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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Oh, the duplicate posting thread: http://support.peopleperhour.com/entries/79900316-Why-are-some-buyers-allowed-to-repeatedly-post-the-same-job-with-impunity-
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@Nancy, to elaborate on what Paul said, discrimination is illegal on certain grounds - sex (with some positive discrimination allowed), race, secual orientation, and possible some other things. In practice you can get away with it provided you are not blatent or and do not pick on people who can afford good lawayers... PPH selecting candidates by key word is silly, but perfectly legal.
My biggest worry about discrimination on PPH is that non-white British people may be thought by buyers to be off-shore with a faked location. Location being used as a filter for quality also means British expats (10% of the population of the UK!) lose out.
@Paul, voted for the duplicate positing thread.
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@PPH: I've seen this before.
My comments were aimed at helping you, because there's mutual benefit at stake. I joined PPH because it was the best of the freelancing sites I looked at, several years ago, and seemed to offer a reasonable additional income for me.
I've seen this all before: in the stock photographic industry, prices were driven down and many agencies (=equivalent of PPH) were driven out of business or taken over.
I am not going to post about what I think the solution is, because it is a) confidential information b) I don't think you are listening. If you (PPH Admin) would like to hear more, please contact me.
@PPHers sorry to be so oblique. I know things that are not for open posting, but this is not for personal gain but to try to help PPH solve the problem for the benefit of all. If anybody knows how to contact the PPH decision maker directly perhaps you could let me know?
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There is one major flaw in the stock answer PPH keep churning out in response to the deluge of complaints on this subject: "The time limit is currently for 2 hours and in all fairness, you will also be receiving matching notifications for other Job posts that no other users will have access to for the first couple of hours."
Yes, I am getting invitations to bid in the first 2 hours; on projects that have absolutely no relevance whatsoever to my skills! A massive chunk of my feedback comes from product description, the first skill listed on my profile, yet I am repeatedly blocked for applying for these jobs and being invited to bid on website building and Joomla!
There's a lot of hype surrounding the new freelancer site that's starting and when PPH wonder where all their freelancers, and money, are disappearing to, they may want to read through these threads and realise that their stock answers just don't wash!
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I've been reading through the posts here and can't really add much more other than to say - I've made PPH my sole source of income in the last few months and I'm seriously starting to regret that decision now. Ever since selling on Ebay years ago and them making it gradually more difficult for sellers, I've been very wary of relying on one site since they can change their policies at any time.
My fear has been realised now with this job matching feature. I have gained a huge amount of momentum over the last few months of working here and now this has been ground to a halt because of this new feature.
I've complained directly to customer support four times now over the last few weeks. In the latest response I got, they said changes are being made to the system to make it more efficient. That sounds discouraging to me. I don't think anyone wants changes making to the system but rather it removing entirely.
I think it's time to start putting my efforts elsewhere as they just don't seem to be listening to us on this issue.
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I think we can put ourselves in their shoes. They had some crazy brainstorming idea in the Greek sun and who knows if uzo was involved. The bright idea came out and since then a good bit of work has been involved in implementing it, a tiny amount of work testing it and ever since then customer support has been dealing with questions and complaints.
It takes a while to give up on a feature that you've invested a lot of time and money on. It's an expensive mistake for us and an expensive mistake for them.
I understand why they want to make good with it. They just need time to truly understand it was a dead idea before they started. It's a bit embarrassing to scrap a new feature straight out.
We can all imagine when the 'we listened guys' message will arrive. It will arrive.
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Having been mistaken as a qualified lawyer for a few job selections when this system first kicked in (I am an illustrator/graphic designer), this week the system has changed tack and is now identifying me as a chartered psychologist! (Sorry PPH, I'm still an illustrator / graphic designer)
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PPH keep moving the goal posts and those of us who have seen all the changes from the old feedback system which worked fine, to the CERT system and now this ability to no longer bid on projects for two hours. Being a freelancer I'm sure many of you like me have little time as it is scarring the job feed for projects that you feel are best matched to you. Now I find I am having to jot down details of a job to come back and waste time 2 hours later to submit a proposal only to get back from the buyer "you are clearly the best but your price is two, three times what I have been quoted already" No fault of the buyer but new PPH freelancers tend to under charge just to get the work and because of this stupid system a buyer will have received 5 - 6 offers from new PPH folk for not realistic charges.
PPH please reconsider this idea, all of what you implement isn't bad but this idea is beyond logic and very damaging to not only my business ( Speaking for all the seasoned freelancers here! ) but also for yours as you work on a percentage.
Rather than just complain perhaps a solution would be to invite a group of very experienced PPH Freelancers to give feedback on any ideas you are thinking of implementing to the community. I feel this might cut down on the backlash you receive every time you release one of these grand schemes as it currently stands it sounds like the CEO of PPH makes the rules by himself.
One disgruntled PPH freelancer.
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“You're one of the most qualified Sellers for the Job "Italian tuition" because of your skills in Tutorial”
I mean, seriously, what the hell? I don’t speak a word of Italian, but even then … what skills in ‘Tutorial’? I don’t have that listed as a skill, have never done a tutorial job on PPH and don’t mention it in my profile.
The only reason I can think I’ve been invited to this job is that I’ve done copywriting for TUITION websites through PPH. That doesn’t make me a tutor, it makes me a copywriter. And me getting this invitation means someone who’s actually qualified is barred from bidding for two hours.
Surely PPH can see how untrustworthy and impersonal this kind of nonsense email makes the site look to its users?
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PPH wants to be perfect, but now it is getting TOO strict and annoying for both sellers and buyers. Red tapes in PPH are overflowing. I cannot apply for 90% of the jobs for which I am qualified because of useless rules.
Dear PPH board! There is NO NEED for a matching criteria while biding for a job. Because it is the buyer who must pick a smart choice selecting the right seller. This new rule is really frustrating and annoying. I, personally, cannot bid on a single project for which I have all the matching skills. For times, I've played with my skill list, moving them, reversing them, picking similar skills, etc. But no luck! I couldn't even pick a single matching job. So what does this mean? I'm new here, with lots of motivation. But this made me really disappointed. I think removing this bug (feature!) would be a wise decision. This really degrades the quality of PPH. Rather, plan some strategies to guide the buyers pick the right seller. I mean picking the right one for the right project. The more smarter choice they make, the more quality would be delivered, and PPH would be of higher work space quality.
Now we (sellers) cannot bid for our matching jobs and thus, buyers are missing the qualified ones for their jobs. This is a big bug! Beauty is in simplicity. Avoid troublesome complex rules. Believe me, you and PPH are good enough. These rules are not necessary. We are missing our chances now. Please do something!!!
Thanks for reading,
Faryad
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New skill of the day folks; am now am Arabic translator and can apply for a project thanks to my 'language' and 'translation' skills AND I am to install said translation on a website. Beginning to think am wasted as a freelancer tbh, surely rocket scientist is more suitable considering the fact am gaining these skills on a daily basis, no training required :P
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LOL you lot! Hilarious - in a way, but it's frustrating. I've had some invites but I like to pick and choose and only to apply for those that I know I can do a good job on. The invites I've had have been "meh", yet I've leapt at some jobs with a rallying cry only to find they're restricted, and my own acceptance stats are going down. *gloom*
The other thing is this: if buyers find that people aren't bidding for their jobs soon after posting, or the bids they receive aren't what they're looking for when they need an expert, why will they stay on PPH when there are plenty of other places where people aren't restricted from bidding? Quite often, buyers will have posted that same job on other freelancer sites, so the fact that freelancers have been picking up a lot of lucrative work here means that our standard is very high. As others have said, that two hour window is crucial to a freelancer, but now we're losing out.
Sigh.
And yes, it would be so helpful to have some kind of button on jobs that indicates any restriction. The number of times I've opened them up and had to scroll all the way down just to be slapped in the face!
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Anyone else received 85 free bid credits today?
It appears I'm a top seller I've received 85 free credits today to use during July. Brilliant, I thought, I wonder if restrictions have been raised. No, they haven't. I can't use the damned credits. I didn't use the ones I had for June. Frustrated doesn't come close. PPH I can't earn you anything if you don't let me. Why this amount of free bids. At least let me use them. I've earnt nothing recently. My only work has been from promised projects discussed before this new system came into being, and now that is on its last legs too.
When are you going to improve this system?
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