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amt17
Community Member

Cheap clients promising 5* for work

A client continuously lists jobs indicating that the freelancer will get 5* (for very low paid work).

 

The client hired a freelancer at $3/hour. The freelancer worked more than 300 hours and did not get any feedback at all although the title of the job description indicated one would get a 5 star review if one worked for $3/hour.

 

The client hired another freelancer at $3/hour. The freelancer worked for more than 200 hours and did not receive any review at al despite the job description indicating the one would get a 5 star review when working for $3/hour.

 

The client hired yet another freelancer at $3/hour. The freelancer worked more than 175 hours and never got any feedback despite the job title indicating that was the deal.

 

The client hired a freelancer at $4/hour. The freelancer worked more than 600 hours and received a less than 5 star feedback.

 

The client hired another freelancer at $4/hour. The freelancer worked more than 80 hours and received no feedback.

 

It's a clear pattern with this client that includes the low pay and 5* in the titles of most of their job listings.

 

The client has a pattern of doing this.

 

My question: Why is this acceptable to or at least condoned by Upwork?

 

13 REPLIES 13
michael_skaggs
Community Member

Definitely reeks of a scam to me -- promising 5-star reviews to gullible/new freelancers in exchange for the cheapest rates allowed on Upwork. But they are paying them for the job done (whatever that is) at the agreed-upon rate, and probably finding any excuse possible to legitimize not leaving the promised reviews. So it might not be technically violating any policies.

 

Horribly, utterly, ridiculously unethical, though. That much is certain.


Michael S wrote:

Definitely reeks of a scam to me -- promising 5-star reviews to gullible/new freelancers in exchange for the cheapest rates allowed on Upwork. But they are paying them for the job done (whatever that is) at the agreed-upon rate, and probably finding any excuse possible to legitimize not leaving the promised reviews. So it might not be technically violating any policies.

 

Horribly, utterly, ridiculously unethical, though. That much is certain.


It would be a violation of Upwork's TOS if the client did leave a 5* review in fulfillment of a promise, as that would be feedback manipulation. As far as I know, making false promises is not a violation of TOS.

luce-neidert
Community Member

Another type of client Upwork should get rid of are clients who request illegal "rewriting" of articles, and even say that the new articles needs to be able to pass plagiarism tests. And then, you look at their past records and notice that many freelancers have had this illegal activity for them. I have flagged that type of offer many times, but this doesn't seem to stop this sort of activity.

 

To go back to your original topic, Annette, there are many things to be said about clients who have a history of  paying $5, $10 for jobs  that must take much longer to complete that it was worth. 

To begin with, they are not allowed to bargain a cheap job for a 5 star review, just flag their offer. Then, if they are not even ethical enough to keep their promise, we should really ask Upwork to see what they can do about this situation.

 

I guess it's up to us freelancers to take the time to denounce what they find unacceptable, until Upwork does something about it.


To begin with, they are not allowed to bargain a cheap job for a 5 star review, just flag their offer. Then, if they are not even ethical enough to keep their promise, we should really ask Upwork to see what they can do about this situation.

I did flag it yesterday. This is one of the worse listings of that nature I have seen so I also contacted support to make sure someone had a look at it.

 

Today the job listing is still up.

Don't totally despair, sometimes job offers I had flagged suddenly disappeared.

No despair here. But I am seriously pissed off on behalf of my fellow freelancers who bust their a**** for sorry breadcrumbs, get messed about and to add slight to injury don't receive the promised feedback.

 

If Upwork condones the tradeoff of cheap labour for 5* feedback, at least support the freelancers who put in the numerous hours to get them. But as we all know, when it comes to any talk about feedback, Upwork takes The 5th and refers to a generic blog article.

Annette, I have no idea whether this works, but read Graham's post:

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/False-budgets/m-p/569922#M346404

 

He's now trying reporting to customer services. I'd like to know if this works. Please let me know.

Agreed. I just report and move on. There are tons of great clients on Upwork so I won’t need to settle for breadcrumbs. You can’t live like that.


Luce N wrote:

Another type of client Upwork should get rid of are clients who request illegal "rewriting" of articles, and even say that the new articles needs to be able to pass plagiarism tests. And then, you look at their past records and notice that many freelancers have had this illegal activity for them. I have flagged that type of offer many times, but this doesn't seem to stop this sort of activity.


There is nothing "illegal" about the rewriting of articles one ownes.

Most (not all) of those jobs are for clients who have a bunch of websites (affiliate, advertising) and need content for them. It is cheaper to spin existing (owned) articles than to come up with original content all the time. It is generally simply to feed the search engines.

Hi Petra, I must disagree.

 

When clients say that the articles belong to them and only need to be modified a little, it makes sence and I don't have anything against that. But when they say the new articles need to be able to pass plagiarism tests, it sounds too fishy.


Luce N wrote:

 

When clients say that the articles belong to them and only need to be modified a little, it makes sence and I don't have anything against that. But when they say the new articles need to be able to pass plagiarism tests, it sounds too fishy.


They need to pass plagiarism tests because when search engines find duplicates, it lowers the search ranking. That is why (most?) aricles are spun. To feed more or less the same content across numerous websites or pages, without them all tanking in the rankins because search engines detect plagiarism. "Modifying a little" does not achieve that.

OK, but I really think they should add that the article belongs to them to make things clear. Some do.


Luce N wrote:

OK, but I really think they should add that the article belongs to them to make things clear. Some do.


I get where you are coming from 🙂 - Honest clients likely don't think that they would have to specifically mention it, only those who have been questioned do.

 

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