New system aimed primarily at matching newer sellers with buyers
So now it seems I have to wait two hours before I can bid for a job. This is extremely unfair. Not only do experienced creatives/designers have to compete with an unfair playing field, ie people offered to do a job for £10 when it is clearly worth £100, we are now not allowed to bid for jobs as soon as they appear on PPH. What kind of system is this?!
Awful. Unfair. Unprofessional. Discriminatory.
Regards
C. Howe
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pph just emailed me to ask how well they did in responding to my original complaint _
my reply:This ticket has been rated as Bad, I'm unsatisfied
With the following comment:
i am NOT unsatisfied with the support i received from Meletis _ i am VERY unsatisfied with the abysmal support that pph has offered to HUNDREDS of account holders who are complaining about the new feature which prevents us from bidding on contracts _ pph management have clearly shown their level of contempt for account holders and i am monitoring the complaints which are still being posted _ i am also consulting with legal advice to see whether pph are in breach of EU rules over this new feature _ which i understand is an algorithm that is being tested for another site (DeskDonkie) and this is being done to the detriment of pph account holders who pph management have shown a complete disregard for _
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Even leaving aside technical problems with the new feature (which prevents you from bidding for jobs even when the skills required are included in your profile), it is an ill-conceived idea for the simple reason that PPH ratings and "Cert" levels are irrelevant in the real world.
Many people who use the website (myself included) have years of experience of doing what we do and have/continue to work for top employers. PPH is simply convenient for supplementing income and the fact that we may not have bid for or won hundreds of jobs (and, by extension, received hundreds of ratings or high "Cert" levels), hardly reflects on the quality of our work.
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My favourite today was:
"You are a perfect fit for a new job ... You're one of the most qualified Sellers for the Job "Sports Betting Bloggers" because of your skills in Technical writing."
Clearly "Technical Writing" is the wrong description for a blogging job. I don't know whether this is a category mistake the buyer has made, or PPH's mistake - either way it's another flaw in the system.
I am certainly not a perfect fit or the most qualified, because I know nothing about sports or betting, and therefore would never consider pitching for this.
I'm not going to click the "Let Us Know you're not suitable" link in the email either, because judging by how blunt-edged this tool is in other ways, this will probably bar me from blogging jobs altogether. I'm an experienced blogger - I'm just not a sports betting blogger. That's the trouble with this entire system - it's never going to be sensitive enough to know this.
I appreciate that PPH are listening to concerns and looking into making changes, but in my opinion it is fundamentally flawed to hand over decisions about job suitability to an algorithm, when the best people qualified to make those decisions are the seller and the buyer.
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so people any idea what so ever about what we going to do as Freelancers as this people is not responding,
here their best answer is go to another question and rent about this there..
any one in EU can file petition over this ? a bet lot people will fund it as its question of bread an butter for most of us..
I have checked and we can sue then over violation of competition rule or something ?
we can start funding over it ?
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Perhaps we could post a job on PPH asking for legal assistance. However, given the new system, there seems no guarantee that the right freelancers would be selected to receive notification. It must break some laws on fair trade, what right to they have to step in an decide who gets what jobs.
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When I go to send a proposal, the boxes are grayed out and there's this message, "You can't send a Proposal to a job that's not relevant to your primary skills. Browse other jobs." I list one my primary skills as TYPING, so why can't I send a proposal?!
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@Deval, Beverley - I would forget legal action - we may not like what PPH are doing, but I doubt there's anything that breaks the law.
@Paula - the PPH message is misleading. PPH blocks all sellers that aren't amongst those chosen by PPH. That includes hundreds ( if not thousands ) of sellers who could potentially do the job.
Basically if PPH don't pick you then you have to wait. The PPH message implies that having the right skill is enough, but it's totally misleading because you need the right skill and need to be picked out of the PPH hat.
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@Paul Actually I do think PPH are breaking at least one UK law.
PPH are a limited company licenced under England and Wales Law. See their T & Cs. If they are acting as an Employment Agency, rather than a marketplace, then they have to be licenced as one, and also pay holiday pay and various other things.
The competition parts of the Treaty of Lisbon (articles 101 onwards) would deem this anticompetitive behaviour which is illegal across the EU.
From: http://www.out-law.com/page-5811
Failure to comply with UK or EU competition law can have very serious consequences. Following the merger on 1 April 2014 of the UK Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission to form the new Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), businesses operating in the UK can expect more robust enforcement of the competition rules, with higher fines and more criminal prosecutions in appropriate cases.
Firms involved in anti-competitive behaviour may find their agreements to be unenforceable and risk being fined up to 10% of group global turnover for particularly damaging behaviour as well as exposing themselves to possible damages actions. Furthermore, individuals could also find themselves facing director disqualification orders or even criminal sanctions for serious breaches of competition law (see Out-Law's guide to Anti-competitive behaviour under the Enterprise Act).
As such, any business (whatever its legal status, size and sector) needs to be aware of competition law, firstly so that it can meet its obligations (and in doing so, avoid the penalties mentioned above), but also so it can assert its own rights and protect its position in the marketplace.
In the UK two sets of competition rules apply in parallel. Anti-competitive behaviour which may affect trade within the UK is specifically prohibited by Chapters I and II of the Competition Act 1998 and the Enterprise Act 2002. Where the effect of anti-competitive behaviour extends beyond the UK to other EU Member States, it is prohibited by Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).
UK and EU competition law prohibit two main types of anti-competitive activity:
- anti-competitive agreements (under the Chapter I / Article 101 prohibitions);
- andabuse of a dominant market position (under the Chapter II / Article 102 prohibitions).
Anti-competitive agreements (Chapter I / Article 101)
Both UK and EU competition law prohibit agreements, arrangements and concerted business practices which appreciably prevent, restrict or distort competition (or where this is the intended result) and which affect or may affect trade within the UK or the EU respectively.
Consequences of breach
Contravention of Chapter I or Article 101 can have serious consequences for a company:
- firms engaged in activities which breach these provisions can face fines of up to 10% of group global turnover;
- provisions in agreements which breach Chapter I or Article 101 are void and unenforceable (which may lead to the entire agreement being unenforceable);
- firms in breach of Chapter I or Article 101 also leave themselves exposed to actions for damages from customers and competitors who can show they have been harmed by the anti-competitive behaviour; and
- breach of Chapter I can result in individuals being disqualified from being a company director and lead to criminal sanctions.
I look forward to PPH scrapping this system pronto, before anything further deleterious happens.
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I take your point about the Employment Agency bit. This feature is the first time that they have filtered sellers and effectively introduced selected sellers to buyers.
In terms of anti-competitive behaviour, they don't just introduce one seller, they introduce several and they don't bar others indefinitely, just for two hours, so I think the anti-competitive slant is a bit thin.
In terms of 'restrict or distort competition' they already do this, so it's nothing new. PPH does not notify buyers by email of new proposals until the end of the day, except when PPH are given a monetary incentive to do so - known as a featured proposal. This gives an advantage to sellers who donate money to PPH when making a proposal.
I think this is a pretty grey are in terms of legislation designed for wider markets rather than the micro market that is PPH.
I cannot see PPHers reaching into their pocket to test this.
This crazy two hour thing will be dead. It's just a matter of how long it will take.
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In response to Paul - I hope this feature will be dead soon, as for the people who do rely on this as their main source of income, this must be painfully detrimental. Thankfully I don't rely on PPH and nor do I see any hope of doing so, if so many complaints have been made and the standard lame responses from PPH have been given.
Now for my rant -- I think the majority of the Freelancers on here have not just rolled out of the school or college gates with a few certificates in how to text speak and post the perfect selfie. I believe they are mostly people who have studied and worked hard for years done their time working for other people/businesses have relevant experience in their requisite field and have decided to go it alone and be their own boss. I actually want to be one of those who go it alone and thought this would be a good place to start, but within just a couple of months of joining I am being totally disheartened. In a nutshell - This pre-selection/job blocking/matching malarkey is totally bogus hombres! Cert 1 does not mean a person does not know anything about the jobs they want to apply for and a Cert 5 does not necessarily mean they will complete a job any better than a Cert1 or any Cert in between / vice versa... Whatever! The point is, get a grip PPH. This thread is extremely long (not to mention the previous threads on this subject) and I don't see many people praising this 2 hour wait mismatching infeasible and sadly futile feature.
I cannot believe the unhelpful comments that people are getting from PPH on this subject and that they have no intention of getting rid of this discriminative system default. I have also commented on other threads about this and recognise a couple of names from those threads also. Nothing we say seems to be making any difference - other than that I now see a block on asking for clarification on obscure postings. I also want to know how this mere 0.1% managed to get this absurd change implemented. Or was that another lame excuse because they thought nobody would do the maths?
Despite the mismatched job postings received and the now in the last week, the invitations - both from PPH and from 'Buyers' and still feel like I need to stay with this site out of some misguided loyalty. I say 'Buyers', because one of the invites from PPH yesterday turned out to be some joker offering loads of money for a specific review of a video game. Then in his description he was a bit vague and asking that the seller can pick what they want to right about and choose their own topics.... Err... What?... So I thought it was a bit weird, but knowing that the clarification board is often ignored by Buyers, I sent my proposal (as I was invited and cannot actually bid on jobs I want...), asking for a proper description and that I would only be interested if they could simplify the actual task at hand - one review as in the title or several according to the unclear description. This is what I received back almost immediately:
Thank you for submiting your proposal... I am happy we will work together about this job. But first i need you to download and install the game on your pc because this game is only playable on some computers,i dont yet have developed a finished version so i need you to try before actually starting the work. You can download the game here-- http://www.thepopitgame.com/poppit/?pid=8422
Basically you play the game and write articles about your experience of gameplayLooked even more dodgy so I did a test and guess what? A link loaded with a Trojan virus. To which I promptly responded adequately and cancelled my proposal. For some reason the 'Send feedback for this job' option was not available.. so I could not complain. But later I saw another post from the same account, almost exactly the same with the similar link included. I reported this immediately.
Now I wonder, is this now what PPH deem suitable as a job posting that I should be applying for? Totally dangerous and should be monitored. I can apply for this but not an actual proper job from a serious client? Because also this morning I had a private invitation from - you guessed it - another freshly created account from a different name but from the exact same place and almost the exact same wording in the post. I also saw another from yet another new account (there's a team of them from Albania) - where someone clearly wrote in the clarifications that the link was a virus and not to download anything in the hope of getting the job. Now, less savvy people could be opening these links and infecting their PCs because PPH are regulating what they shouldn't and not what they should!
What happened to the 'Ninjas' who are supposed to be governing this site! Are they on their summer holidays? World Cup or Tennis watching maybe? Waiting 2 hours in the hope you may get in quick with a better proposal than the 'chosen few' is bad enough without this added nonsense.
So excuse me PPH, (i.e. Kelly - Daily Moderator and whomever you pass on these comments to), I hope you are all reading, digesting and understanding all of these comments, because people have serious concerns to the point that they are talking about legal action. Now I don't want to be flippant, (or maybe I do at this point), but the answers I have seen from PPH, have been, for the lack of being able to post a more appropriate and modern phrase - utter twaddle.
The fact there there will changes but no idea of what they are and no mention of a total deletion of this irrational feature which is what most people have asked for on these threads, shows that they are only willing to feign ignorance on this matter. A quick fix will be put in place by mid-week apparently, so we will all see if any of these comments have been taken into account.. Until Thursday when it may all start again... :)
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Why would this "company" restrict qualified persons from working here? They are losing a TON of revenue and getting a bad reputation through their segregated methods. I have been a professional VO artist for many, many years. And somehow, they "denied" my application. It is not only unfair, it is ridiculous. I get a LOT of work from freelance sites with no such issues involved. It is beyond me why they would deny my application after I've spent money and time honing my skills, taking classes and networking. My earnings on other sites is amazing, they are truly losing out on my skills as well as many other talented individuals. I will no longer promote anything about this site until my status is fixed... I will be SURE to warn freelancers in all of the discussion boards about this insulting site.
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@Julian, I am pretty sure PPH are NOT breaking any laws.
Firstly, you misunderstand the definition of "market" in competition law. In this case it means the market for freelance services, not a market place like PPH - both freelancers and clients are free to use another market. I personally think that competition law SHOULD apply to competition within marketplaces (though not necesarilly PPH) but that is not what the law says.
I know less about the employement law than competition law, but this:
http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/are-you-a-worker-employee-or-self-employed
(scroll down to "working out your status for employment rights")
seems to make very clear that we are self-employed and therefore do not have employee rights.
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I would imagine that withholding the right to apply for a job is illegal in that it is discriminatory.
One cannot place a job ad in a newspaper with the stipulation that only certain people may apply - apart from in certain cases gender applicable positions. PPH are picking and choosing who can apply for jobs which others have posted in good faith.
At the end of the day PPH have neither the right or the ability to do this. We should be able to decide which jobs we bid for and likewise choose who to work with dependent on relevant factors - skill, timeframe, cost whatever. It is not PPH's role to decide that for us.
I would say there is an element of illegality with this. If I post a job I wish it to be seen by the whole PPH population, not a chosen few. That is discriminatory sorry, and it isn't allowed elsewjhere.
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The buyer who keeps repeating the same job, has just done it again!
I think PPH needs to deal with a lot of problems on the byers side. Spammers are the most annoying, but part of the problem is naive buyers: they often have little idea what they want, what skills are needed, or how much work is involved. I know PPH has tried to improve this by suggesting questions buyers want to ask when they post a job, but the buyers do not know the right answers to technical questions. I do not have a solution, but PPH need to realise that no automated system can fix this underlying problem.
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there is only two possibilities now.. Whether they revert back to old or PPH will die slowly as many people made stable income from this and they will diverted to another sites or get day job
so freelancers will be reduced significantly and buyers no longer will be interested due to not having quicker and efficient services by newbies
before this buyer getting more then 20 proposals so they can choose freelancers and things were interesting
now all i can see is there is 2 or max 4 proposals and things were not so much interesting for buyerswhat PPH should do is get reviews from buyers from last month experience and if buyers give true review then PPH will remove this system
all i can say is this system is more like cybertek no fun and all should be systematic..
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@Nancy I would imagine that withholding the right to apply for a job is illegal in that it is discriminatory.
Freelance agencies do this every day. They will not pass details onto their clients if they do not believe the candidate has a chance of success - their reputation with their client depends on being a credible source of suitable candidates. They are in competition with rival agencies.So PPH is doing nothing different - just doing it very badly. The agencies I refer to operate with large budget clients and vet candidates personally in a marketplace they understand. Their commission on high-value jobs allows them to do that (one agency made tens of thousands off my placement).
Contrast that with PPH with a myriad of low-value jobs with marginal commission values. They can never afford to scrutinise candidates in the same way and we can see they can't do it through software either.
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Paul is probably right that PPH would not like me posting details of the individual.
However, a few salient facts should be OK:
* Essentially the same job has been repeatedly posted for weeks. I have seen it at least 10 times.
* The job has been posted from atleast two different accounts.
* The two accounts share the same first name, have similarities in their profiles, one has bought an hourlie from the other.
I also no longer waste time and proposal credits on buyers:
* Who do not provide proper requirements in the job posting.
* Do not respond properly to reasonable clarifiction questions
* Just look difficult to work with.
I am sure everyone who has been using PPH for a few months or more learns to do the same, apart from low quality sellers who enthusiastically apply or (or post a spammy clarifiction question on) everything. The end result is a flood of low quality jobs postings (a lot of which are never awarded, and the most of the rest are done outside PPH regardless of the T & C) and low quality sellers drowning the rest of us in spam.
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I agree Graeme. I quickly learnt to only use my limited proposal credits on jobs and sellers that give enough job details to get an accurate idea of the job and who actually award jobs that they post. I've been on the site since 2009 and have seen many changes and I have to say that this 'selected seller' feature is the worst one yet!
I too have noticed a flood of low paid jobs with minimal descriptions and sellers wanting everything for nothing. It is ruining the PPH marketplace for serious freelancers.
I would love to see the income for PPH before the feature was added and after to see if they have also lost money.
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