Upworker over reported hours

[michael_s91]

Hey,

I have a situation where an upworker I hired has been doing reasonable work, but dramatically over reporting her hours for a few weeks. I've only now had a chance to take a deeper dive into it, and there's pretty clear evidence of this. There are multiple insances of work screenshots that are static for a long time on end and large periods of reported work where very little was accomplished at a rate that's around 10% of the speed of the other upworker I have working on similar tasks.

When I confronted her about it, she would admit to small errors in reported work but claimed that the screenshots of no work were the result of a "virus". I've spent a number of thousands on hourly work here. Is there anything I can do about this, or since it's mostly in weeks past am I just out of luck?

Thanks!

[prestonhunter]

Michael:

After a work week ends, you have five days during which you can dispute a freelancer's reported hours.

If there are screenshots are static for a long period of time, then you can point that out when you dispute these hours.

If you have screenshots that show the freelancer NOT working on your project, Upwork will REMOVE these time segments from the time that you need to pay for.

If mouse/keyboard activity is low, Upwork will REMOVE these time segments from the time that you need to pay for.

if there are time segments without adequate written memos, Upwork will REMOVE these time segments from the time that you need to pay for.

NONE OF WHICH REALLY MATTERS very much because...

...you have wisely hired more than one freelancer.

This means that you can COMPARE the work that they do.

YOU ALREADY KNOW that this freelancer is not providing you with good value compared to the other freelancer(s) you hired.

So... Maybe you can save some money for time segments from last week that do not qualify for Upwork Payment Protection.

But the important thing is that you can stop working with this freelancer and hire other freelancers. And you can continue to hire and fire people while evaluating their work and comparing their productivity to other freelancers that you hire.

[BojanS]

Hi Michael,

We’ll have one of our agents reach out to you via a support ticket to look into the Work Diary you're concerned about and advise you on further steps. 

Thank you for reaching out to us.