What's the point of Upwork arbitration(uggh)

[norrcomm]

This is more of a public vent and I hope Upwork is reading this:

• Had a client and relationship was great (almost a year)
• been biling manual $15/ day for remote system monitoring
• One day client decides to question it after paying it for WEEKS!
• I explained it to client in and email and client replies and acknowledges to continue billing
• Few weeks later client disputes it with Upwork
• Upwork I submit this emai proof to Upwork
• Upwork finds in favour of client
• I escalate to Upwork support
• Upwork claims they gave me a chance to reply
• I inform them I did and even submitted a pdf of client agreeing to continue with manual $15/day charge
• Upwork says dispute is closed
• I even asked them to reference the client approval for manual time, they respond that client can dispute at anytime

Their tracker is useles for monitoring systems. It's not like I sit at a computer staring at the screen. My system runs, it notifies me when client server has an issue and I charge $15/day for the service. Like a home security company, they are not there at your house but call you or show up when something goes wrong but you still have to pay a fee for that service. This was even explained to client who of course agreed and for WEEKS was paying the maual time.

It's more of the principal of this but I don't think Upwork even gets the concept for system monitoring.

[petra_r]

You are not talking about arbitration, you are talking about dispute. (Arbitration is for fixed rate contracts only and comes after dispute mediation.

Every (!) time you enter manual time the system is telling you it is not protected.

That is all there is to it.

[norrcomm]

OK dispute.

How does can someone dispute something then I provide client proof of them agreeing to charge, then upwork allows dispute to take place.

System doesn't seem fair.  Here is a snippet from the full email I provided to upwork but they then chose to ignore this information and side with client.

The manual time entry even included notes about what was being performed.

How is this even possible?

**Edited for community guidelines**

[petra_r]

It doesn't matter.

Manual time = All bets are off. If the client doesn't pay or disputes, you lose  by default.

They don't "side with anyone" - they resolved the dispute as per their Terms of Service.

Game over.

[norrcomm]

It's a mickey mouse system for disputes.  LOL

Probably wouldn't stand up in a real litigation based on information I submitted..

Oh well.

[petra_r]

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@Irwin W wrote:

It's a mickey mouse system for disputes.  LOL

---

 That is why it is best not to have any (disputes.)

It is impossible to win once it has gone as far as a dispute nobody "wins" - Even if you "win" the dispute you lose = the client.

[norrcomm]

HA! From the time client even asked me the question, I knew he was lost.  

Unfortunately some never pay attention to conversations and use this a way to escape payments.

Unfortunately Upwork gives them an opportunity, even though proper information is submitted and never properly reviewed.

Client has a problem, simply click dispute and be assured that Upwork will never side with consultant and will refund monies.  It's not like I submitted a blank manual time sheet with no info or did not have prior communication with client about the manual time.

[wlyonsatl]

I don't know the specifics of your situation, but if you repeatedly booked daily manual time for an ongoing service to a specific customer and the customer repeatedly paid you without complaint over a period of time, then Upwork's claim that all of your manual time booked for this client is subject to refusal by the client for weeks or months after payment was made, then Upwork is wrong.

Upwork's various protocols across client/freelancer activities cannot fairly take into account the realities of each and every dispute across 400,000 or so projects per year, but hiding behind rigid systems and processes without reviewing the obvious realities of a dispute with uncommon elements rather than using a human brain to make a fair decision is a pretty cowardly / lazy / arrogant way to handle dispute resolution.

[norrcomm]

Agreed.  The lazy road was taken, no matter how much proof I provided, this was always the answer.

[petra_r]

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@Irwin W wrote:

Client has a problem, simply click dispute and be assured that Upwork will never side with consultant and will refund monies.

---

 This is simply not true.  Had you tracked the time according to the terms the client would have lost the dispute. Or had weekly or monthly milestones for the "on call" thing, you'd have been fine.

I suspect for the kind of thing you were using fixed price milestones would have been more suitable.

[norrcomm]

How is it  My fault?

- I add notes to the manual time

- client emails me for additional clarification

- I provide such clarification to client

- Client agrees to said clarification and continues to pay weekly manual billing

- weeks later client then starts a dispute

How is that fair even when I provide all this info to Upwork?

How is it my fault?  

Upwork got lazy with their review.

Mabe if you are an upwork employee and have access to this particular case you should review and see I am being factual about what has transpired but y'all would still blame me.  LOL

[petra_r]

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@Irwin W wrote:

How is it  My fault?

---

 Nobody is blaming you.

I pointed out that your statement that clients only have to hit the dispute button and Upwork given them the money back every time is factually incorrect.

If a client disputes manual time (!) then as per the terms they win. There is simply no way around that and it is pointed out to you every frigging time you enter manual time. That is all there is to it.

Manual time - no protection, ever, in any way. That's it.

[gilbert-phyllis]

"Upwork got lazy with their review."

There is no review for them to be lazy about. UW doesn't referee disputes about manually logged hourly contracts because it would be incredibly time-consuming, i.e. expensive for them to get involved to any degree. Consider what a challenge it is for them to deploy a worthwhile Talent Specialist program. Can you imagine what it would be like if they tried to referee or mediate hourly contract disputes across the vast range of industries, cultures, and time zones that are operating on UW? They don't do it and they tell us constantly that they don't do it. That means it's up to us to be extremely careful about making sure the contract arrangement is optimal for the project scope, scale and duration. Not to mention choosing clients wisely and doing an effective job of cultivating trust and open communication so that if something does go sideways, there is a reasonable chance of working out a compromise. (I say this as a FL who has made most of my UW money in the past year on manual hourly contracts.)

UW makes a big noise about offering payment protections to FLs but in reality, each kind of contract carries some exposure. Even an hourly contract with automated tracking can turn sour and the FL take a beating on client feedback.

It sucks that this happened to you. It's not fair at all, but that is irrelevant. And in all honesty, every time I read one of these accounts where a client paid regularly for months with no complaint and then suddenly pulled the plug, I have to wonder how often the FL was communicating with the client, and whether she/he was checking in regularly to make sure everybody was happy. Absence of complaint does not equal complete satisfaction. Clients are human and often avoid difficult conversations. They won't necessarily tell us they are growing restive, or that their boss is questioning the value of the work or about to slash their budget. We have to take primary responsibility for keeping communication lines open and running both ways, in order to (1) make it easy for them to tell us when something is wrong, and (2) make it difficult for them to look us in the eye and screw us over. Sometimes our best efforts to do that are not enough. But it's part of the gig

To be clear, Irwin, I'm not saying you fell short on any of this. I just thought it was worth adding to the thread.

[wlyonsatl]

Irwin,

There is no good reason for Upwork to interpret its own rules in a way that a client can do what you describe.

Giving the client a chance to review manual hours before paying them is absolutely appropriate. By paying them, the client should be interpreted as having approved the hours for payment. If this is not how Upwork interprets its own rules, then the system needs to be changed so clients DO have to approve manual hours.

Saying that a client can come back at any time and say they don't approve manual hours from long ago work weeks they have paid is ridiculous.

Yes, there are workarounds. But the core idea that manual hours paid for by a client can be refunded for no good reason other than a client changing her mind at any time in the future is just plain silly.

Upwork should either not allow manual hours at all or tell freelancers and clients that the only time the client can disapprove manual hours is during the review review period for the Upwork week the hours were booked for. Giving clients disapproval power in perpetuity is wrong.

[kat303]

Will, - To go one further on what you said, Aside from a fixed rate review period of 14 days, and an hourly review period of 5 days, it actually is 30 days? A client can open a dispute 30 days from when they last paid. THAT should be taken away. A client should not pay or release escrow funds and then after the "initial" review period have 30 days to open disputes and possibly have their payment/funds returned. 

[kat303]

Irwin - Even if the client agrees to manual time and you have proof of that, it doesn't matter under Upworks hourly protection. Payment is made for the hours you worked. That can only be proven by using the Tracker. Tracker takes pictures of your screen and records your keystrokes. That shows proof that you were working on the clients job and not playing games, composing email or just surfing the internet for fun stuff to look at. Manual hours, comes down to he said, you said even though you have communication saying the client ok the manual hours. If you used Tracker, and annotated the screen shots it took, you would have no problem in getting paid. Upwork would have sided with you. Payment would be decided in your favor and the client couldn't do anything about it. But manual hours are different. For manual hours, the client has the upper hand and whether you think that's not fair or wrong or whatever. That's just the way it is. 

For hourly jobs, freelancers are paid for the hours they log using Tracker and the notes they take for the screenshots.

For fixed rate jobs, freelancers are paid for the work they do, no matter how long or short of a time it takes. 

IMO this job should have been a fixed rate job with escrow being funded and released periodically by whatever way you set up the milestones.  There are jobs here, that are hourly and involve creativity by entering in manual hours for that.  Any freelancer for whatever Hourly job they do that involves entering in manual hours takes a risk.