
Upwork banned my account for 'being dishonest' - ribice
https://www.ribice.ba/upwork-suspended/
======
jermaustin1
As a person who "buys time" on upwork quite frequently, I regularly get sent
links to 3rd party sites housing example work and portfolios. And almost all
of my developers will send me private repos on github. My writers will submit
work on Google Docs so we can collaborate. Rarely do I get any worker who
doesn't "violate" the TOS, because the TOS is a POS that hinders mine and the
freelancer's business.

~~~
gnode
The great thing about a TOS which everyone violates, is that it can be
arbitrarily enforced, for any unspoken actual reason.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
Sort of, if you have the $$$ and the damages are worth chasing in reality you
would take them to court. Demonstrating that everyone else is routinely
breaking the TOS, and that the company knew about it, would be a very strong
piece of evidence in your case

~~~
Analemma_
It really wouldn't, at least with the laws as they exist now. Upwork just says
"private company, at-will service, voluntary association", and they win.

------
gspetr
Upwork is pretty much the worst type of business, very shortsighted, focused
only on extracting immediate value at seemingly any cost.

Last year's 1175 point post "Why you should never use Upwork"[0] is still as
relevant as ever and I don't expect it to change.

You should avoid Upwork like the plague.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12773282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12773282)

~~~
debacle
So what are the alternatives for people who want to find contracting work
without networking?

~~~
akvadrako
toptal.com seems like one of the better ones, but the best option is probably
to join a collective.

~~~
balfirevic
What is "a collective" in this context?

~~~
akvadrako
A worker-owned consulting firm, basically. Also called a co-op. You get the
benefit of shared clients and administration support, without working for
"somebody else".

I don't know of any large ones, but I have seen quite a few around.

~~~
lsc
My experience is that 'collectives' aren't a lot easier for the socially
impaired than traditional body shops, and they usually have less work.

they do usually charge a much smaller cut, though, which is pretty good, so if
you get along with the people, and they do have work, they can be pretty
great.

I don't think I'd advise anyone to rely on a collective as their primary
income any more than I'd advise anyone to rely on a body shop as their primary
income. Treat the job as a job, be open to jobs that don't go through your
collective or body shop.

------
martingordon
I had my Venmo account temporarily terminated a few weeks ago. I didn't do
anything other than be the recipient of a $139.99 payment from a stranger "for
laundry". My account was unfrozen, but I think it was out of sheer luck more
than anything. A less savvy person would have likely taken the notification at
face value and left it at that.

I searched around for what to do in this situation and came across many
reports of this type of scam, where an unknown sender "accidentally" sends
payment, request a payment from me for the money back, and simultaneously
cancels the transaction. I did nothing and hoped the issue would resolve
itself.

Two days later, I get an email saying my Venmo account has been frozen "due to
recent activity that appears to be a violation of our User Agreement." After
reaching out to Venmo via chat, I had a similar interaction as the article.
They told me my account was frozen, that my case was being handled by an
Account Specialist, and that would be in touch via email.

The next day I got an email from the Account Specialist saying my actions and
activity were in violation of the ToS and that my account was permanently
deactivated.

I reached out to support again and played dumb, saying I received payment from
a stranger but can't send the money back because my balance didn't go up.
Support again said they couldn't do anything, that my account was frozen by an
Account Specialist, and that they would be in touch via email.

The Account Specialist sent me an email saying the payment was refunded and
that I should reach out to the sender directly, to which I responded that I
didn't know who the sender was and I assumed the payments were made in error
and asking them to confirm that I had to take no further action. They
responded with a form email saying my account had been unfrozen. "However,
please keep in mind that the state of your account can be revised if your
transaction history raises flags on our system in the future."

~~~
kuschku
And this is why it’s so scary that our societies are moving towards using such
private companies for basically core infrastructure of society.

If the government fucks up, I have an easy way of appealing, everything is
clearly defined.

If venmo or PayPal fucks up, I have to sue over country lines, argue an
international case, and still have no recourse.

~~~
Someone1234
That's why it is so infuriating when people respond to any criticism with
"well just stop doing business with them!" That's fine until it isn't.

We have exactly one hospital in town. We have exactly one ambulance company in
town. We have two medi-vac helicopter providers but you don't get to pick. We
have one garbage company (Waste Management) that you're legally required to
use in a residential property. One power/gas utility. One water utility.

All of those are private companies, but I have zero ability to switch. There's
no competition. They're completely monopolistic either through regulation or
naturally. If this is healthy capitalism I'd hate to see unhealthy.

Garbage pickup is particularly galling. It used to be public, government
employees, with no profit motive. You had a complaint process. For ideological
or "campaign contribution" reasons politicians gave it away to Waste
Management, complaints are now handled by nobody, and fees climb year upon
year.

~~~
Slansitartop
> That's why it is so infuriating when people respond to any criticism with
> "well just stop doing business with them!"

God, I hate that phrase. There's a grain of truth to it, _in certain contexts_
, but at this point its just an unthinking regurgitation used to protect the
utterer from uncomfortable realities.

------
lettergram
This is personally why I’m of the opinion, why we should always try to avoid
as much centralization as we can.

Host your own blog, run your own systems, use distributed software. I even
keep two payment systems available, just in case. I get gigs often enough (as
often as I want) mostly just through people reading my blog[1] (where I can
advertise when available)

[1] [https://austingwalters.com](https://austingwalters.com)

~~~
slenk
But when you're just starting out, how can you get your name out there? Sure,
you can write blog posts and craft some good SEO, but who is going to trust
someone without reviews from a centralized source?

~~~
Jeremy1026
Centralized sources have the same problem though. Almost every job on upwork
is posted with a requirement of a job score of 90+. You can only get a job
score by completing something on their platform and getting a positive review.

OP said he did a project for $10, which for most freelancers is maybe 5
minutes of work at their standard rate. If you're going to work for free,
might as well do it in your own circle and build out from there.

------
dizzystar
I had an upwork and closed it down for exactly what this is about, except that
the client blatantly lied about the work I handed over.

It was a bad contract, but it was completed despite the various issues
involved. I submitted the code and he made a claim that my code did something
that is absolutely impossible to do: SQL is not going to affect the browser
UI, especially not default settings within the browser. I asked for a
screenshot of the "issue" and that never came in. The client also made changes
to my code and kept demanding I fix it.

I closed down the contract and opened a case, thinking it would be obvious
that I did the work as asked and they were very difficult to work with.

It was interesting to read the responses. They kept saying they needed more
and more features before they agreed the work was done. I said that the
contract, as specified in both the post and ensuing messages was done. I never
heard these new requests.

Throughout the correspondence with upwork, the client kept changing their
story, outright contradicting themselves over and over.

Upwork, of course, sided with the client over the new feature request they
demanded. Apparently, upwork thinks that a contract is infinite work. I
pointed out each lie, asked for a screenshot of the impossible bug, and
explained the new features (which changed multiple times during the case)
would take too long to complete.

I lost the case and ended up doing the job for half price. Upwork is optimized
to client first, which is just wrong to the workers. I had to pay 20% of my
earnings at $50/hr and up, so it's not like I had zero value to the company.

I closed down my account over that.

------
ransom1538
In my experience there are two types of jobs on the system. Quick simple
projects and almost-full-time-job type work. With simple projects it just
isn't worth the contractors time - the amount of time wasted in non billable
hours: messages, specs, understanding, setup - just doesn't make anything
efficient. Sure, bill for the client meetings - but watch your ratings crash.
With the almost-full-time-job type work - it's smarter to just yank the person
out of upwork and not pay the crazy upwork fees then develop a real
relationship.

Unfortunately, how contractors get really screwed is when they run into a real
asshole client. Once this happens they are reported to upwork (for not doing
free work usually). Good contractors that worked for us were routinely banned.

[I only have been on the client side.]

~~~
shimon
Is it easy to move outside of upwork for the financial side, and still have
some recourse on both sides? If I'm a US client working with a contractor in
Russia, I'd be concerned about taxes, currency conversion, etc. I don't really
understand all of these challenges, but I assume upwork has them handled. Is
there something else I could use that would take a smaller cut, once trust
around the actual work has been established?

~~~
notyourday
I'm truly failing to understand this. What's a recourse that you have with
upwork? Not paying the contractor that did not deliver? You can not pay
contractor who does not deliver to you via another method. People in the
entire world like to get paid with US dollars. Those who live in the countries
that provide bodies for upwork have bank accounts or methods of receiving
dollars. They would gladly communicate that to you. Taxes? Upwork clearly does
not handle taxes for you. If you are in the US, you are responsible for your
taxes. i

~~~
vbezhenar
If you're in Russia, you can't just receive dollars from someone in US. You
have to pass currency control, you have to provide documents to your bank that
those funds were earned. I guess, there are means to bypass those regulations,
especially for small sums of money, but they are risky, so not everyone will
use them. That's why worker might prefer something like odesk, those companies
usually have established processes to transfer money and get necessary
paperwork.

------
CPLX
This is one of my least favorite innovations of Silicon Valley, the opaque,
confusing, no stated reasons practice of banning users.

I _totally_ understand why things developed the way they did. The internet is
huge and full of bad actors, and a nascent service is in real existential
danger of being overwhelmed and swamped by fraud. If you tell bad actors why
you're banning them and spend valuable time communicating with them it can put
you out of business early on.

But like in so many other arenas, the Valley mentality hasn't adopted to the
fact that they are no longer underdog rebels besieged by barbarians on one
side and big scary rich corporations on the other site.

The reality is now that these companies _are_ the ruling class, and the users
are the general population. And people rely on these services and base their
lives on them. Arbitrary and capriciously depriving people of access to these
platforms without any kind of due process rights isn't OK any more.

There's a reason we have consumer protection laws, why someone decided we
needed things like the Montreal Convention and the FDCPA and CPSC and so on.
It's axiomatic that we can't trust monopolistic corporations to do right by
the little guy.

This Silicon Valley mentality is increasingly going to lead to pitchforks,
torches, and regulation in the near future, it's an inevitability. Rightly so.

~~~
meuk
I am quite bitter about the state of affairs. If a company decides to screw
you over, they pretty much can. Legally, there is not much you can do if
you're not filthy rich. The most you can do is make a fuss about it on social
media. If you attract a lot of people, the company will issue an apology and
give you a stupid surprise.

I _absolutely despise_ this very common pattern. In the end, the company gets
free publicity for screwing you over, and the 100s or 1000s of people in the
same situation won't be helped - just because they don't have a massive
userbase on social media.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
The state of affairs, is that Silicon Valley along with companies that are
willing to sell out to automation for everything - have become the new ruling
class.

Thought experiment:

What happens if Amazon, right now, decided that you are not a good customer
and deleted every one of your accounts and deleted all your AWS data? As of
right now, you can't buy anything from them goods wise. And if you were using
AWS as a webservice platform, now, you can't. No recourse. At all.

Your Google account was hacked, but google saw you as a spammer and hacker
trying to penetrate Google's security systems. They blast all accounts away
that have logged in with your IP address of the duration of the hack. You're
now without a whole slew of services. Dead in the water, again. Who do you
call? Nobody. But you can leave a badly worded post in Google forums - oh
wait, you can't even do that.

~~~
ucaetano
Don't mix your AWS account with your personal shopping account.

Don't rely on free services for mission-critical aspects of your life. And
don't expect free services to provide support.

And no, "it isn't free, you pay with your data" doesn't make it a paid
service, it is still free.

~~~
lsc
So, if you are a business, I think relying solely on AWS is a super bad idea.
Amazon is aware of the lock in effect, and if your usage spikes and you don't
have a good alternative ready to go? Amazon is setup so that you will pay
through the nose. AWS is wonderfully cheap if you only need a little bit, but
it is crushingly expensive at any kind of real scale.

Starting on amazon is great, as it really is cheap at small scale, and you can
test your shit at large scale for short periods... but it gets expensive fast
as you grow, so the more you can do to prepare to move, (or credibly threaten
to do same) the better off you are.

~~~
ucaetano
Exactly, don't put all your eggs in the same basket, especially if you're
mixing different types of eggs (personal vs. professional identities).

And don't put any valuable eggs in a free basket.

------
nuggien
Almost 100% positive upwork somehow magically unsuspends his account after
seeing this thread. When will these companies ever learn that it’s not okay to
misbehave and quietly “fix” things when publicity gets bad?

~~~
jclulow
Generally only when it becomes economically or legally impossible to continue
doing so.

~~~
codegladiator
So never ?

------
nraynaud
I think google and PayPal have shown every companies in the valley that you
can be unreliable and stonewall your users without hindering economic success.

~~~
wand3r
While I agree that those companies and many others have become quite
successful taking this tact, it was really only successful because of those
businesses are nearly monopolies. Obviously this is similar to ISPs. Upwork
competes with tons of other boards directly as well as LinkedIn, Indeed/Job
Boards, Craigslist, general networking and other preferences (not working an
additional part time job).

Also, similar to recruiting these places need to attract top talent
consistently not just warm-bodies. Highly skilled workers can afford to
exercise other options much better.

~~~
shimon
You're right, but upwork is the dominant marketplace for low-cost contract
labor. It is the merger of what was previously a duopoly in the space (elance
and odesk) and the network effects are strong.

So maybe it's not quite as monopolistic as the others you mentioned but it has
clearly (and rationally) chosen to compromise fairness to its users to a
degree that it likely could not in a more competitive market.

------
z3t4
I believe software is a market for lemons (1). You don't know what quality you
will get so on places like Upwork people are not prepared to pay much. Even
though there's a shortage of developers, it's almost impossible to find
freelance work, and there's plenty of people exploiting those who work
basically for free just to get a good rep. And at the same time there's people
paying outrageous prices eg $100,000 for a simple web site.

------
ancarda
>How is it possible to propagate a session id in PHP

What the hell does that even mean? I write PHP for a living and this makes no
sense to me.

Do they mean retrieve the ID via session_id() and pass it onto a page, like in
a GET parameter?

~~~
Hydraulix989
I think using cookies?

~~~
Someone1234
There's no real answer since the term "propagate" can mean one of several
things. For example are we propagating the session ID from the server to
client or client to server? And in both cases there are several answers which
apply.

PHP Dev or not, that question is too vague to be answerable. You'd have to ask
additional questions just to understand the question itself.

~~~
Hydraulix989
As you would expect, Upwork doesn't have the resources for people that really
know PHP to be doing these verifications. While we all agree that the question
was poorly-worded, anyone with decent communication skills (a much-needed
skill for people doing the kinds of client-facing software engineering jobs
that are on Upwork) can easily recognize this and work with the non-technical
person conducting the interview to arrive at the "right" answer even though it
"DOES NOT COMPUTE" to the overly-pedantic "language lawyer" in some.

I remember someone angrily posting on HN about failing an HR phone screening
because they tried arguing with the interviewer that Linux was not Unix, but
was Unix-like (a sign that the interviewee clearly knew the one-word
_expected_ answer that was on the interviewer's answer key). Just answer the
very simple question and move on, instead of trying to show off or whatever.
Part of functioning in the workplace means communicating effectively and
professionally (by not being condescending, for example) with other people
that may have different skill sets. The best engineers are very cognizant of
this.

------
rexreed
I've had nothing but bad experiences with Upwork.

~~~
justherefortart
I've never heard anything but bad experiences. Why do people even bother with
it?

~~~
AnkhMorporkian
Because it's a way to make money while you're between jobs while still using
the skills you're good at. Not everyone is great at networking, nor are they
necessarily in a place where they could pull good clients even if they were.

It's a shit sandwich, but in tough times, that's all you can find to eat.

~~~
tcd
> Because it's a way to make money

You're not making money if they're refunding the client. This article and
people in this thread suggest it's a terrible way to make money and to AVOID
at all costs.

Or, you can use this company and I look forward to reading more of these
articles.

~~~
AnkhMorporkian
Yes, it's worked out terribly for some people, but everyone I know who have
done upwork jobs on the side have had next to zero problems.

I don't use them anymore, as I've gotten out of the tech industry and became a
professional baker instead, but I get the feeling that we on HN tend to hear a
few horror stories, and ignore the thousands of success stories.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be changes made, but anecdotal evidence
does not instantly justify a witchhunt and boycott.

~~~
itwy
As a professional baker, what do you do differently from traditional bakers?

~~~
AnkhMorporkian
I get paid for it.

Edit: For a slightly less sardonic answer, I prep an innumerable number of
different items every day, and they all have to look near perfect. I decided
that while programming was a passion of mine, I wanted to do it on my own
terms. I wanted to create projects that _I_ found interesting.

Baking though? If I want to make something at work that I find interesting, I
can experiment and do that, and my boss encourages me.

So I still code, but I stopped doing it for money and started doing it to
contribute to society. Baking I do for fun and money. It was a later in life
career change, but I'm much happier for it.

~~~
Cyberdog
So is there, like, a Baker News out there somewhere?

~~~
AnkhMorporkian
There isn't enough dough for that.

------
robodale
I've used and spent plenty on Upwork, and when they were called oDesk. Is
there an alternative out there that (1) I can post a price for a job, (2)
interview/critique candidates,(3) easily go back and forth as the job is in
progress, (4) approve, "complete", possibly rate, and pay the person doing the
work....all without Upwork's bullshit?

~~~
scardine
Looks like a good side project. I want to build a platform that charges only
for arbitration and escrow. I want to build a video interview system where you
can select the questions you are interested and it will compile a 2X compact
video with the answers for speeding up screening. Than the system uses AI to
find and recommend candidates like the ones you rank better. I want to fix
remote work and freelancing.

------
orasis
Overall I get value out of Upwork as a buyer, but a full 60% of the applicants
I get are scam bait-and-switch accounts. I’ve figured out how to navigate it
but it doesn’t surprise me that they’d be strict on their TOS.

~~~
sparrish
This has been my experience as a client as well. Fell prey to a couple of "say
we're doing the work but we ain't" devs that thankfully UpWork refunded so I'm
glad to hear they're cracking down on scam accounts. Sad to hear that legit
accounts are getting caught up in the process though.

------
User_424
Upwork is horrible. They take on average 25% of your pay, on top of taxes. Bad
customer support and its flooded with low-cost labor.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Ya, I end up declining 99% of all offers on up work. I'd say very few are
actually good projects with good people behind them. Most are assholes who
treat freelancers like garbage.

~~~
mfoy_
Honestly it literally sounds like that is the business model.

"Let's build a platform that exploits desperate developers..."

------
redleggedfrog
Actually, the only thing surprising about the article is how little this poor
fellow is getting paid for the work.

~~~
Flozzin
No crap. $15? I have to imagine he spent at least a couple hours on it. Even
$50 seems like it's not worth the time. I really doubt he's spending less than
2 hours on any of this. Not to mention just finding and applying...

~~~
ribice
You're correct. I did it more for the reviews, so that I can charge
appropriate rates later on.

I spent probably 2-3 hours for that $15 (and 3 hours more for additional $30)
and then about 2 hours for that $100 (expected $50). These are all excluding
messaging, just actual work.

------
SnowingXIV
I wish there was something better than Upwork.

The platform is pretty buggy, I don't enjoy using it. The only reason I stick
to it is the "pool" of freelancers is pretty big so you can likely find
someone qualified and decent to work with. You get _tons_ of junk though. You
can limit this by setting to only in US, only those that have worked x hours
and have already made x. Setting strict requirements at least can remove the
bait and switch or fresh spam accounts.

Fun story time. I was looking for a developer and found a guy that seemed to
have a nice profile, clear picture, etc. When I messaged him the responses
felt very foreign and quick. Didn't really make sense so I reverse image
searched the photo and found the photo belonged to a developer but not the guy
I was talking to (different names). I emailed the real guy (he had a portfolio
site and some nice programming articles) and asked if this was really him on
Upwork. Nope. He said he's never had a profile on there and thanked me as he
went to report it.

------
upbeatlinux
Upwork can be a stepping stone for talented developers who don't necessarily
have the exposure, community or connections and may not have the accessibility
to compete in other market places like Toptal.

In my experience Upwork support has always been slow and cut-rate. I realize
the irony as Upwork most likely employs contractors from its platform who
aren't necessarily invested in building a product or community. It's
unfortunate but this is a huge shortcoming both from a support and policy
(ToS) standpoint. Support needs to be invested in the product.

FWIW no freelancer (or gig economy worker for that manner) should be dependent
on a single platform for income. There are so many job platforms to invest
time and energy on - Upwork, Toptal, Gun.io, RemoteOk, etc. And the plethora
of developer focused Q&A sites. Leverage those to augment your personal
profile (site).

~~~
tejay
Thanks for mentioning Gun.io.

I'd also add a recommendation to spend at least a third of the time you spend
doing billable work in building up your own pipeline — regardless of whether
you're using a freelance service like us or not.

------
swat535
It is foolish to fully rely on UpWork on any other similar websites without
strong legal representation in place.

Threatening legal action against UpWork gets you far in these situations.

These SV companies think they can do whatever they want and sometimes need a
harsh reality check that they must obey laws, especially as more and more
people depend on them.

I can't wait for GDPR and alike to start regulating these atrocities against
privacy, security and fraud like behaviour.

If anyone from UpWork is reading this, know that not I only I have personally
closed my account, I will do everything in my power to keep hard working,
honest engineers from your platform.

And help them in any shape or form should they seek litigation against you.

------
asperous
List of alternatives to upwork here:

[https://theremotefreelancer.com](https://theremotefreelancer.com)

[https://github.com/engineerapart/TheRemoteFreelancer](https://github.com/engineerapart/TheRemoteFreelancer)

Remote jobs here:

[https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job#job-
board...](https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job#job-boards)

------
jrs95
Wow. This has to be some of the worst customer support I’ve ever seen. The
only thing I experienced that was worse was American Express cancelling my
account, telling the credit bureaus I was dead, not allowing me to pay them,
and hanging up on me when I called them. Eventually I managed to find out that
they sold the account and got ahold of who had it now, but they wouldn’t
accept my payment because I wasn’t really dead, and had to transfer my account
back to American Express. After finally resolving this and paying them in
full, they report to the bureaus that I was late several months on my
payments, and any attempt to appeal this has just been ignored. So I just have
to wait for it to fall off my report. Until then, I’m paying over 12% interest
on a fucking auto loan.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
> This has to be some of the worst customer support I’ve ever seen.

Actually, the OP is not a customer. A customer is someone who delivers money.
Upwork treated their actual customer quite well: they refunded him and talked
to him like human beings - even told him the reason why the OP was suspended.

~~~
kahlonel
Actually OP IS a customer. Upwork gets 20% out of his pay for being a
glorified invoice generator.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
I'm pretty sure Upwork doesn't seem it that way, as their actions clearly
show.

------
bredren
Upwork is bad. Their fraud prevention has been a problem for a long time. They
have had major basic system stability problems, and even data privacy issues.
It is like the lumbering giant of craigslist except far less benevolent.

~~~
odonnellryan
I had a decently good account on Upwork. I had a few jobs on there that
developed into great long-term contracts.

One time, me and a client logged into Upwork to close a contract out on the
same network. We both got banned :)

------
jitendrac
I had freelanced using Odesk before it became Upwork, And I do hold some
balance in the account even now. I am inactive(not bidding anymore) on it
since 2014.

Six months ago from nowhere I got a sudden email about my account suspension.
I appealed and try to prove my identity with Government Issued ID card,
Academic details even My name in the list of the post-graduates(with no
result). They keep on denying to re-activate my account and suggest me to
withdraw my money, that I have not yet.

I can still browse Upwork, It is becoming more toxic with agressive bidding
and way lower quality jobs now a days.

------
thrownaway954
i'm up voting specifically because it seems that companies that see stories
like this on hacker news tend to comment on them. We had such a case about 2
weeks ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16261136](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16261136)

I hope you get this resolved, but let this be a warning that these "gig"
companies are nothing but a scam.

------
nebulous1
It's hard to see how they can justify reversing the payments on jobs he's
already done. That said I do have a couple of issues with his decisions here:

> Before starting the verification process, I completed the second gig

That seems ... optimistic!

> She talked a bit more, but I could barely understand her anything due to
> connection issues.

> ...

> “That went far easier and quicker than I expected. Lovely.”

Seriously?

Other than that his experience does seem extremely frustrating.

------
vbezhenar
I'll try to find some remote work soon and I'm interested in upwork
alternatives. I've heard a lot of bad things about them and it's risky to
depend on that service. But I didn't hear about any big competitors. I'm
talking specifically about some small pieces of work, not just remote work,
without automatic screenshots and all that nonsense.

~~~
smnscu
Pilot have contacted me last month and I really like their policy. They only
do long-term full-time contracts with reliable companies, and have a flat fee
of 30% - you can set whatever rate you like. I am happily employed but I feel
it's a far cry from services like Toptal who have opaque, allegedly much
larger commissions.

[https://pilot.co/](https://pilot.co/)

Some more alternatives:

[https://github.com/andreis/interview/issues/23](https://github.com/andreis/interview/issues/23)

[https://github.com/wfhio/awesome-job-
boards](https://github.com/wfhio/awesome-job-boards)

------
neelkadia
Upwork banned me too. _some offensive words_

------
cryoshon
their entire business model is making sure that their users never get a fair
deal by communicating directly with the people they find via upwork.

is it really so surprising that they are fucking abysmal at customer service?

my experiences with them are 100% bad, but nowhere near as bad as what the OP
article discusses.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
I never used Upwork and and wondering - how on Earth can they make sure that I
deliver the code to the client, and that there is no information in the code
that could be used to identify me. Apart from that, the identity of the person
is their unique brand, it guarantees integrity (or a lack of it), it allows to
check one's portfolio and verify the skills of the developer - for example by
looking at their public contributions. When you take all this away, what are
you left with?

~~~
kuschku
> When you take all this away, what are you left with?

A "mechanical Turk", as amazon would call it, a "Code Monkey" as Jonathan
Coulton sang in his song.

A completely exchangeable person, an employee as a service. How the code is
written, who does it, is entirely irrelevant. Entirely replaceable, with no
recourse for the "contractor".

The main component of the gig economy is exactly this, completely
disenfranchising the worker by commoditizing work. You try to negotiate higher
pay, you simply get replaced.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
> The main component of the gig economy is exactly this, completely
> disenfranchising the worker.

It's even more insidious than that. Previously, it's workers came together to
create unions, to prevent abuses by the company owners. Go back far enough,
and companies hired hit squads in part of the US government to kill union
leaders and bust strikes.

Then, unions were demonized. They "enabled lazy and bad workers, and punishing
good workers" \- I thing I got the root of the arguments used.

Then comes the gig economy. We have a company, who "hires" employees, but then
pits each employee against each other. Doing so then puts each employee in the
position of "I'm against employee #2, and #3, and #4". This poisons the pot
for any chances of coming together, and fixing wrongs. And it also easily
allows what we would have called "scabs" to immediately enter if there is a
union forming.

~~~
kuschku
Yeah, that’s a major issue – it’s interesting how this gig economy is going to
play out, because in Germany a lot of foodora drivers actually unionized, and
of course foodora simply blacklisted them, which employment law forbids. So
now it’s playing out in the courts.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
> So now it’s playing out in the courts.

It's because it's in Germany, in the USA they would be laughed at.

------
Dolores12
Another option in case of upwork is to tell them you don't have webcam, then
they will ask you to upload few government ids. Nonetheless i had bad
experience with upwork as a client as well as a contractor.

------
pi-rat
Funny they're so quick on the block button now!

Someone once created an account on upwork in my name (based on my github
probably), took me ages to get that one shut down..

------
Jesus_Jones
This reminds me of Google and their atrocious customer account systems. These
companies are just not impacted enough in a negative for them to change.

------
rakibtg
What are some good alternatives from your experience?

------
meaniehusker
just visit their twitter help acct and you'll see how grate their customer
service is
[https://twitter.com/UpworkHelp/status/963348399213834240](https://twitter.com/UpworkHelp/status/963348399213834240)

------
crankylinuxuser
And, the user is playing "HN Customer Roulette" by hoping they will get enough
traction here to garner a fair response.

When you're a serf on another's platform, you're subject to their rules. What
rules are they? "Does their automated system and people like you?"

Is it unfair? Yes. Is it bad all around? Yes. Is there anything you can do
about it? Yes - posting to social media and naming and shaming. That's it.

------
saluki
Sorry to hear about your experience with upwork. Sounds like you might have
still had PHP in your profile from years ago and when you said you don't do
PHP development in the video chat that was enough to trigger a suspension.

Honestly you're probably better off you ended your upwork journey after only a
couple gigs.

I did a few projects on elance years ago but it was always a hassle and tough
to find good projects/clients.

It sounds like you are providing good value/quality work to clients. Look to
your network to find Go projects instead. Become more active in the community.
Keep blogging.

Connect with other Go developers, ask around if anyone knows anyone needing a
Go developer. Lots of times developers don't have time to handle all the
projects/clients they run in to and will hand them off to someone else they
respect in the community.

You're going to find better projects/clients and higher paying side work that
way than using upwork. And not have to deal with their hassle, fees and issues
like this.

This might be a little bit of a gray area since it violates their ToS but
since your account is suspended anyway if you have the emails of the two
clients you worked with you could contact them and contract with them on new
projects directly. (Don't mention here that you are doing this in case your
usernames are the same on HN/upwork)

Especially the last one where you completed the gig, he paid you a higher
amount than agreed on and then upwork refunded your fee for work completed. He
should be open to moving forward contracting directly.

Good luck finding side work.

~~~
kbart
Oh, common on, every time freelancing topics comes up on HN there are at least
few comments: "just do networking, it's so easy, and gigs just starts falling
from the sky". No, this advice doesn't work well outside of tech hubs or good
existing network (from university etc.) In some places developers are few and
far between, especially if you are into more specialized, niche areas. Of
course, you can try participate in online communities, but it's hard (i.e.
good luck getting your first patch into Linux kernel mainline) and time
consuming, especially if English is not your first language. Typical Upwork
and similar services user is someone from rural Bangladesh, not well-connected
MIT graduate working in sexy startup in Silicon Valley.

