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Upwork just stole $10k from me

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Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#52
post #44

One of the reasons that criminal acts are criminal is that they destroy value. For example, when metal prices go up, criminals steal wires from railway lines. This gains them a couple of hundred bucks of metal, and costs tens of thousands in disruption and reinstallation. This kind of action by companies should be criminal, because they just destroyed economic activity worth at least $10000, because they didn't want…

I would expect that to be illegal already in most jurisdictions. I believe in Germany you could argue it constitutes fraud. Either the client received the work and it’s fine, then the contractor is owed payment for the work. Or the client did not receive the work, then they are owed the payment that they made. Upwork permanently keeping the money from both sides is almost certainly not an option. They might be permitted to keep the funds temporarily while they seek a resolution, but that should have a clear threshold.

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#53

>Provided the documents, went through the visual verification with a webcam, answered the questions, and solved the programming task live, ... Excuse me, WTF? You have to code something in order to get verified? (!)

I have already heard of one story close to me of a company that had to fire someone because they faked their interview coding assignment.

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#54

Spend $100k that he doesn't have on lawyers only to potentially recover $10k good times. Corporations need to be fined millions of dollars every single time this happens even once.

Other way I think these things could be improved if there was legal equality. This means the defendant couldn't spend more on legal help than the claimant. If defendant found using inappropriate legal help, they the ruling would be automatically in favour of the claimant. Example: A big corporation done something wrong and you want them to make things right. You only have $2000 budget and so big corporation will not…

I think in the small claims courts of California, lawyers are banned. Iirc there was a story where someone took Google to small claim and a paralegal appeared to defend google.

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#55

>Provided the documents, went through the visual verification with a webcam, answered the questions, and solved the programming task live, ... Excuse me, WTF? You have to code something in order to get verified? (!)

When I did it it was form questions like how to do an SQL join. The questions were not related at all to the work you were trying to do.

Fortunately my experience was just me talking about skills I'd listed I had experience with for maybe a minute or less. All on camera while I couldn't see them of course.

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#56
post #53

>Provided the documents, went through the visual verification with a webcam, answered the questions, and solved the programming task live, ... Excuse me, WTF? You have to code something in order to get verified? (!)

I have already heard of one story close to me of a company that had to fire someone because they faked their interview coding assignment.

I have had a CBP officer asking me very light questions around python.

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#57
post #39
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A moderator replied to me a couple months ago that these kinds of posts are usually penalized so HN doesn’t become a support site, but I still see them quite often on here on the front page. I had been commenting that when such posts are made for YC companies, they rarely make it to the front page. > there has been a glut lately of stories using HN as customer-support-of-last-resort or generic-complaints-about-$compa…

Personally, I see it as a benefit to be part of a community that can help in these situations. I'm willing to have to scroll past one person's headache in the hope that if I suddenly lose my XYZ account I will be able to get redress through the same avenue.

I think the fear is that you'll see a lot more of them in the future if they're allowed.

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#58
I've often been asked by clients to bypass paying via these platforms. They don't like it as much as the developers. Let's face it, the resolution here of clients now having to withdraw out of Upwork, only to be able to pay you out of bounds is bonkers.

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#59
post #5

Welcome to HN where we provide support after large corporations fail to do basic due diligence.

I'm interested in this post and others like it, not because of one person's story, but because it tells me something about a company's way to handle customer support, fraud detection and prevention and more.

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#60
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I see it as a benefit to be part of a community that can help in these situations. I'm willing to have to scroll past one person's headache in the hope that if I suddenly lose my XYZ account I will be able to get redress through the same avenue.

I think the fear is that you'll see a lot more of them in the future if they're allowed.

The hope (generally unjustified) is that corporations will feel shame about their practices, or perhaps more realistically that people will decide not to use their services or work for them.
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