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davidsonjoshua
Community Member

Upwork Owes Freelancers Better Support in Protecting Ourselves

A recent "hot" discussion "Cynical Upwork!!!" was just closed, leaving unanswered many important questions about how freelancers can avoid client fraud, which is apparently quite common. The Gurus did their best to explain all of the loopholes in the Upwork Terms of Service that render such features as Payment Verification and Payment Protection scant in general, and meaningless in far too many scenarios.

 

What seemed clear in the discussion -- and was said in several Guru responses explicitly, if not intentionally -- is that Upwork fails miserably to inform freelancers in the event of a fraud, or about the frequency of client scams, and makes no coordinated effort to educate us as to how we can better protect ourselves on the platform, other than to suggest that we memorize the Terms of Service.

 

We deserve better. We pay a hefty fee to Upwork on every job completed. Our fees generate the largest proportion of Upwork's revenue. It's downright disgraceful that, when a client commits any fraud upon a freelancer, Upwork just shrugs and thrusts the entire burden of resolution on the Freelancer -- and in some cases even penalizes them.

 

If you're not really going to protects us, Upwork, then at least give us some things to protect ourselves! Actively notify us of the real, drastic limits of Upwork's "protection" and "verification" policies! Call out the nitty-gritty loopholes in the ToS, so that we don't need a microscope and a lawyer to scrutinize them. Hire some friggin' freelancers to make some on-point videos or alerts!

 

Gurus: Some of you have tried to help, but what we need you to do is bring these questions and demands to management, not just act as community  **Edited for Community Guidelines**.

9 REPLIES 9
alexandernovikov
Community Member

I have never witnessed anything like this myself, never been a victim of such a situation, so have nothing to complain about.

But this trend is worrying. I have only started seeing people complaining on it this year and it was terribly intense in the last month or two. I wonder what changed?


Alexander N wrote:

I have never witnessed anything like this myself, never been a victim of such a situation, so have nothing to complain about.


Nor have I. 

 


Alexander N wrote:

But this trend is worrying. 


I don't think there is a trend. Those things have always happened.

 


Alexander N wrote:

I wonder what changed?


I don't think anything changed as far as chargebacks are concerned. You probably just didn't take much notice before. 


What has increased in the last couple of months is the number of freelancers who fall for incredibly dumb scams such as having a "client" "pay" them $1000 via Upwork to send them $500 in crypto currency - who were then incredibly surprised that of course the client's "payment" wasn't real and that they've sent $500 worth of their own money into the untraceable ether never to be seen again, before understanding that when something looks too good to be true, it usually is.

I call that "learning the hard way".

These payments were pre-funded with stolen credit cards? But there is a verification system in place when you attach a credit card as a client, you need to enter those random payment amounts by looking up the account - how someone with a stolen credit card number can do it?

 

Also if that's the case, why don't Upwork just solve this situation by making PayPal the only payment method for new clients before they clock up some history? PayPal's whole business is about fraud prevention so they will do it well.


Alexander N wrote:

These payments were pre-funded with stolen credit cards? But there is a verification system in place when you attach a credit card as a client, you need to enter those random payment amounts by looking up the account - how someone with a stolen credit card number can do it?


Hacked. Phished. Or the card isn't stolen at all, it may simply not have enough credit limit.

Remember that the verification only verifies that the payment method can be charged with the amount of $10 at the time of the verification taking place and that the person has access to the online banking or bank statements.

 

It doesn't verify that the person with the card is honest or that the card can be charged $500 or $1000 or even $1 an hour or even a minute later.

 


Alexander N wrote:

Also if that's the case, why don't Upwork just solve this situation by making PayPal the only payment method for new clients before they clock up some history?


Hacked PayPal accounts are a thing, and it's arguably even easier to pull off fraud with PayPal than with a credit card.

 


Alexander N wrote:

PayPal's whole business is about fraud prevention so they will do it well.


That is so cute... PayPal is wonderfully safe for buyers. NOT for sellers

OK so for the Upwork rules to be actually enforceable, there has to be a payment method that is 100% resistant to chargebacks. Metamask?


Alexander N wrote:

OK so for the Upwork rules to be actually enforceable, there has to be a payment method that is 100% resistant to chargebacks. 


You're too hung up on chargebacks. Why? They are only a small part of it. 

There is no such thing as absolute safety. Never has been, never will be. Life is inherently unsafe. We do our due diligence and hope for the best. That's how you (and I) have so far not been caught up in such things. 

 

Is that 100% safe? No.

Is it 100% safer than people who blindly blunder around the Internet getting involved in get rich quick schemes they should have KNOWN were fraud but didn't care and did it anyway thinking they were "safe"? Totally. Or the people who lose money because they violate the terms of service in so many ways and lose thousands via fake checks? Absolutely! Or the ones that use their own Ebay accounts to "sell" high value goods and end up in debt because (of course) those goods never existed and by the time the buyers want their money back, the fraudsters and the money are long gone? That too.

 

There are just so many preventable kinds of scams on the Internet.

 

Not getting paid is not a platform problem. It's not even an Internet problem. It's a business problem and has been since the Neandertals traded mammoth tusks for furs.

 

According to one survey I read the average (off platform) freelancer loses 13% of their revenue to non-payment of some sort or the other. I believe (but am not 100% certain), that was US only. 


Alexander N wrote:

These payments were pre-funded with stolen credit cards? But there is a verification system in place when you attach a credit card as a client, you need to enter those random payment amounts by looking up the account - how someone with a stolen credit card number can do it?


I assume some countries do chargebacks easier than other, or people buy stollen credit card on the darknet.

feed_my_eyes
Community Member

What you and some other freelancers don't seem to understand is that by choosing to be a freelancer, you are self employed and not employed by Upwork. You seem to want all of the rewards but not any of the risks or responsibilities that this involves. Your clients are your responsibility and it's also your responsibility to read and understand the terms under which you're working.

If you think that Upwork's fees are hefty now, how much heftier would they have to be if they had to take their millions of freelancers by the hand and interview and do background checks on all of their clients for them, and make sure to train them and "protect" them (and somehow force them to watch videos?) Sorry but that's not realistic. They already provide tons of information, but they can't force freelancers to learn any of it. (People even go so far as to cheat by getting answers to Upwork's readiness test from the internet - that's how determined they are not to learn anything whatsoever!)

You also don't seem to be aware that the community gurus are just other freelancers like yourself, who voluntarily spend some of their free time answering questions in the forum (and often take loads of flack for telling people things that they don't want to hear). We have no special access to Upwork's management and don't owe it to you to help you with your "demands".
NikolaS
Moderator
Moderator

Hi All,

 

Thank you all for being a part of this discussion. I will be closing this thread as posting and discussing previously closed threads as well as creating multiple threads for the same topics is considered a violation of Community Guidelines

 

Please, be mindful of the Community Guidelines. 

 

Thank you,

~ Nikola
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