Hello everyone,
I´m going to explain my situation in case someone had the same problem.
As I read, most of you had some bad experiences with the tracking app, and so do I. Last month I worked for a client on an hourly contract and after waiting for the billing period, Upwork decided to refund all the money to the client. Result: 1.460$ lost. No refunds, no bonus, no nothing...
Today I was supposed to be paid for another hourly contract and the same happened.
The thing is this: I´m a composer and producer, which means I can not be all the time clicking the mouse or the keyboard because I need to be composing, playing instruments, and also listening to what I´m creating for the mixing process etc.( more than the 80% of the total time basically) The tracking app doesn´t count that so, it means that all the hours I spent playing the instruments to produce the songs, mixing and mastering,...doesn´t count it seems.
Final results: My clients had 2 original compositions fully produced and I got 0$ for my work.
I´m very disappointed and I would like to place a claim for this. Does it mean musicians are not a good fit for the tracking app? Why Upwork is not taking this into account for producers and musicians on hourly contracts? I think Upwork should do something about it because nowadays I´m in trouble for not being paid and also very annoyed for giving away my work just for free. I´m a top-rated freelancer, and I´m working through Upwork for a lot of years now, but this is really disappointing.
I already contacted support and they just tell me that the tracking app is counting the clicks and screenshots and there is nothing else I could do but ask for a bonus to my clients. Really??
I did that and, of course, the clients just disappeared. My screenshots were clean and showing I was producing the music correctly.
And another reason they gave me, which was the drop that filled the glass, is that I had a High Hourly Rate. Let´s see...is there any policy that says you need to price your services on any standard value?
I think this is a free market. There are new people and others like me that made a career with more than 20 years. If I value my work is because I think it´s worth it. There will be clients that are accepting it and others that not. But I do value my work. Why Upwork is telling me that my rate per hour is high? Is there a price limit per hour?
If there are any freelancers that went through something similar, could you please help me to push it? I think it makes sense that we get paid on hourly contracts even if we need to be playing instruments and not clicking the mouse at the same time, don´t you think? Thanks to all.
