're asking me to make an SOP and the algorithm for Upwork also ?

No one can answer my original question because there is no Single client in this discussion. You can't assume you know how client thinks if you are not even one.