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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I hope PPH fails.
This is not just about PPH. A huge number of people now rely on PPH to provide them with income and while many here can walk away, PPH is a lifeline for those who don't have alternatives for one reason or another.
I have been a big critic of PPH. I don't want them to fail. I want them to do the right thing and succeed.
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@deb, so you are taking clients you got through PPH and dealing with them through another site: a breach of the PPH terms and they could, in theory, sue you to recover the fees you would otherwise have paid them - read the T & C. I doubt they will bother with that, but they may boot you off PPH.
If they are clients you already have why pay any intermediary - just work directly with the client and save the tenner as well?
So if you paid £150+ in fees including VAT you are making about £3,000 a month through PPH clients. At your rates that means they are supplies you with full time work last month. Not too bad. As you said that they are repeat clients, that means that you already have full time work without either PPH or Maven.
If you you need to find new clients in bad months, how is a new site with no buyers going to help you?
If you do not know anything about technology, why are you so reluctant to believe those that do, when they tell you that a site will be a disaster?
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@Graeme I have explained this SO many times its getting boring! I won't work directly as I have been ripped off in the past and the vast majority of these clients I have had for a long time and got them through other sources; my blog and through word of mouth etc. I am not hijacking or kidnapping PPH clients, this is simply the platform I choose to work through rather than go private. I also pointed out that a ropey site with faults isn't my main concern, that is a techie view that will always want everything perfect. If PPH hadn't brought in so many useless features, and weren't bombarding me with crap, just received one telling me I have been selected to bid on a Swedish translation project, i would probably just happily carry on as I have been doing. You have your opinion I have mine, you work your way I work mine. We all do what suits us best, am not getting into an argument over this I have work to do :)
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"the vast majority of these clients I have had for a long time and got them through other sources"
In that case how come you are paying PPH fees on them? You do not pay fees on clients you introduce. I know, I did it with one client. In fact, if they are from other sources PPH is a pretty good deal because you get free escrow to avoid being ripped off.
So that means you made about £3000 from PPH introduced clients last month, and that is just a small part of your freelancing and one that you are happy to dispense with? Sounds like you are doing very well!
Also, does that mean that Maven's £10 a month includes escrow free of further charge? That would interest me (as long as the money is ring fenced as they are so new).
"I also pointed out that a ropey site with faults isn't my main concern, that is a techie view that will always want everything perfect".
It will be your concern if it does not work properly. These are people who had a last minute problem with the payments system which should have been tested to death well in advance. What if the payment system goes wrong again?
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@ Graeme i will be honest with you that was not something I was aware of. I have just told people to sign up on here to hire me through it, I didn't know there was any kind of introduction system. Well you learn something new every day, shame I hadn't learnt Russian overnight as this is a pretty good job I have just been selected for.
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@Deb - I think I'll be trying Maven myself, in truth I've lost faith in PPH given their lack of integrity.. I've been getting work elsewhere, but enough regular work. I initially planned to have any clients process the work/payment through PPH so I had use of the escrow system, but given that PPH were the party refusing to put the payment through, it makes a bit of a farce of escrow. It means they can just change rules on the fly then blackmail workers into complying.
@Graeme - My issue with the passport thing, is they gave no indication it was a requirement until they has MY money in their virtual mitts. I saw nothing about it anywhere on the web site, I just tripped over it when I tried and failed to access my money.
As it was quickly followed up by the mess of having to reapply to join, the CV requirement and demanding that workers put their face in their profile. Quite simply it should be individual choice as to whether or not one's face is published all over the net. All of it done in such a hostile way. Someone should tell then that friendly communication is a better business tool than blackmail and coercion. For several weeks every time I logged in there was yet another block on something and a DEMAND that I do something. Coupled with there Stepford wife cut and paste customer service responses... well you can see why I've been elsewhere to seek work... :)
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@Graeme - PPH would have trouble getting any legal satisfaction from people taking their clients with them. Such T&Cs are usually in breach of various laws - (I forget which ones, it's a long time since I've had to invoke them) so they don't stand up in court, but many companies still put it in the T&C's in hope of it being a deterrent. There are a tiny number of pretty specific situations where such T&Cs hold any sway at all. All the changes PPH had introduced in such a clumsy way could constitute behavior deemed to undermine the worker's ability to earn a living and as such would give them little to no grounds for suing.
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@dee, even if you are right, they could kick people off the site. I have no idea of what either legislation or case law is on this. I would be very interested in knowing if you can dig anything up. I am also a bit confused by your reference to "worker's ability to earn a living" - that would make sense to me with reference to a restrictive clause in an employment contract, but I am not sure how it applies here.
I am currently wondering whether I should say more of what I know about who is behind Maven. I respect their privacy but I also feel that people in this thread are badly misinformed without that information - I am not sure what the right thing to do is. If you anyone wants to contact me privately I will say more in confidence.
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@Dee, yes I quite agree PPH should have told us about the ID requirements much earlier. I was a nuisance for me as well. The general harshness towards new freelancers is a reaction to previous complaints (see earlier in the thread) about low cost/low quality freelancers driving prices down and letting down buyers.
That said PPH is a mess at the moment, although, from my POV, things are improving.
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I am currently wondering whether I should say more of what I know about who is behind Maven. I respect their privacy but I also feel that people in this thread are badly misinformed without that information - I am not sure what the right thing to do is.
It's simple. Don't post information they have not chosen to reveal publicly themselves.
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Of all the forums in all the world, people moaning, complaining, and with anger and often hostility, all I see in these forums are intelligent and seemingly well versed users who are providing eloquent and constructive criticism.
If I owned a business such as this, and saw such well structured and intellectual feedback as has been given by most users here - and those users who are making the site/business possible - I would take great consideration to the facts and opinions given.
That said, I guess PPH just want to make some money, which is business and I don't fault them, if they make money so do we etc, but businesses fail. Even large ones which had hundreds of millions in turnover. Often it's the market and nothing much can be done, but it's also often a wrong turn by the business which causes disruption in their sales/shares/users or customers/etc, which in turn impacts their core income.
It doesn't take much to start disruption and a downward spiral can quite quickly and easily get out of control, and more quickly than ever anticipated become to the point where any action is too little too late.
In any business you can add features which don't work, are nonsense, annoy users, etc, but these are for the best part harmless to the business. However once you introduce a feature which affects users' incomes, and is detrimental to their using the main core services your business grew on in the first place, then you have to seriously stand up and consider: Is this new feature, which helps XYZ users, really for the greater good with all parameters considered?
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I see Maven people are upset (see twitter) about their anonymity. I am not sure what the fuss is about as they will have to reveal their company name (and shareholder and directors names are public info) or their own names (if it is a partnership) when they launch, or they will be breaking UK law.
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that would make sense to me with reference to a restrictive clause in an employment contract, but I am not sure how it applies here.
@Graeme, that's the one, the restrictive clause. Someone simply joining PPH and siphoning off clients, may have reason to be concerned, as the intent is clear, but someone who has worked here and built up a following and chooses to move on taking their clients with them wouldn't have any real cause for concern. (I'm assuming that anyone doing that is leaving the site).
There's the restrictive clause, which forbids working the the clients of a company for X time after leaving and there's also the laws around agency workers. After a year (It may have changed gain by now.) the agency can no longer demand payment if the worker chooses to work directly with the company the agency introduced them to. PPH can of course kick the person off the site for breaching T&Cs, but that's about it as far as retaining clients go.
Re the ID documents, I'd already done the work and payment had been made by the client when PPH demanded the information, so it was a little late for them to pretend they were protective measures. To my mind it's a deliberate method of ensuring they have the worker over a barrel before DEMANDING this documentation. It's basically a "comply or else" stance. It was my second project here in a short time, so I had high hopes for PPH being my primary gateway for clients, including any clients found independently of PPH. Much like Deb. I've done the credit control dance and considered the PPH charges worth the saving in time, stress and potential strained customer relations. But their coercion tactics mean it's no longer a viable option.
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@James, I think the biggest mistake they made was to move customer service out of the UK to Greece, when the majority of their customers are in the UK, and the majority of those who are not are English speaking.
The other problem is that the problems are caused by an attempt to deal with earlier problems. If they just roll things back they just get the old problems back.
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@Graeme I've not had to deal with customer service thus far.
I've worked in dev pits for large companies, rolling back to problems which the rollouts were to fix is better than resolving some problems and introducing new ones.
You are just smearing the dirt to different parts of the floor, rather than actually cleaning it up, eg you then have additional "patches" for the new issues introduced by the "fix", and so on and so on.
Rollback, then re-think the strategy and how best to move forward again to truly resolve the issues without introducing new ones. This time with more knowledge having failed previously!
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@Dee yes, but are you sure it applies to people who are not employees. I am afraid we self-employed have very few rights!
Also, it is not a "protective measure" put in place by PPH, it is a requirement of UK law http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/mlr/getstarted/register/msb.htm which leads to this http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/mlr/your-role/resposibilities.htm I strongly suspect that they were not doing what they should and had to implement it quickly.
@James, you may well be right. The only real large scale mess I dealt with was fixed without causing further issues, so I have been lucky!
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@Dee I can recall the law a bit better now and it does apply beyond employees - it did apply to at least once case involving the sale of a large business to a director (actually the restriction was upheld, but because it was reasonable in the circumstances). I still have no idea how it would apply here, but as it would only apply to clients we got through PPH I am inclined to think it would be upheld. I doubt they would bother though, as I originally said.
@Maven people, please stop panicking, I am not out to out you - I just do not think you have been behaving fairly or ethically and wanted some people to be a bit better informed about who they are talking to.
I hardly recognise the description of me and what I said on Facebook: I never said you would run off with the money, for example - I said that you may not be capable of implementing a reliable payment system. I even said I would be interested in using your escrow system if it was included in the monthly fee.
I do not see how the owners of Maven being anonymous protects anyone other than themselves, and I do not see how using Paypal as your payment system protects anyone.
I do not have a bee in my bonnet about you, or I would have known and lot more and spilled it all - I just did some digging out of casual curiosity.
If PPH have noticed you, then they probably already know a great deal about you than I do as they could easily just assign someone to spend a day digging up info, and they have complete access to your PPH info (real names addresses, bank details etc.) to correlate with public info and they may well have access to various databases that would give them yet more info.
I very much doubt they will notice you until you have about 1,000 or so freelancers and a proportionate number of buyers at which point you would have stopped worrying about them.
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Just when I thought today's ridiculous collection of job selections couldn't get any worse up pops this little gem. http://www.peopleperhour.com/job/research-for-a-space-mission-592125 some would say it's out of the world, me? I'm wondering how the hell, in between the 500+ quiz question's I've put together today, I had time to learn Satellite Technology which is something I excel in apparently.......
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@Graeme; A director would be a whole different ball game, due to the level of influence and access to high level information. A director/owner can sometimes cripple a business even after leaving.
Also if someone sells a business, depending on the business, often the customer base (and good will) is central to the value of the business. It's a central/critical aspect of the sale, so taking the clients is essentially holding on to the very business one has sold.
The way the law is applied in very broad terms; any party significantly inhibiting the other party's ability to earn a living/continue their business by applying an unfair practice, is likely to find themselves on the losing end of any dispute. No single PPH worker can overwhelm PPH in that sense, It falls under what is often called David and Goliath type laws. The size and might of the parties involved is taken into account. So as you say PPH would be unlikely to follow it up.
I was in a comparable situation with an agency. Having worked with a client for 4 years through the agency, I finally decided to go it alone with this client. It was a very lucrative contract. However, there was ample evidence that I was the person who turned the original 8 week contract into the lucrative contract it had become and they had profited from it directly for a full 4 years. They had no case as I had not only been more than fair, I'd also been a significant asset to their company, as I was the ambassadorial person they used to secure further long term contracts in the same organisation.
Like all legal issues, the devil's in the detail, but unless workers are intentionally setting out to harm PPH, they'll generally be safe in this regard.
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@Dee thanks for the reply, your position with regard to the agency would have been much the same as one of us with regard to PPH, so that is potentially useful information.
Thinking about it, PPH also does not define "follow on work", which is what must go through PPH. I would prefer it if they did as it would remove doubt.
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Pilar has been in touch with me. (I believe Kelly has moved on to being Email Marketing & Community Manager. She will know Lucy Clarke, I’m sure.) I wonder whether this is a sample survey as no-one else has mentioned it here. Here is what the email said:
It's Pilar here, the Community Manager at PeoplePerHour. Firstly, I’d like to thank you for using our service and I hope you’ve had a good experience with us. I’m getting in contact today as I would like to hear about your recent experience with PPH and how we can help you to have more success on our platform. I would be grateful if you could provide me with your feedback on the following questions:
As an active Freelancer on PeoplePerHour what are your pain points?
What is your biggest challenge as a Freelancer?
What type of information would add value to your PPH experience?
What is your top business goal for the end of 2014?
Thanks in advance for taking the time out to review and answer our questions.
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