Upwork's Payment Protection New? Rule

[tanya-mikhaylova]

Hi Fellow Freelancers, 

I was told (in writing) something that would be beneficial for other freelancers to know. As you know, to qualify for Upwork's Payment Protection, there is a list of rules you have to follow. No big deal- it seems fairly straight forward and fair.  However, Upwork can subtract time if your activity level is 4 bars or below. Below is a copy and pasted response I received: 

Your time tracker takes 6 random screenshots per hour and along with the memos that you add to your work diary, this gives your client an idea of what you are working on. Between each screenshot, your work diary detects your movement, i.e. keyboard strokes or mouse clicks. For every time slot where you are working 40% and less of the time, it is considered a low activity.
 
Because your client had a problem with their payment, which required Upwork to review your work diary, we found that you had logged low activity.
 
Upwork will reverse time for the following when reviewing your Work Diary:

1. Manual time
2. Any time segment with activity bars with level 4 and under
3. With insufficient or no work memos
4. With more than 10 minutes of activity not about the job itself
5. Activity that violates Upwork’s Terms of Service

In the article about Payment Protection it only says the following about activity levels:

• Maintain adequate and fair activity levels

This of course does not take into account that when we work thinking is involved and we are not just clicking around randomly, nor the fact that sometimes the tracker takes a screen shot seconds after it starts so that the activity level is very low automatically.

I think this is really important info to know and I wish it on the Payment Protection article page. 

[luqman_mak]

Thanks for this. I also read that they payment protection is based on your hourly profile rate*  and not the contract rate (im not sure if that applies if your contract rate is below your profile rate)

*(or in certain situations, an average of your rate/ similar freelancer profile rate..or something like that)

[richard_wein]

It used to be the case that you only had time deducted if you had X low activity segments in an hour.  I can't remember now what X was; maybe 3. You didn't have time deducted for a single low activity segment. However, if you did have X low activity segments in an hour, you lost the WHOLE hour, not just the low activity segments. (At least that's how I remember it.)

The text you quoted (in bold) implies that now it's decided on a segment-by-segment basis. So maybe it's been changed, or maybe that message just described it badly. Anyway, calculating it purely on a segment-by-segment basis would have advantages to the freelancer as well as disadvantages. 

"This of course does not take into account that when we work thinking is involved and we are not just clicking around randomly, nor the fact that sometimes the tracker takes a screen shot seconds after it starts so that the activity level is very low automatically."

It doesn't matter when the screenshot occurs. What counts is how long you've been tracking.  If you start tracking at 12:09, then you will only have one activity bar for the segment 12:00 to 12:10.

In any case, whatever the details,  the system does mean that you are liable to be unfairly penalised if these rules are applied. I guess Upwork has to try to strike a balance between being fair to honest hardworking freelancers and not being taken advantage of by bad freelancers. It just sucks if you are in the first category and you fall afoul of these rules. 

[luqman_mak]

Interesting.
In the mean time, would you think it would be a good idea to start the timer in 10min incriments then?
meaning, you wait until the minute is :10 or :20 and so forth -

[the3dguru]

I didn't know about this. From reading your comment, this appears to happen because the client 'had a problem with their payment'. Is that because the client didn't want to pay for the low activity time? Is it the case that this 4 bar rule only applies if the client disputes something, or does it always happen?

[tanya-mikhaylova]

Hi Steven, 

This is when the client's payment does not go through- card declined or another reason. Not when the client disputes hours or doesn't want to pay. 

[pgiambalvo]

Yes, that should be included, although I doubt most people would read it. Most don't until after something happens that leads them to it.

[the3dguru]

So this is about Upwork having to cover the cost of work the client didn't end up paying for? That is interesting. Although thats not exactly how the I understood the guarantee of hourly paid work, I can see why Upwork wouldn't want to pay for more than they had to. I can also see how unscrupulous people might use it to scam Upwork.