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Upwork just stole $10k from me

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Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#121

Post by zugi »

ajb wrote: 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…

> One of the reasons that criminal acts are criminal is that they destroy value.

Yes, and this is a complete tangent from your main point, but I worry about over-using the justification of destroying "value" versus destroying other people's "property." Not all things that "destroy value" are or should be criminal.

My favorite example: I own the only gas station on a busy corner and sell gas for $5 a gallon. My gas station is worth $1 million because of its money-making ability. Someone else opens a new gas station on the opposite corner and sells gas for $4 a gallon. My revenue drops, and the "value" of my gas station falls to $0.5 million. The competitor "destroyed value." Yet that's not only not criminal, but it's exactly the kind of competitive behavior a free society needs.

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#123

Post by moltar »

luciusdomitius wrote: post #99
henpa wrote: post #40

I don't understand why all of these replies from the big companies come with something like "we are not able to revert this decision" somewhere in the text. It shows such an arrogance!

Upwork is a hellish abomination of a company. I did some contracting for them cca 7 years ago. It all started with a final meeting with the CEO - the bald Greek guy with the same first name as me, who spent almost an hour of his (not so) invaluable time for the sole purpose of pushing me to drop my rate from $45/h to $40/h. Ultimately we agreed, but on the condition that it is a 20h/week assignment, so that I have ti…

Oh cool story!

Same guy posted a nasty review on my profile (like as if he was a client) after I refused to install the tracking software which was only mentioned in the on-boarding document and never during the interview process.

I only learned about it a few years later when I wanted to use my profile and realized it had a negative review. I couldn’t remember at all even doing any jobs.

I emailed support and they accidentally spilled the beans. They said “do you remember working with so and so.” I couldn’t even remember. Google the name. Oh, it’s CEO/CTO of upwork. Great!

This was circa 2011 I’d guess, just when they were rebranding from oDesk to Upwork and rewriting lots of Perl, which I was big into back then.

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#124

Post by password1 »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #90
password1 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how Bitcoin can fix terrible customer support issues. The problem here is that either: a) OP is stuck in a cycle where he's inquiries are managed by bots and no human is actually verifying the claims. b) OP breached the terms in a serious way and UpWork is not being transparent as of why they are deleting his account. UpWork offers a lot of services for both freelancers and clients (escrow, payment protec…

The escrow and trust part can be handled in 1) reputation system 2) breaking the work into small parts and not risking large amounts at once.

You would need a platform for that. Coincidentally t's exactly what Upwork does.

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#125

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

miohtama wrote: post #71
moralestapia wrote: post #20

>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? (!)

Fraud is likely a huge issue on Upwork - Set up fake profile - Set up a bot army to vote you up - Take clients money, never deliver or deliver some random crap duct taped together with ChatGPT README

> - Take clients money

This part is usually solved with escrow systems so the scammer wouldn't get anything until the client confirms they're happy, so why isn't that what Upwork is doing?

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#126

Post by jareklupinski »

jrumbut wrote: post #39
jb1991 wrote: 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.

yup, if there was going to be one place to do this, HN would be a good one

maybe a Help HN! subsection could be created?

where people who work for the companies users need support from could gain +25 karma for helping out, or something

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#127

Post by dang »

jb1991 wrote: post #14
ddtaylor wrote: post #5

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

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…

It actually works in the opposite direction: we moderate HN threads less, not more, when YC startups are the story. Lots of past explanation: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....

That said, customer-support-of-last-resort threads have been so repetitive lately that we started downweighting them more in general.

I was going to link to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34320816 and then I saw that it was the reply I posted to you last time! Nothing has changed since then.

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#128

Post by infofarmer »

dang wrote: post #127
jb1991 wrote: 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…

It actually works in the opposite direction: we moderate HN threads less, not more, when YC startups are the story. Lots of past explanation: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... . That said, customer-support-of-last-resort threads have been so repetitive lately that we started downweighting them more in general. I was going to link to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34320816 and then…

Any chance for a dedicated section?

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#129

Post by dang »

infofarmer wrote: post #128
dang wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually works in the opposite direction: we moderate HN threads less, not more, when YC startups are the story. Lots of past explanation: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... . That said, customer-support-of-last-resort threads have been so repetitive lately that we started downweighting them more in general. I was going to link to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34320816 and then…

Any chance for a dedicated section?

Do you mean would we add a dedicated section on HN for 3rd party customer support issues? That's a legit question.

This is when it's particularly helpful to have only one thing we're optimizing for [1] because it means we can replace that question with another: would it make HN more intellectually interesting? The answer is clearly no, I think, because those threads tend to be so repetitive.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Re: Upwork just stole $10k from me

#130

Post by wsc981 »

dannyr wrote: post #62

The crazy thing with these companies are they say you violated the user agreement but doesn't mention what specific policy you violated.

Kinda the same with Twitter (and likely Facebook) bans.

You did something against our terms and now you're banned. We will not tell you what was the offending Tweet though ...

I was hoping Elon Musk would change this, but I don't believe anything changed regarding this issue yet. I think there's probably some legal reasons why companies follow this approach.

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