Misleading Hourly Ranges On Job Posts

[scioncopywriting]

Hello there, fellow freelancers!

I wanted to ask if anyone else has noticed that job posts often suggest a budget the client has on an hourly basis but with no intention of ever paying even the minimum of this range.

Secondly, has anyone perhaps thought of a way we could protect our valuable time from such clients?

The most common example of such a case would be getting interviewed by a client after you have bid an hourly rate that is by chance a bit lower than the minimum the client has stated that he wants to get charged (because you charge all your clients the same rate out of principle). The result is not positive in such a case for me; I have never landed a job where I bid lower than the client's budget (I'm not doing it to be competitive, however).

Are these clients intrigued by the fact that I bid outside that range in the direction more cost-efficient for them and they think they can get the work for an even lower rate? I am asking this question because the fault may lie with me instead and these clients' budgets reflect their true intentions.

But I think that clients actually deliberately misrepresent their intentions in an effort to mislead and receive a lot of proposals (no matter how naive this practice may prove in the long term).

If we as freelancers cannot protect our time with such cases, maybe there is a way for Upwork to do that for us? Can there be a policy that punishes this practice if there is evidence that the client has no intention to even pay the minimum of his supposed budget?

[martina_plaschka]

Why are you surprised that the client wants to hire you on the rate you bid? If you don't want to work for that rate, don't offer to. 

[scioncopywriting]

Martina, I must apologize for the misunderstanding because I can now see that I must have not clearly expressed what I intended.

I did not mean that I am surprised that the client will want me to work at the rate I bid; that was my intention anyway (to work at the rate I work for all my current clients). If this were not the case, I would actually be the one who misrepresented their intentions and tried to mislead. Something I would not publicly admit, of course.

There are many clients who never intend to pay any of the values within the range they have claimed to be their budget. Irrespective of what bids they receive, their budgets don't reflect what they intend to pay. I won't get work from a client who does this as they think that because my rate happens to be below their budget, they can get an even lower rate.

This is problematic as you can imagine because both the client and I waste time.

[tlsanders]

I've not had that experience, but I don't know that I've ever bid below a client's posted range. Like you, I bid my rate regardless of what the job posting says and that's almost always considerably higher than the posted budget or range. But, I've often had clients accept the higher rate.

[scioncopywriting]

Thank you for your reply. I can see why you wouldn't face this issue.

If you bid higher than their budgets, not getting the job may be attributed to the fact that your bid is higher than the client's budget; in which case they are justified and nobody can blame them for misrepresenting their budget.

In my case, however, I get interviewed by clients who apparently have no intention to pay anything within their stated budget and must be intrigued to see if my proposed rate is as fake as their proposed budgets.

And I think something must be done about these clients. I have no issue with what they can afford, of course. But they need to be honest about it right there on their job posts. If I screen for work based on the hourly rate, I use this filter to save time. If clients are permitted to be misleading about their budgets, the filter is not as valuable.