Penalize Hourlies with late deliveries
If you wanna know more details, please go to my account and check out the hourlies I bought till now and look by yourselves how long these people needed to have the work done and how long they promise they will have the work done and how many of them really care about the job, or how serious they are taking their hourlies? 50% or less? This is crazy! If they do not need the job, go and have some fun somewhere else and PLEASE do not waste other people's time!!!
I was trying to be nice all the way and I really didn't want to pay those hourlies which are delayed like 10 days, 20 days or even 1 month! Are you kidding me?
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Mark - I do agree with you - there is nothing worse for us good freelancers than other freelancers giving us a bad name and not delivering work - it just puts people off using any freelancers in the future. And PPH do flag us up when we have over a certain number of jobs on the go to remind us to get some delivered or not take on any other work. BUT - there has to be some way though of protecting (or rather not penalising us!!) for bad clients - really, getting bad rating and lower CERTS badly affects our ability to get work and they should be given out by PPH rarely and only after the full details have been established.
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Elaine, I couldn't agree more, anything that effects someones ability to get work is not something that should be taken lightly. It should be a last resort and absolutely only when complete details have been established, and fault is completely and irrevocably with the freelancer. Unfortunately it is unlikely, but what should happen is if the client (again this has to be proven by the powers that be) turns out to be hopeless or non contactable, they are sent reminders that "if you don't contact the freelancer with the details requested within 14 days, you will forfeit your money in escrow and this will be given to the freelancer, as he/she hasn't been able to take on any work while they waited for you to get off your bum". Probably not words to that effect, but still. If you want to get to the buyer, that's the only way. And as a buyer this is something I would adhere to (I would move heaven and earth to get the information before losing my money, but that's just me). At the end of the day PPH have the money, all they have to do is put it in their terms and conditions and notify all customers, this is what will occur. This then makes it a fair system for all.
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Well, I can confirm after speaking to PPH that in the event of a refund being given, mutually agreed or not, they can remove the automated feedback - ie. Job Not Delivered, but cannot alter the affect it has on your Cert, which is why mine dropped from Cert 5 to Cert 4. The system just recognizes that a refund was issued and that negatively hampers your rating, regardless of the reason why the refund was given. This came straight from the horses mouth.
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Sofia - this just isn't realistic - What if the the hourlie is purchased by an international client whilst you are offline? Chances are it will be a good several hours before you get back to that client and then you still have to get the job sorted, so it kind of makes a mockery of the whole "I'll do this in an hour for you from the moment of purchase" How many people with hourlies up on here can honestly say hand on heart that they nail every job in an hour? - It's more of a metaphor for a quick turnaround than an actual statement of fact and I make that clear to all of my hourlie clients. If PPH don't want this to be the case then every service that cannot realistically be done in an hour, should not pass adjudication.
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This post is absurd. I recently sold an hourlie for a bespoke 60 second animation, deliverable in 5 days with amends. In the first 5 days I completed a 60 second animation to the brief and even made a few changes. It is now three weeks later and we are still working on it, amending, evolving, making sure we get it right. I have agreed to get the job done to a high standard and the client is being patient that if he wants lots of additional changes, they will take more time. Those statistics do NOT give an accurate representation of what is happening behind the scenes in each job. the thought of penalizing sellers for late jobs will lead to more mediocrity and rushed jobs. Further enhancing every issue I have with this site, it seems to be inundated with amateurs on both sides of the fence. Either buyers with ridiculous expectations for almost exploitative pay or sellers promising the world in 2 days for 50p. Everyone just needs to use a bit of common sense.
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Let me tell you all how ridiculous this is getting! I have recently had a client who bought an hourlie and then instead of releasing payment when it was completed mistakenly bought another hourlie. So, naturally he asked me to refund the extra hourlie. Being wary of the one stars for refunding I contacted PPH customer services and asked them to refund the amount so my ratings were not affected. NO - they can't - I will still get the one star rating even though the client has agreed to confirm it was a mistake. I can't keep his money forever so I am going ton have to refund it and take the one star rating and inevitably lose business. I am speechless!!
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Hi Elaine
That doesn't make sense, I've been through that before and PPH said it was fine, just refund the customer and choose other. Then state that the customer ordered 2 by mistake instead of one. I've didn't receive a 1 star rating either. If he is asking for a refund because he's unhappy about something then obviously that's different. I'd escalate it if you can.
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It does seem to me that people are focusing on ratings too much. In the bigger picture of supplying a service or product, a one star rating is a tiny set back. Nobody, and I mean nobody can deliver 100% all the time. It's human nature. There are so many external factors that can influence how you deliver a service or product. It's never as clear cut as client asks freelancer to deliver and it's delivered.
If you do a job well and you and your client know it, then that's all that matters. If you place your worth on a rating, then you hit dodgy ground very fast. Your worth is you, the time you invest in your business, the skills you offer clients, how you manage your client and workload. How you cope with a 1 star rating. What you take from each experience. No amount of stars can capture that.
If nobody payed attention to the ratings, and lets be honest, there are some dodgy dealings (top ratings held to ransom for one), then it would be back to the old days when we managed fine without ratings.
Honestly, there are more important things to worry about :)
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You're right Suzanne, however the reason being is because ratings = rankings. So if you don't have the ranking you have to pay the premium feature to be found. I personally haven't found the rating / ranking bad at all. However even having refunds has an inpact on the cert level, when I look at all of my refunds, which has only been about 6 in the last 8 months, they've all be because the client doesn't have the relevant info and actually isn't ready for the hourlie... or the hourlie has been purchased and they've thought it was something else.... even though the hourlie has been set out as detailed as possible.
You are right though in terms of if you do a job well, you and your clients know it, that's all that matters. I've not had any problems at all until one recently. However everything is rectifiable and even with one bad rating you still have the option to try and make amends etc.
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Suzanne - agreed it shouldn't matter that much. But I've worked my socks off to get high up the rankings and the amount of good quality work I get has increased hugely. I know from experience how hard it is to start out on PPH and getting myself up the rankings has been a long process involving me often working far below the hourly rate I would have liked. If people want to give me good or bad ratings, that is fine it's their choice to decide how good (or bad) my work is - I have absolutely no problem with that but to be penalised for something that is a genuine mistake is wrong.
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Automating the process is fraught with issues in both directions. The clock needs to start when the complete set of assets is received - which is often days after it is bought because (shock) clients are busy! Demanding they do it instantly is rude, but if we don't we get penalised due to the automatic clock which starts on purchase, not when we start work.
Also - and this may sound familiar - we often wait days for feedback or the OK to invoice after we send the work... because clients are busy!
A start button for when assets are received an a pause button for when we need to wait for feedback would be the only way to do this fairly.
Otherwise we have to bully clients to respond faster than is reasonable to avoid automatic penalties, which will only cause unhappiness and break our relationship with the client and makes no sense!
I think a complaint should be instigated by the buyer - not automatic. To avoid the above and ensure a penalty comes from a buyer being unhappy... not from everyone being happy and everything going well, which is how it is now! Otherwise the penalties are meaningless and don't show buyers which people don't deliver since they know half of them will be penalties for work where the buyer was happy :s
Automatic bad reviews for refunds I think can be removed as I managed to get one sorted and avoided. I had someone buy an hourlie for an animated gif banner ad then proceed to request a large printed poster for their shop window, as they didn't understand what they had bought (despite my large description and sample work shown). I don't want to be penalised for that, or indeed want them to be penalised for that, it was just a mistake and politely refunding them was a nice thing for me to do - not something to penalise!
It's tricky as PPH gets bigger they try to automate more, but it can backfire so often.
I also wanted to thank PPH for listening to us and letting us put our own working days and holidays down - no more being penalised for not working the weekend if an hourlie is bought at 6pm in a Friday! Fixing that makes things much better :)
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Kerry006 and others who took an interest in my post. Moving on a further week, the client accused a qualified Solicitor who is studying towards the Bar exam (becoming a Barrister) of producing a copied internet document. His response to the automated and uncaring PPH system was that "The information provided is not specific to my requirements. I believed I was going to get a frasnchise agreement that I could actually use straight away not a multiple choice document with some considerations. I could have done that myself off the internet!! I will review over the weekend and provide you with my thoughts. Disappointed with what's been provided and didn't come close to my expectations."
Apart from having a very short brief from the client that facilitated the need to produce the "multiple choice" question despite asking the client for more information, what choice do you have? The client then tries to get me to circumvent PPH by sending the documents, questions etc direct via email rather than the PPH system. I reminded the client that this was a beach of the terms but is sticks at the back of your throat when PPH sided with the client.
My next action was to then go belt and braces, remember I have still not received any further instruction or guidance from the client, I even had to get a junior to track the business down and from tracing services use the information to construct yet another document. This one is 49 pages long and according to the Franchise Association in their advisory to prospective franchisors and franchisees would be one that is comprehensive and costly.
All Solicitors if you come through the front door so to speak charge in a style called six minute billing. When I applied the cost to date the client would have managed to get a Solicitor to draw up an agreement for just over £9 per hour, anyone tell me where you can get one that cheap?
So yet again. draft document, have a colleague check it, then send it via PPH not email as client requests. The client reads the post and rejects the invoice immediately. This time his reasons were:
"It's a 48 page document and the first opportunity I will get to review is at the weekend. Please feel to re-generate the invoice on Friday and I will process it over the weekend if I'm satisfied".
In the same post, PPH send this to me:
- Please get in touch with XXXXX to reach an agreement and continue the Job.
- We would advise you to provide them with revisions until they are satisfied, correct any errors, deliver any pending tasks and share the final files of the Job on the workstream.
- You could settle the case by _offering them to pay a lower amoun_t. To do so, just raise a new Invoice.
- If you are unable to resolve this and you believe you should receive payment for completed you can raise a Dispute. But keep in mind that raising a dispute will affect your CERT score and your ranking on PPH. Most disputes can be prevented with some good will and compromise. We highly recommend you try working it out with the Buyer before going down this route
Now, please tell me if I am wrong? Is there any justification for cancelling the invoice by the client? Is this an abuse of the system, but should I raise it, I get penalised. It is just simply wrong!!!
The client wants the document quickly. gave little in the way of input, and committed defamation. Then as an act of appeasement and following the robotic PPH advice and produce them work worth** £1,200** online or £2,300 should they have walked through the door. All for £100!!
PPH has some of the very best Freelancers on all the freelance sites. However, from my point of view, we see a promotion of cheaper suppliers and an unsupportive ruling from PPH. This will result in good, professional Freelancers leaving. Personally, I cannot support a system that see me as a freelance provider lose money.
PPH has to remember, a Freelancer is a repeat customer, buyers however by the majority purchase once and never return.
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Having just read through all of the comments on this topic, PPH YOU NEED TO TAKE NOTE!!! I have extended some of my HOURLIES to the 5 day max and still I have clients that purchase and then never provide the data. This means I cannot complete the job, the clock starts ticking,and it looks like I am falling behind on my schedule. This urgently needs to be rectified, particularly if it is going to start impacting upon our ratings. Come on PPH, let us know what you are going to do about this!!!!!
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Someone else made a feature request for a Hourlie 'Pause' button to click when we are waiting on buyer info/assets/feedback or any other agreed pauses... to stop the clock on the hourlie.
If we all get behind that feature request with +1 clicks then maybe it will get made and it would solve a lot of things and end controversy over this feature as well :)
http://support.peopleperhour.com/entries/37552603-Pausing-a-bought-hourlie
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Take up Becca's suggestion folks, better than just complaining on here. If we get enough votes on the feature request then PPH will have to consciously ignore us rather than just not bother because we're only whining.
http://support.peopleperhour.com/entries/37552603-Pausing-a-bought-...
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Just to let you all know that this thread has just been brought to my attention. I haven't yet had chance to read through all of your replies but I will tonight and over the next few days (it's quite a long one!). Please remember that this is a Feature Requests forum so only feature requests should be posted here. However on this occasion, up until Gerry's post at 22.46 on 6th March 2014 your post will be reviewed and I will look in to your concerns. If you need any further assistance, please place your queries here so that I may help you :) http://support.peopleperhour.com/forums/22159536-Specialist-advice-needed
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I agree with Kerry, Jon and Elaine's comments and experiences.
In short, this means:
- Sellers should be able to approve hourlies before they start, rather than having them start as soon as a client puts money into escrow.
- Dates need to be editable, and then approved, by both parties (see how Elance does it).
This means clients can get a no-quibbles refund before a seller approves the hourlie, thereby indicating they've started work, and sellers are protected from having to cancel jobs or deliver late because of problems caused by clients (e.g. late responses; incorrect information; etc.).
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It seems that most freelancers are geared up to offering a fast service and buyers need to be more organised to facilitate it. If they (buyers) are not prepared to put in the effort to supply relevant info, then they should advertise their requirements on the job page, where it is less time sensitive. The whole point of the hourlies is a speedy trouble free service benefiting both sides.
Nothing is gained by tying up freelancers with the promise of work, not supplying the work and keeping them in limbo not knowing when the work will turn up. It must make scheduling very difficult.
Freelancers also have to be honest about how and what they can do within the hourlie frame, and if it's not possible to say so before any work starts allowing the buyer to find someone else if need be.
Would a check box which had to be clicked by the freelancer which states that he has relevant info be of any help? The click box activates the start and the timer for the hourlie. Then the buyer can taje as long as they like to get started. Then at the end, the freelancer clicks another box to stop the hourlie. This confirms the hourly has been done on time.
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After reading all of your responses, I have passed this on to our product team who will review this and look in to possible changes. I can only update you as and when I receive information from the team and I'm not sure how long this will take them, so please do be patient and I should be in touch again soon.
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