New system aimed primarily at matching newer sellers with buyers

Comments

1902 comments

  • Paul

    Ironically, my post about the rates is now on page 1 because of the upvotes!

    I knew that facility would screw up any conversation of any length.

    I think everyone charges a rate that applies to the job, not a single fixed rate. It has the potential to cause mayhem.

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  • Paul

    Check out job 866124 and the clarification board. Great minds think alike!

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  • Paul

    Quite disappointed with PPH - there's a buyer 16 years of age on PPH and I have reported the job twice to PPH but it's still there. In the past it would have been gone, but it seems being a 16 year old buyer is OK now.

    I doubt the job is going anywhere, but I did expect PPH to remove it - I think you need to be 18 to use PPH. So much for buyer checks..

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  • Code and More LLP

    Paul, nothing I can see in the T&C about that. AFAIK the law allows under 18s to engage in business (although there restrictions on employing them) but its harder to enforce a contract on a minor.

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  • Rebecca

    What is the job? I suppose if he's asking people to do his homework then that's a problem. I can't really think why a 16 year old would be employing freelancers legitimately

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  • Code and More LLP

    Its certainly not common, but I can think of a good many thing a 16 your old buyer could legitimately want - even leaving aside exceptional ones like 16 year old entrepreneurs (there are some - a bit of Googling turns up some interesting stories)

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  • Paul

    It's not homework. He's trying to learn about programming and wants to pay someone to help him.

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  • Rebecca

    Ah right, that's a good idea then. Although, I also would have thought the site was 18+. Not sure why but I just would have assumed that everyone using the site was legally an adult

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  • Code and More LLP

    Given how PPH works (escrow payment means you should not have to worry about going to court to force a buyer to pay, for example) I see no reason to exclude under 18s. There are some things I would want to check before giving some types of work to an seller under 18 but I think most, if not all, work done on PPH would be OK.

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  • Paul

    Well, on a very basic level, it concerns me that children are allowed to interact in an adult environment where the adults could be anyone with any background and there could be issues that affect any child should the working relationship go wrong in any way - from exploitation by the seller to abuse of any kind.

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  • Code and More LLP

    Yes Paul, lets treat all adults at threats and wrap children in cotton wool until they are 18 - never mind what opportunities we deny them. What a good idea.

    How shocking that this 16 year should want to learn something - lets protect them from that! They have no business showing initiative and should stick to learning in school like sheep.

    PPH is highly unlikely to be a channel for abuse, and very likely to provide opportunities.

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  • Paul

    Graeme, facetious exaggeration is not required.

    In this case, I have engaged with the kid and suggested a better way forward and also suggested that given his age he should take care over who he engages with.

    There are enough dodgy people using PPH from both sides for adults to cope with without children having to cope with them.

    The naive kid wants to program a game, there are better (cheaper and safer) ways to go about it.

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  • Paul

    "An error has occurred while trying to contact the server. If the problem continues, please contact our awesome support team."

    All day today when trying to post a message in a workstream.

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  • Paul

    It seems that this message is generated because I made a proposal and wanted to add some information. This is now forbidden unless the buyer sends me a message first.

    It's a very stupid idea for PPH to block communication, worse still they don't mention the policy anywhere and feel an unrelated error message is an appropriate way to implement this.

    They are bad.

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  • Malcolm

    Haha, I like the "awesome" bit Paul, or did you add that to inject a little bit of sarcasm into your post?

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  • Paul

    No, the "awesome" adjective comes direct from the self-effacing PPH..

    The quoted message is exactly as appears if i try and send a message. Any other company would have removed the ability to post a message (if it was forbidden), provided a descriptive message or never implemented the stupid policy in the first place.

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  • Deb C

    Well I'm currently still waiting for an answer from these 'awesome ninjas' as to why I for the past 2 weeks I've been receiving no email alerts of proposals getting accepted or hourlies purchased!

    I'm still getting all the bilge obviously but have complained now about this 5 times and am yet to recieve a response.

    Another word beginning with A springs to mind.....

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  • Paul

    Alarm bells. Job 921820

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  • Paul

    For all their faults, PPH does seem to pull most of the jobs I report to them.

    It's scary how people will actually want to go along with jobs like that. They don't seem to realise they could be getting into some seriously bad situation.

    There was another job that required a collection of something (it might have been trainers) and to post them on. It really made me think that that could by itself be very dodgy indeed - you never know what you might actually be collecting. Made me think of the old crime series where third parties would transport all kinds of illicit stuff instead of the real perpetrators.

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  • Paul

    The job has now resurfaced as 922863. Rather more carefully worded..

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  • Paul

    Unless I'm mistaken, all links to these forums have now been removed from the PPH site.

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  • Malcolm

    Paul, and anyone else for that matter, out of interest, are people still getting much from this site/still using it? I'll be having a look now and again, but I'm still at the "needing to pay" stage.

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  • Paul

    I don't run many jobs through the site - most of my clients come via other routes. I have one live job on PPH right now and occassionaly pick up small jobs.

    I have no idea what 'the "needing to pay" stage.' means.

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  • Malcolm

    Sorry Paul, perhaps should have been clearer. All I meant was that (unless things have changed) I won't be able to submit proposals until I've coughed up whatever it is a month for a subscription to the site (something still undecided on).

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  • Deb C

    Malcolm I'm baffled by this as well. I don't use PPH anywhere near as much as I used to, whether you have noticed my absence on here is open to debate :P, but I still have never had to pay to submit proposals. If I ever used up the 15 free proposal credits I get at the beginning of every month I would have to buy more but I've never been asked to pay anything else. x

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  • Paul

    I'm guessing that PPH haven't approved you as a seller and the only way to continue beyond the initial trial is to pay a fee. Is that right?

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  • Malcolm

    Hi Deb, the only absence I've noticed is the lack of 'activity' on the discussion forum, and I miss that :) I'd have to check my records, cos it's been a while (and perhaps things have changed a bit), but I definitely remember that I couldn't submit any more proposals until I'd subscribed. I can't remember what the payment options were. There was, I believe, a small amount of discussion about this on THIS very thread. I'm sure I didn't submit many proposals, because a lot of the projects were unsuitable. I can easily go back and take a look.

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  • Malcolm

    Debs, I've also just remembered that I was locked out of some stuff, due to the problems with the 'hidden' keywords system (something again, which was discussed on here)

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  • Paul

    I think PPH insists that you win a few jobs within three months to get your membership going, otherwise the fee kicks in. It's been a very long time since this came up!

    I think PPH has removed the link to these forums. One day they'll just disappear.

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  • Malcolm

    "Your qualification period has expired. Please review our renewal options." Ah, yes, it must have been because I didn't satisy the conditions at the time (whatever they were?), and have effectively been locked out until I pay them.

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