Freelancer.com has ruined my life • Hacker News Board

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#201

Post by Exuma » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 5:15 PM UTC

jondubois wrote: post #200

Exuma wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In their defense, the one thing that bothers me most is if I specifically tell someone to code something a certain way (for example, to skip tests on this project), and they don't listen and do it anyway because "it's the right way." I on the other hand know what is right for my project... not the person I'm hiring. That's why I asked X person to do it a specific way. Btw Im not saying they arent toxic, they sound li…

They didn't give me any instructions about how to implement the feature. I had just arrived 2 weeks earlier and there was a lot of code there so it would have been impossible for me to get it to work (without breaking existing stuff) if I did not write tests. Also this is a company that handles business transactions; high-value stuff; there should have been more tests.

Fair enough, sounds like a horrible place to work. D:

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#202

Post by mac01021 » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 5:18 PM UTC

nickjj wrote: post #195

Like most marketplaces, they are only interested in making themselves profitable. Always remember that. Working at freelancer.com or similar sites is saying: "I should spend a large portion of my life to become an expert in my craft, and then I should agree to have my privacy stripped away from me while I race to the bottom and undercut my competition because I will actively place myself into situations where I have…

So after you take down the number on that ice cream truck you saw driving by, and get back home from your walk and decide to call them, what do you say? Just, "hi! Do you need any software developed"?

I've never tried, but it's a little hard for me to imagine ever getting a client this way.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#203

Post by gexla » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 5:20 PM UTC

BjoernKW wrote: post #143

scriptproof wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the OP was expecting something else than a string of blames and moral lessons in his situation. You are definitively an asshole.

You might not believe it - me being an asshole after all - but I do feel sorry for the author. The best he probably can (and from his writing likely does) expect from this on a personal level is to have learned a valuable lesson and to serve as cautionary tale for others to not fall in the same trap. He likely has little in the way of legal recourse but he'd have to consult with a lawyer for that anyway.

I'm also an asshole because I was downvoted heavy for the same sort of stand.

As with any business, he needs to realize this isn't working and move on to something else. If he's staring at the possibility of being homeless after 5 years on this platform, then something isn't working and he will need major change so that the next 5 years doesn't end with the same results.

Running a business requires a certain management capability. At #1 on the list of financial bullets which can take you down is medical expenses. If you're writing a to-do list and there's a pack of wolves ransacking your house, then that problem should be at the top of your list. This guy got cleaned out by medical expenses. He didn't mention anything beyond the money, so I assume that the injury wasn't a major barrier to work. He had savings, but he probably didn't have medical insurance. That's a major fail.

If you're going into business dressed up like an employee, then prepare to be a victim. If you go into business fully expecting to run a business, then your #1 priority is business survival. There are no victims in business survival stories, only funerals.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#204

Post by jimothywales » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

mac01021 wrote: post #202

nickjj wrote: post #195

Like most marketplaces, they are only interested in making themselves profitable. Always remember that. Working at freelancer.com or similar sites is saying: "I should spend a large portion of my life to become an expert in my craft, and then I should agree to have my privacy stripped away from me while I race to the bottom and undercut my competition because I will actively place myself into situations where I have…

So after you take down the number on that ice cream truck you saw driving by, and get back home from your walk and decide to call them, what do you say? Just, "hi! Do you need any software developed"? I've never tried, but it's a little hard for me to imagine ever getting a client this way.

Well you should try it next time because that's how I got one of my first clients on my own. A local food truck showed up to my uni quite often and I noticed their website wasn't great, so one day I walked up to them and asked if they were looking for a redesign. They eagerly said yes and I met with the whole family (it was a family business) 3 days later. It was a really unfulfilling contract but it illustrated to me how effective direct sales tactics can actually be.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#205

Post by joering2 » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

lsmod wrote: post #73

Stay away from Freelancer.com They reversed two milestone payments i had received, becasue they had to suspend the buyer's account due to some issues with the buyer's payment method. Note that this is after completing the project fully and leaving feedback for each other. I left the money on my Freelancer account, becasue they are/were having issues with Skrill withdrawals. It was there for about a month and they sud…

Sorry to hear you worked for free; noone likes that. I feel for you and had much more problems with freelancer than with upwork.

Anyways, depending of how much money they kept from you, you might want to seek a lawyer help or see if Australian Division of preventing Cyber Fraud will be willing to look into it. Freelancer is trading on the Australian Securities and is not some pops&moms Nigerian LTD corp.

Good luck to you.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#206

Post by nkrisc » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 5:30 PM UTC

pmorici wrote: post #105

nkrisc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious: why would you accept a job to do the impossible? Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding and his refusal to pay was totally separate from the fact his whole idea was flawed?

I'm glossing over the details. The actual description of the software the guy wanted written was very straight forward. That said something like, Python program that imports the historical pick-4 results from the North Carolina Lottery and allowed the user to look-up the last date those numbers were picked regardless of order. The job had a fixed price of $10. This was a long time ago but I think my thought process w…

That makes much more sense. Thanks for satisfying my curiosity.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#207

Post by gardenpuppet » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 5:31 PM UTC

jondubois wrote: post #189

I worked for Freelancer.com briefly as a software engineer at their HQ in Sydney for about 1 month (that was in the year before their IPO) - I was fresh out of university. The culture within the company was toxic. They treat developers like crap - Both those who use the platform and those who work at HQ. They fired me after 1 month during my probation because I was too slow to implement a feature because I was spendi…

Sounds like you learned a valuable life lesson.

It's always been obvious that freelancer had no test platform and that they would simply push releases to production and wait for things to break, and then maybe fix them.

The most interesting lesson from this was that this attitude has no apparent downside. Users either don't care, don't even notice, or sadly, may have no choice given that there are not many sites that fill this niche.

The company went public a few years ago, investors have no clue as to what's under the hood, and tbh it doesn't seem to matter much.

It's interesting to see what freelancer is doing now that they are accountable. Me, I think it will be more of the same.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#208

Post by rdiddly » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #121

opmac wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic victim blaming. What you say is mostly true, but it completely glosses over the potential issues raised by this post. So what if the author made a mistake about using Freelancer.com? That doesn't change the fact that what Freelancer is _supposedly_ doing here is incredibly shady and they should be held accountable. The only real issue I have with the author's post is there are a lot of details missing. What d…

Does anybody have a theory as to why victim-blaming is such a popular response on HN? I don't see it nearly as much elsewhere.

Victim-blaming is rampant everywhere, first of all. And while those thoughts might not get typed in as much on Facebook where everything is happy-happy-happy and like-like-like, I bet they're being thought. Here on HN there's no such cultural slant toward positivity, but there is one toward intellectualism. And hey, whatever else victim-blaming is, it's sort of interesting as an intellectual idea.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#209

Post by rdiddly » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

gexla wrote: post #194

bkanber wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, in my opinion as a software development freelancer marketing and sales is a key part of your business. That is 100% your opinion. It is far from a rule that you should expect others to adhere to, especially given that there are tons of services out there that promise to remove that need. It's almost as if different people design, build and execute their lives differently, using different values. You're get…

In what universe is marketing and sales not a key element of a business? That's like saying Samsung doesn't have to put effort into marketing and sales just because it's important for Apple. Sales and marketing IS a universal truth in business. Try telling shareholders/stakeholders that it's not. That a business sells software is irrelevant. That a business is run by one person is irrelevant. Outsourcing your marketi…

You're right but just want to add, an employee is a business too, with sales/marketing duties. Not helping with the confusion perhaps.

Re: Freelancer.com has ruined my life

#210

Post by justboxing » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

jondubois wrote: post #189

I worked for Freelancer.com briefly as a software engineer at their HQ in Sydney for about 1 month (that was in the year before their IPO) - I was fresh out of university. The culture within the company was toxic. They treat developers like crap - Both those who use the platform and those who work at HQ. They fired me after 1 month during my probation because I was too slow to implement a feature because I was spendi…

> because I was too slow to implement a feature because I was spending extra time writing tests.

This. Just yesterday, I was asked by an interviewer at a Startup. "How do you test your code? Do you write tests? What's your familiarity with TDD."

My answer: "I prefer to do a test driven approach. However, none of the companies I worked for allocated time for writing tests in the sprint, so I have not been able to actually do this in practice. I usually debug my code and run it through all the happy path and edge cases."

Was bitten once very early in my career just like OP, and decided to only write tests after initial coding, if there was time left. Most (not all) Companies expect you to do TDD, but never allocate time for it in the estimation. So I've made it a point to ask the PM if there was time allowed for writing tests in the estimate, and if they say something like "Oh no we don't have time for that" I don't do it.