Asking For Free Work AND Being Quite Arrogant About It

[randymyers]

Sorry to those of you that have responded and are interested but I deleting my original comments.  I'm doing quite well here at Upwork and don't want to screw that up by breaking any rules here in this forum.

Thanks to you guys who repsonded.

[stephenbrightman]

Unfortunately your link will be deleted soon - unlike the post, no doubt 

[randymyers]

First time I've posted here.  This guy's arrogance just got me so riled up I had to share it with somebody.

Are links not allowed in the forum's?  If not, my apologies to Upwork Admin.  Feel free to delete the entire post if you wish.  I have it out of my system now.

[screeler]

that face is one of my personalities! how'd you get a picture of him?????

[jsutherland]

Another fake profile. What's up with this?

[suznee]

---

@Jean S wrote:

Another fake profile. What's up with this?

---

What do you mean what is up with it. There have been fake profiles on here ever since I can remember. It is nothing new. I assume because of the shear number of them, that as soon as Upwork gets them shut down they open a bunch more accounts. 

[jsutherland]

---

@Suzanne N wrote:

---

@Jean S wrote:

Another fake profile. What's up with this?

---

What do you mean what is up with it. There have been fake profiles on here ever since I can remember. It is nothing new. I assume because of the shear number of them, that as soon as Upwork gets them shut down they open a bunch more accounts. 

---

I was rhetorically asking Upwork "Whats up with this" 

And he has the nerve to list himself as Fluent in English. Geesh!!!

[randymyers]

To whom are you typing at.  Who has a fake profile?

[randymyers]

Found it in a Google search for "Insane".  I love it.

[ingdar84]

It's logical that freelancers who can work at these conditions are those where the cost of living is really low in their countries. These conditions make most of all clients stingy, very demanding and arrogant...

I think that Upwork miss a system that prevent this kind of work... I mean a system that blocks too poor budget by clients for some type of project and, viceversa, too poor offer by freelancer which leads to unfair competition.

[randymyers]

Agreed.

[prestonhunter]

In order to facilitate a system which is generally workable, Upwork allows for a free flow of information and conversation between contractors and clients.

Given that this is the case, it simply is not possible fo Upwork to block clients from asking contractors to do free work.

Upwork already bans this practice officially, but it can not physically prevent it.

This means it is the responsibility of contractors to ensure that clients do not get free work done.

Liken it to Walmart. At Walmart, ALL of the employees will respond in the same way when a "customer" asks: May I take this big screen TV home, try it out, and then come back and pay for it if I like it?

All Walmart employees say "no."

Thus, this question is rarely asked.

It is the responsibility of Upwork contractors to politely say "no."

Until we all say no with a unified voice, some "clients" will continue to to think that asking for free work is okay.

[ingdar84]

No, i'm totally disagree with you, simply because there are strong differences between employees and freelancers.
Employees at Walmart need to obey to some rules that prevent them to act individually, perhaps to make some mistakes (e.g. to stole a TV, as you talking about). They are paid by Walmart (retribution + taxes), maybe from x months or y years. They know who is their client, so they just need to follow these rules without thinking about, otherwise risk a dismissal.
Freelancers think and act in a different way... A freelancer, in order to overcome competitors, needs to conquest confidence of clients, sometimes sacrificing time and work, maybe also money, just to send a good proposal.
But world is big and countries have different economies, life cost isn't equal for all freelancers.
An example: a client needs to draw a house or needs a logo or sth else, 100 freelancers bid on project, all with nice potentials and feedbacks, but a 10% doesn't meet minimum qualifications for the project and a 70% can finish the work without problems (someone with nice results, someone with minimum/sufficient results). There's always a 20% instead that can make the job done without problems, also with good quality but with poor prices, "near-free" prices.
Who the client will choose?
By the way i always see something like 2 or 3$/hr to get a job done, or 5$/10$ for a fixed price and there're always someone that bid on! Coincidentally always freelancers that come from a certain part of the world...
However I am not surprised about anything, after all this is the globalization effect, no?
I would have just expected more control on projects publication...

[colettelewis]

"Liken it to Walmart. At Walmart, ALL of the employees will respond in the same way when a "customer" asks: May I take this big screen TV home, try it out, and then come back and pay for it if I like it?

All Walmart employees say "no." "

Well they would to a free tryout that is true, but if you buy your big screen - you can return in it within 90 days (admittedly with all its packaging) - quite generous . . .

(the return time on electronic goods is 15 days)

So the analogy falls apart, as all too often, clients will pay  and then force a return against bad feedback.

[prestonhunter]

Eh. It's just an analogy. I know I won't win a Nobel Price in Economics for the Walmart analogy.

The point is, clients should never ask contractors to work for free, but it's up to contractors to enforce this.

Complain all you want about the problem, but until contractors put a stop to it, it won't stop.

I can't control what miscreant free-working contractors do, but I CAN control what I do. So at least as far as my clients go, no, I won't work for free prior to getting hired.

And I really do think that anybody, no matter your situation or economic status, should feel sick to their stomach about even considering asking contractors on Upwork to work for free.

In the United States you don't just leave a fine dining restaurant without leaving a tip, you don't kick a neighbor's dog in the head because you don't like the breed, you don't tell first-graders that you'll give them cookies and them spray them with pepper spray instead, and you don't ask Upwork contractors to work for free. Decent people don't do these things.

[colettelewis]

"In the United States you don't just leave a fine dining restaurant without leaving a tip, you don't kick a neighbor's dog in the head because you don't like the breed, you don't tell first-graders that you'll give them cookies and them spray them with pepper spray instead, and you don't ask Upwork contractors to work for free. Decent people don't do these things."

"Decent" people do a lot of unspeakable things - both in the United States and elsewhere.

Preston, I can't really believe you just wrote this. "Decent" people have been known to lynch, and yes, to kick dogs because they don"t like the breed - and indeed to kick people because they don't like the breed. Please, do not try to take the moral high ground because you happen to believe that Americans are superior.

[screeler]

Decent" people do a lot of unspeakable things - both in the United States and elsewhere.

I beg to differ Nichola. 

Decent people don't lynch anyone, nor do they abuse humans or animals. If they were decent they wouldn't have acted like monsters right? 

Oh and decent people in Canada don't leave without paying a tip (poor ones do, but they're not going to go to a restaurant anyway, most likely they'll go to McD's or Burger King if they're feeling rich at the first of the month.), and they don't kick dogs, and decent Canadians don't try to rip people off they hire to work for them. 

When I say that, I'm speaking about what I know, and/or my opinion and  I'm not bragging about Canada at all. 

[prestonhunter]

The part about "in the United States" was only meant as a qualifier for paying tips. In many countries, tipping in restaurants is NOT the custom. Sorry if the grammatical construction in that sentence was incorrect and conveyed the wrong idea.