Pandora H wrote:
1. Clients have NO clue about the Terms of Service. Let me say that again. Clients have NO clue about the Terms of Service. And...one more time....Clients have NO clue about the Terms of Service. I recently posted a work-around to this issue online and it got a lot of respect, because a large number of freelancers are annoyed / scared / fed up. This is a HUGE problem, still. I think that a warning about both of these things should appear when a client hits the "Post a Job" button. And they have to click scroll through and then click a button to proceed. And they should appear again, as they are already set to do.
2. Freelancers are terrified of being flagged when a client who has no clue about the TOS mentions Calendly, or Zoom, or Skype. I myself have lost 3 interview opportunities in the last 30 days because of this. Even though I was being 100% professional, they thought I was making up this rule for whatever inane reason. I was, for a while, including a link to the page where this rule is shown, but nobody was clicking it.
3. Freelancers are knowingly violating the TOS by avoiding the issue entirely and meeting any way the client wants prior to being hired and not saying a word about the TOS, so as to not loose out on jobs. Which in turn leads back to the #1 issue. See where I am going here?
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Furthermore, from the client side, there is a lot of denial going on. "Oh, I have been on the site forever, I do not need to worry", is a common response to my warning about this. Another one: "I did a bunch of interviews a month ago, and we scheduled on Calendly. It worked great..what is the problem again?" And yet another one: Upwork should not tell you or us how to establish a working relationship. (That was the only response that made any sense).
As I replied in another thread re. this topic (I think this one is like an official one?) making excuses "I don't know ToS" is just pure laziness. People registered on site, they therefore accepted its ToS. As a freelancer I am not going to guess if the client knows or not the rules, I take it they do know them. I lost several potential jobs because I didn't agree to work for free as a "test work" to see if I am a "good fit". I have work history, I have portfolio, they are free to browse and they support my application (test work sure, but paid as a separate contract is an option I always give). And clients get very aggressive if I point out that asking for free work is against ToS. Same as paying outside UW or taking communication wherever. The problem is, I guess, less experienced freelancers being scared of losing the job so they do anything client wants, turning into slaves basically. Often with poor output like client appearing to be scammer. Making it absolutely clear that some things are just not allowed at Upwork and more, pointing out that by registering we accept these terms, must be done in a way that will discourage any breaches of these terms and yes, make them as obtrusive as they need to be, I don't really care, I am conscious enough to click appropriate button to dismiss these messages after reading. Of course, people are people, most of them just want to be "smart" but this in a long run doesn't pay off. So I am all for anything that will clearly show that not following rules will simply get people in trouble. Of course, I have encountered "clients" that were trying to scare me with their "oh, but I have been on this site for years and I am allowed to ask for test/take payment outside/ask for your private email/etc, if you don't agree I will go ahead and report you for [irrelevant explanation goes here]". My only reply is always "please read ToS again, thank you for your time", then report that client and block them. But I get that some freelancers are happy to be scammed and paid $5 for whatever clients wants. Sure, go ahead but away from UW.
Upwork should not tell you or us how to establish a working relationship. (That was the only response that made any sense).
Re. this one - actually this does not make any sense. Not sure how many of you people are gamers but in a cooperation game where each person in a raid has their role to fullfil, the raid leader decides what gear each one of group members is wearing and what they specifically do to defeat the boss they're fighting as a group. You can of course wear and do whatever but if you don't fullfil your role, say, damage dealer not dealing sufficient damage, then it is just not working and raid leader has all the right to ask you to switch gear, skills rotation etc or, replace you. This is called META - Most Effective Tools Available. This is exactly the same with UW - they set META for each part of the contract to fullfill their roles - client and freelancer. They have all the right to exactly tell us how it should be done in compliance with Terms of Service we all accepted by registering here. I am all for rebel, always 🙂 but sometimes you just need to use common sense and not try to reinvent the wheel. UW is not actually telling us how to establish working relationship, they are only giving us the tools - platform, Escrow and support. We use it to SAFELY establish working relationship, if we don't want to follow UW rules, well, we don't have to be here right?
