whats the no 1 reason why you will wanna leave upwork?

[45449d47]

as a freelancer, whats the no 1 reason why you will wanna leave upwork and go for another freelancer marketplace?

I know theres pro and cons about upwork, but this time I wanna know about your opinion on this

[prestonhunter]

Let's be brutally honest about this:
I feel bad about newbie freelancers who get scammed.

But I don't get scammed.

And scammers don't contact me.

So if REAL clients have a higher "barrier to entry" when trying to use Upwork, and end up not posting jobs here and hiring freelancers here, I think that hurts me rather than helps me.

[roberty1y]

Yes. Scamming is nearly always preventable by the freelancers, even if Upwork does nothing about it. Anyway, if payment verification were made compulsory for anyone posting a job, the scammers would get over that hurdle soon enough. Stolen credit card details are on sale in their millions on the dark web.

[feed_my_eyes]

If you're capable of vetting clients yourself, then why can't other freelancers do the same? When I get an offer from a brand-new client here, I request a video call before accepting the job, insist on an hourly contract, and use the time tracker religiously. I've done over 400 jobs so far, and been paid every single time - no disputes, no scams, no problems.

What do you think would happen if Upwork did vet clients for us? Not only would it cost more money and put some clients off of using the site at all, but then freelancers wouldn't take any responsibility whatsoever for the clients that they work with nor the jobs they accept. Just look at all the people who get scammed because they think that "payment verified" means that they can disengage their brains and accept any shady, ridiculously high-paying job that comes their way. If Upwork starts saying that clients are vetted, it will only lead to more problems, because there would still be no way to guarantee that people won't get ripped off. Simply verifying ID wouldn't stop a client from doing a chargeback, or requesting endless revisions, or failing to fund a new milestone, or any of the other things that freelancers complain about. 

I'm sorry, but there's no substitute for learning how things work, vetting your own clients, and using your common sense. If someone can't do that, then they're not cut out to be a freelancer.

[45449d47]

yes, simply dont apply to unverified payment method projects

[feed_my_eyes]

And you know of other freelancing websites where these problems don't exist?

---

Jeremiah B wrote:

5. End the legal scare tactics and threats of lawsuit when someone is simply trying to abide by the terms of service.

---

What are you talking about?

[jeremiah-brown]

If I told you I would be in violation of the terms of service.  

[the-right-writer]

Even a court case can be discussed in limited terms. If you can't supply any reasoning or facts to support a claim, I am forced to dismiss it as a personal issue.

[jeremiah-brown]

I am simply abiding by the terms of service. 

Just a few posts down you are adament about following the rules and terms of service.  Now you want me to break the terms of service or you "will be forced to dismiss it as a personal issue".  You are free to believe whatever you wish, it makes no difference to me.  I don't need anyone's approval to know what is fact.

[jeremiah-brown]

This is why I can't discuss it:

[roberty1y]

There's no reason to leave, because it costs nothing to stay, even if you're getting no jobs. If you do leave, you can't come back, at least not unless you ask Upwork nicely to make an exception for you.

[martina_plaschka]

I don't wanna leave. I like it here.

[roberty1y]

Same here, I'm staying on. Until I'm carried off in a wooden box by with Community Gurus (sorry, Members) as pallbearers.

[the-right-writer]

We'll still wish you the best in the afterlife. (from a lowly community member.)

[roberty1y]

Thanks. In freelancers' Valhalla, all proposals result in immediate hires, and all reviews are five stars.

[a_lipsey]

---

Robert Y wrote:

Thanks. In freelancers' Valhalla, all proposals result in immediate hires, and all reviews are five stars.

---

And private feedback?

[roberty1y]

Clients who give bad private feedback will be safely confined to eternal damnation. In the 9th circle of Hell, with the scammers.

[the-right-writer]

I am not planning on leaving. I have a few clients in the physical world, and I occasionally work in other areas because I do not like having every egg in a single basket.

As Preston mentioned, the request for changes should be eliminated or changed in a way that does not allow some clients to enslave a freelancer. The scams are annoying if they get through my filters, but I have never been scammed. The connect situation is absurd, and the free for all freelancer roundup is creating massive amounts of proposals along with the connect freelancer scams. Are these problems? Yes. Should they be corrected? Yes. Do they have more scams than other platforms? Yes, because there are more freelancers and clients than on other platforms. Are these reasons enough to leave? No. Does every platform have issues? Yes.

Every place online or in brick and mortar land has issues. There is nothing so egregious about Upwork that would make me leave.

[81f2681a]

I´m not going to leave. I´m a new freelancer in UpWork that cames from another marketplace. And why I left the site was working on? Because the other marketplace was full of scammers and "clients" offering very low prices to do 3D jobs. A lot of them asked me to work and deliver the job completed without an order, they always promisses place order after the job is done. Of course I never did it. When you are in a marketplace wich a lot of people wants your work, but don´t want to pay for it, you want to go to another marketplace.

So, why I decided to invest my time and efforts working in UpWork? Because here I felt that the clients is better and willing to pays what my works worths. I have better tools to manage my jobs and I can have an agency and work with my brothers. Reading the foruns, I noticed a lot of freelancers complains about scammers, well scammers is in every marketplace, but as I was in a lot of maketplaces before, I can say that UpWork is the one that has less scammers among all. Doesn´t means that UpWork can rest and thinks all is ok, the fight against scammers must be constant, scammers will try to get territory as much as they can.

And about verifying client identity, I completely agree, clients must have their identity verified. It is useless a marketplace having a lot of job post, and attract a lot of freelancers, if less than half is real jobs. Freelancers is here to work, they wants to find real jobs, if we can´t find real jobs, we will go to another marketplace. I left other marketplaces because the high number of scammers, fake jobs and low price jobs. Please UpWork, don´t turn to be what other marketplaces are. Keeps fighting, and makes the clients verify their identity as we freelancers does.

[feed_my_eyes]

Why would you need to leave Upwork in order to use another freelancing website? You can join as many as you like - they don't require exclusivity.

[ayushman720]

There is no reason to leave Upwork, but I think there are scammers also they are scamming freelancers.

[the-right-writer]

That is an interesting observation for someone who has been here for 24 hours. How is Upwork scamming the freelancers?

[a_lipsey]

I'm not leaving. I leave this Community at times in frustration with what happens here, but honestly I find good clients on Upwork, and we manage to deal with Upwork's crappy UI and succeed despite Upwork's best efforts to prevent that. 

What would I like to change? I would like to be able to click on a client profile and see their previous jobs and reviews. If they send a direct message or offer, I can't see those things. I can only see those things from a job post. That and the fact that agency contracts can't be assigned to the agency are probably my biggest pet peeves. Everything else I can deal with. 

I have plenty of qualms about the new freelancers, how they on board them to the platform, and the scammers, but honestly, my consideration there isn't for myself. I don't have personal concerns on many of these things. I conduct my business very specifically to my consulting firm. But I suppose I have moral or ethical concerns regarding the things Upwork does, which is why I participate and try to help newer freelancers here. 

[moonraker]

I've no intention of leaving. It works for me.

But I do wish they'd stop doing silly things.

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi All,

We've been following this thread and see that there is some great feedback and observations being shared here. Also, I'm happy to see that the majority of you have no plans of leaving Upwork. 
We understand that the participants of this thread may take different approaches to using Upwork and have different opinions on what may need to be changed or improved, we would be happy to share this discussion with our Product team. However, I'd like to remind you to be mindful of the Community Guidelines and respectful toward other users when posting even when voicing dissent or criticism. Otherwise, we may have to close this thread. 
Thank you!

[financemark]

Same, I'm not leaving.

I have been critical of much here, but I also earn fairly well on the platform, and I have noticed many positive changes being made by management.

I dont believe there exists a competitor on the same level as UW.

A few nits:

-I would welcome the exit of client's ability to provide secret feedback

-I also continue to see a vast number of questionable job postings: I don't believe UW puts much $ into cleaning the platform of the trash - wish they would.

[colettelewis]

Well the OP who only seems to have posted once, certainly seems to have elicited the responses he has wanted - including a caution from a moderator! I'm looking forward to seeing  the 3 millionth guide to freelancing (for or against) on Upwork. 😉

[kochubei_valeria]

All, 

A few comments have been removed from this thread as they weren't related to the main topic of the thread and were leading this conversation to an unproductive direction. Please, be mindful of the Community Guidelines and respectful toward other members. Note that interpersonal disputes and personal attacks are not allowed. 

[jeremiah-brown]

never mind.  I can't comment

[alexandernovikov]

I don't want to leave Upwork, i am overall happy here, but the one thing i don't like (although i've never personally been the victim of it) is that, due to the way Upwork processes payments, it can't really enforce it's ToS. Meaning, clients are not "allowed" to do chargebacks but they actually can. Yes they lose their Upwork accounts as a result but they usually don't care. It enables multiple scams (such as the famous "buy me crypto" scam) and overall creates an asymmetry whereas the client is to a considerable extent "free" from obeying ToS while freelancer isn't.

Upwork should consider switching to payment processors that don't facilitate chargebacks, which are plentiful (imagine if people could charge back money they pay on porn sites?). There are "bulletproof" payment processors in third world countries that accept credit cards, charging a slightly higher commission but making chargebacks impossible.

[45449d47]

this thread was supposed to be constructive. Just take whats good fromm here