I've been using Upwork for years, and have started and sold businesses as a result of the talent I've found here. Overall, I've had good experiences, with only a few incidents of fake profiles and scammers. But this last week I've had two incidents that really changed the way I would work with the company, specifically after escalating problems.
1. Racist behaviour - I took on a new contractor who before long, made racist comments about some of my other hires. I told him it was unacceptable, and I'd end his contract. Inevitably, he gave me very poor star ratings, and made negative comments about me. I escalated his comments to upwork who suspended his account. I asked Upwork to remove his reviews, and was told that they would leave the star rating as this was his perceived experience of working with me?! What?!! So I shouldn't have dealt with that racism, as it now negatively affects other people's perception of me?
2. Autoclicker - I hired another freelancer, after 7 hours of work I reviewed their timesheets and saw that there was over 2 hours of time where there was no movement on screen, zero keyboard clicks, exactly 1 click per minute on the mouse. Obviously, an autoclicker to maintain the appearance of work. Again, I cancelled the contract, and escalated to Upwork. The freelancer gives me a one star rating. Upwork does not terminate that profile, and as they are 'top-rated' they remove the feedback I gave them. Now this freelancer maintains a 100% job success, top rated profile, despite evidently defrauding clients. How can I have any confidence in these metrics when looking to hire on Upwork? I asked Upwork to remove the feedback and they said again, it was the freelancers perception of their experience, but as a gesture of good will they'd remove it as the freelancer had been able to remove their own.
It's incredibly dissapointing to see that in these instances Upwork is making decisions that mean I'm less likely to escalate inappropriate behaviour, whether racism or fraud, as they aren't willing to protect me as a client if I do so.
