Why you should never use Upwork, ever.
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I posted this as a quick link yesterday, but it kind of exploded in the meantime. No. 1 on reddit and other places, with all sorts of interesting comments dissing Upwork.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/591ikj/why_you_should_never_use_upwork_ever/
https://np.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/590zef/why_you_should_never_use_upwork_ever/Anyway, some PR guy from Upwork reached out, trying to smooth things over.
OP's response:
Yes! Smackdown!
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@cartman82 ooh, spicy
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@cartman82 Doesn't he also have cause for a libel suit if he finds out that his "client" actually reached out to other clients in a smear campaign?
Plus, if there ever was cause for a lawsuit this is one.
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@Rhywden said in Why you should never use Upwork, ever.:
Plus, if there ever was cause for a lawsuit this is one.
I'm guessing that that's the advice he's been given and why some of the details are no longer public.
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@Rhywden said in Why you should never use Upwork, ever.:
Doesn't he also have cause for a libel suit if he finds out that his "client" actually reached out to other clients in a smear campaign?
Plus, if there ever was cause for a lawsuit this is one.International lawsuits are completely out of reach for small people.
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@dkf said in Why you should never use Upwork, ever.:
I'm guessing that that's the advice he's been given and why some of the details are no longer public.
Shadi Al'lababidi said in Thank you all for your responses and your overwhelming support. – Medium:
The post has been edited to remove any Personally identifiable information, after Legal threats including and not limited to contacting the FBI and Homeland Security. Not really sure what they would do but I took it seriously.
Good lord.
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If there's anything he did wrong, it was that he asked for the 2-factor code, meaning he was complicit in attaining login details before Upwork allowed it.
However, other than that, he didn't do anything wrong. He didn't use that login information maliciously, and he certainly didn't "hack" into it, and the client totally lost all credibility when using the language they used, and their behavior throughout. They got upset that he wouldn't take the job due to their flakiness and committing classic red-flags that this was going to become a client from hell, in how they were saying it's a "rush job" while being slow to respond to critical questions, and demanding a far lower rate. So upset, in fact, that they were willing to completely lie about the freelancer to not only Upwork but the freelancer's other clients.
If Upwork couldn't realize that, in the end, it was the client who was a total jackass who should be banned rather than the developer for breaking what I'd consider a minor infraction, it certainly confirms my opinion of sites like Upwork and is why I avoid those kinds of places like the plague.
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@cartman82 said in Why you should never use Upwork, ever.:
@Rhywden said in Why you should never use Upwork, ever.:
Doesn't he also have cause for a libel suit if he finds out that his "client" actually reached out to other clients in a smear campaign?
Plus, if there ever was cause for a lawsuit this is one.International lawsuits are completely out of reach for small people.
Ah, it's international. One more reason not to work for those guys.
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@The_Quiet_One said in Why you should never use Upwork, ever.:
If Upwork couldn't realize that, in the end, it was the client who was a total jackass who should be banned rather than the developer for breaking what I'd consider a minor infraction, it certainly confirms my opinion of sites like Upwork and is why I avoid those kinds of places like the plague.
It's more like, they didn't care.
They have so many freelancers, (they think) they can afford to treat them as dirt. As long as clients are happy and keep paying, they figure they can always find new suckers to fill in.
And it seems they are right.
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It sounds almost as bad as the job board here
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@Jaloopa said in Why you should never use Upwork, ever.:
It sounds almost as bad as the job board here
Agh. It's one of those stupid Wikipedia articles, where the centrepiece is the SPOILER-filled walkthrough of the entire plot. Why the fuck not just a summary, like on every other site?
So annoying.
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@cartman82 said in Why you should never use Upwork, ever.:
@The_Quiet_One said in Why you should never use Upwork, ever.:
If Upwork couldn't realize that, in the end, it was the client who was a total jackass who should be banned rather than the developer for breaking what I'd consider a minor infraction, it certainly confirms my opinion of sites like Upwork and is why I avoid those kinds of places like the plague.
It's more like, they didn't care.
They have so many freelancers, (they think) they can afford to treat them as dirt. As long as clients are happy and keep paying, they figure they can always find new suckers to fill in.
And it seems they are right.
I just don't see how that's been a viable strategy for them. Yes, in the short run they give clients the impression that they are on their side and want to keep them satisfied, but in the long run they are going to find themselves with the bottom-of-the-barrel for freelancers who have nothing to lose, with the quality ones running away.
How is it that by now they haven't reached that brick wall yet where the only freelancers left are the code monkeys who have no critical thinking skills, which will only satisfy the worst of clients who don't know better.
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@The_Quiet_One said in Why you should never use Upwork, ever.:
I just don't see how that's been a viable strategy for them. Yes, in the short run they give clients the impression that they are on their side and want to keep them satisfied, but in the long run they are going to find themselves with the bottom-of-the-barrel for freelancers who have nothing to lose, with the quality ones running away.
That's assumption 1: assuming that there is, in effect, a limited pool of freelancers from which their site gets some share. I get the impression that, between the natural growth (i.e. new people coming into the job market) and the huge size of the freelance market overall, they are far from that limitation.
How is it that by now they haven't reached that brick wall yet where the only freelancers left are the code monkeys who have no critical thinking skills, which will only satisfy the worst of clients who don't know better.
Assumption 2: you're assuming that code monkeys are not fulfilling the needs of the average client. I might have an overly dark view of the market here, but I get the feeling that the actual average quality of IT/design work is very low (or rather, the median... hopefully there are a few excellent projects that lift the average up...).
All in all, that does not make for a very seducing company, but it may very well makes them money in the long term.
Also, "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity". I expect that they didn't really think things that far and are just riding along, as most people/companies are in reality, whatever they may say.
Why you should never use Upwork, ever.
