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Junwei's avatar
Junwei K Community Member

Unsatisfactory Client with Shady Business Practices

I applied to a **Edited for Community Guidelines** game translation job a couple weeks ago. The client took an entire week before getting back to me, where things seemed to be going smoothly. He even offered a paid training period, but a day after confirming the details (which didn't match up with the job posting, but more details in a bit), the client suddenly seemed to be in a lot of hurry to get the translation going, and didn't seem to care about letting me finish the training.

 

Next, he mentioned that he needed an editor. I referred a friend for the job, expecting the client to follow procedures and actually create a job posting on Upwork. He simply asked for her email (which I provided albeit reluctantly) then stopped communicating with me since then. Today I just heard from my friend that he reached his target of 5 translators, so I assume he no longer needed my services. In my opinion, the least he could have done was to inform me about it, but that's not the worst part of this whole scheme.

 

Onto the details of the job. The payment provided on Upwork was $1500. His actual rates were $0.04 per source character. This leaves me wondering how the actual payment was going to work out, considering the fact that Sep / Oct is the apparent deadline for this project. As for my friend whom I referred as an editor, her rates were $0.01 per source character. I'm not sure if the disparity here is normal in an actual translation setting, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. The worst part is that he promised to provide an NDA contract and set up a PO so that she could get paid. This was on Monday, and no NDA has been provided to her yet.

 

After doing some research on this client, this is the information I have gathered about him and his company:

  1. Half of his workers aren't getting paid. Source: **Edited for Community Guidelines**
  2.  He has been banned from posting jobs at a specialized freelance translation platform. Source: **Edited for Community Guidelines**

 

I would hope that this client be banned from every freelance platform so that he will no longer be able to take advantage of his workers, but there is only so much I can do. Also, I'm hesitant to force his translators out of the project should he be banned here, but something has to be done about this person. I hope justice will be served accordingly.

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
Petra's avatar
Petra R Community Member


Junwei K wrote:

Spending over $70k tells me very little. Is it over 10 months? 10 years? Spread out across 100 workers? 100,000?


Let me explain it to you:

Client: $ 70k +++

You:    $ 0

 

Makes more sense now?

 


Junwei K wrote:

I am aware. At this point I don't care that I didn't get the job. I'm trying to protect my friend from


If your friend has an Upwork account, she also violated the terms of service when she agreed to work with that client.

Either way, clearly it is none of your business either way.

 

View solution in original post

9 REPLIES 9
Goran's avatar
Goran V Retired Team Member

Hi Junewei,

 

Thank you for reporting this.
Please send me a PM (Click on my name) with the client name or the job posting link. Our team will investigate it further for violations of our TOS and proper actions will be taken.

~ Goran
Upwork
Petra's avatar
Petra R Community Member

You had no contract so the client owes you absolutely nothing. They have spent over $ 70k on Upwork, you want to be a little careful accusing long term clients of being scammers on a public forum - that can backfire in a spectacular manner.

 

 

 

Junwei's avatar
Junwei K Community Member

I am aware. At this point I don't care that I didn't get the job. I'm trying to protect my friend from being scammed. The fact that he bypassed Upwork to get her as an editor is my cause for concern.

 

Spending over $70k tells me very little. Is it over 10 months? 10 years? Spread out across 100 workers? 100,000?

Tonya's avatar
Tonya P Community Member


Junwei K wrote:

I am aware. At this point I don't care that I didn't get the job. I'm trying to protect my friend from being scammed. The fact that he bypassed Upwork to get her as an editor is my cause for concern.

 

Spending over $70k tells me very little. Is it over 10 months? 10 years? Spread out across 100 workers? 100,000?


You realize that you are the reason he was able to bypass Upwork and get her as an editor, right? 

Junwei's avatar
Junwei K Community Member

She doesn't have an account. But I'll admit this was a mistake on my part.

Petra's avatar
Petra R Community Member


Junwei K wrote:

Spending over $70k tells me very little. Is it over 10 months? 10 years? Spread out across 100 workers? 100,000?


Let me explain it to you:

Client: $ 70k +++

You:    $ 0

 

Makes more sense now?

 


Junwei K wrote:

I am aware. At this point I don't care that I didn't get the job. I'm trying to protect my friend from


If your friend has an Upwork account, she also violated the terms of service when she agreed to work with that client.

Either way, clearly it is none of your business either way.

 

Junwei's avatar
Junwei K Community Member

She doesn't have one. But you're right. Clearly the client trying to urge us to start working, while seemingly being evasive and/or delaying writing up a contract BEFORE that, is none of my business at all.

 

**Edited for community guidelines**

 

EDIT: You have a point. I guess it's time to drop this whole thing and move on.

Jennifer's avatar
Jennifer M Community Member

ProTip: A client chatting with you and then backing out is not a scammer.

 

The purge can't come soon enough.

Junwei's avatar
Junwei K Community Member

Not sure where you stopped reading, but it should be clear that the part about backing out was the lesser part of my concern. I know it happens even in a proper job setting.

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