Front-end developer Alexey Ustinov told how, while working on an order with Upwork, he did not receive the promised funds due to strange requirements, either from the freelance platform or from the client.
Front-end developer Alexey Ustinov told how, while working on an order with Upwork, he did not receive the promised funds due to strange requirements, either from the freelance platform or from the client.
«Time for trash stories, or how a client and Upwork threw almost $200. I found a client, worked with him, and worked with the Upwork counter, because I thought it was guaranteed protection against scammers. But after three days the client «got angry,» the programmer said .
Oleksiy filed a complaint with Upwork technical support. «Because I knew that I was constantly turning on the timer, which took screenshots about every 10 minutes. As it turned out, this was not enough, because you also need to add a memo to your activities, which I didn’t know about (or maybe I just forgot). Upwork said: you’re a sucker, you’re sitting there without money,» the programmer says.
Then Oleksiy started writing to the client and asking for payment for the 18 hours worked. «For which the client simply blocked me. I’m a loser, I paid for it, next time I’ll be smarter,» the developer noted.
Mykola Sydorenko, a computer systems engineer, notes that Upwork should understand the situation. «Yes, but isn’t your correspondence taken into account? Upwork itself recommends that all correspondence be done on it so that it can be seen how the customer reacts to your work! It’s logical that if he just took it without any comments and got angry, then it’s his fault. This stupid posting of the job description looks very strange somehow… It’s like you can’t take the dialogue into account? Then why do they demand it? Has Upwork become extremely brutal?» he asks.
Roman Skorokhod, FullStack Developer, calls this quote «valuable experience for a relatively small fee.»
And 3D Artist Oleksandr Dotsenko notes that in addition to the description, when working with Upwork, it is also advisable to turn on the timer in the first minutes of every 10 minutes and turn it off in the last. «If you turn on the timer for one minute, for example, it will count 10 minutes, but it will show the customer that there was no action for 10 minutes. In short, there are enough nuances, but it is better to choose clients very responsibly, because in addition to the fact that they can quit, they can also spoil the statistics,» he advises.
Upwork Expert and QA Consultant Kostya Kray notes: «Hourly is almost a 100% guarantee, but memo is really important in this case.
This seems like an unnecessary hurdle for Upwork to side with the client.»
«This is far from the worst thing that can happen. Upwork allows you to dispute time for the past 6 months, and if you worked full-time without a memo, or used manual time, the consequences can be very unpleasant,» says Certified Senior Jira Consultant Nazariy Sobchuk.
