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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Also I just sold an hourlie last week and the delivery time is 5 working days. But the buyer was given a date much sooner by the PPH system, 2 working days in fact!
This means my hourlie is now late according to PPH and the buyer... but it shouldn't be as I set the hourlie up (and it says on it) 5 working days... If penalties are to be put into place then the deadlines need to be correct in the site.
I've spoken to support but they keep escalating it and haven't gotten back to me as to why the hourlie deadline is being set wrong by the site and not matching what I set it to. I feel bad for my buyer, but I put the number of days to 5 for a reason!
Another reason to get the pause button implemented: http://support.peopleperhour.com/entries/37552603-Pausing-a-bought-hourlie - please vote for that one. If this penalty feature gets implemented without the pause function there will be a lot of potential for error.
Thanks.
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Belay the above. I had made an error updating my hourlie a while back it seems and had gotten confused because the old time + weekend days added up to the number I expected to see by coincidence. PPH team very politely explained this to me! Their deadline system does work. And it takes weekends into account as well.
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I would like to see buyers who purchase hourlies and then don't respond or do anything with them penalised. I have three which have been sitting there for months. I suspect if we get penalised for not delivering it would be an automated system and those of us who have outstanding hourlies due to the buyers fault not the freelancers will get penalised for it.
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If we vote up the 'pause' button thread so we can pause hourlies where the customer needs more time or has delays then nobody needs to get penalised and no customer needs to get pushed to do things quicker than they can either. I don't mind if they buy them and then take a few weeks rather than days because they are busy or something came up - I only mind because I worry I will get penalised if I don't push them to supply assets quicker...
Penalties are a last resort. Just making things work more realistically is better surely?
Ok, I've commented too much on this thread so will leave it there. But I really think a 'pause hourlie' button would do much more good than more penalties can so please vote up that idea if you agree :)
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I have issue my hourlie being misunderstood they want bucket load of work done on hourlie budget somebody needs to tell them its a tailored/packaged service but seems the education is missing at clients end.Despite the fact that the hours and rate is communicated to them on PPH if they want extended service yet they deposit the same amount they would pay for hourlie and post delivery insist they misunderstood and therefore the payment should be discounted!!! I think as much as we are educated about PPH system buyers are not they should sign a statement saying they understood what hourlies mean in the first place !
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There obviously needs to be some give and take here from both buyers and sellers. This thread is dominated by sellers so let me give you my input as a buyer. I used to spend 10,000 a month on PPH. Before I buy an hourly, I contact sellers to make sure they are available. If they are I but the brief and immediately send them over my brief which I have pre-written. My briefs are always very detailed. Any questions from sellers get responded to in about 5 minutes by me. I am very easy going. If you do an awesome job, I take the time to write an awesome review to help you get more business.
When I buy an hourly, the delivery date is very important to me and I look at a combination of reviews, portfolio and days for delivery in making my decision. I would say that about 25% of hourlies I purchased were delayed to severely delayed by the sellers. The worst part is that it is almost impossible to leave negative feedback. I wrote PPH three times asking for a way to leave negative feedback and I don’t even think I got a reply. The platform is inefficient at weeding bad sellers, and obviously after reading this thread, bad buyers.
PPH customer service was terrible. If I ever got a reply it was a pre-written response. I go so fed up with the PPH platform that I took my money to two other Freelance websites and I spend 10,000. I only use PPH now for very low cost, junk jobs under $20 or to hire the three freelancers that are now indispensable to me. (I currently have two hourlies I bought from the PPH market last week with a 1 day delivery, pre-screened by me, that are 7 days old with sellers not giving me anything.)
The point is, if you are a good freelancer that wants good buyers in the PPH platform, then you should want a system that penalizes all the bad sellers. Bad sellers chase away good buyers. Obviously there can’t be an automatic penalty once the delivery days expires, but some people had some pretty good suggestions about how to do it correctly.
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I have an issue at the moment as a client just purchased an hourlie by mistake, so I am now worried that if I refund her (which of course I have to do) I'm going to lose another point on my rating. This has made me reluctant to hit the refund button as it's not my fault. So this really does need to be addressed sooner rather than later for both client and freelancer.
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I had an urgent need for a bit of graphics, we spoke before and she said a couple of days. 7 days after i had paid, and sent her multiple messages still didn't hear anything from her. If you can't do a job, don't say you can. If there are delays then explain why and give realistic etas. Yes clients tend to be an issue but the fact is contractors (particularly younger ones new to contracting) over promise and under deliver.... FACT!
More irritating is I can't find away to give her negative reviews so others no. Meaning that other people are just going to get messed around.
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I can relate to your dissatisfaction, but as a contractor, I am penalized for late, regardless if the buyer doesn't give me all the information I need to to the job. The clock shouldn't start until I accept the buyer's information. I should be able to ask for the missing logins, etc and have the job on hold until it's ready to start.
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Thomas I assume this was an hourlie? For you to feel like you have 'paid' before the job was complete? If so, then you probably haven't actually paid. She would need to invoice you, all you did was put down a deposit. If you HAD paid you would have been given opportunity to give her feedback in whatever form you wished. Also, if what I have stated is the case, and she has not done the job, then you can request a refund, and PPH will look into the situation, and you may well get your money back.
If it was not an hourlie, you still may only have paid a deposit. If she hasn't invoiced you, the money is still being held in escrow, so you can appeal.
The fact is there are bad clients and bad freelancers - this is undeniable.
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Hi Sofia, I agree, there is definitely bad clients and bad freelancers. However the rest of the community should be informed of who is bad or not. Then independent people of PPH should be able to accept of decline the reviews if the review is argued.
However in this instance it was really simple and thus a review could have been easily automated simply with a questionnaire when I asked for the refund of the deposit. 1: Was the job complete 2: Has the contractor spoken to you 3: has it been over 5 days past the deadline (this may need to be a % of the project time e.g if the eta is 2 days then they can be another 2 days later, if the project is 20 days they can be 5 days late). 4: Did you provide all the information asked within 2 hours or prior to the start of the project. etc etc etc.
My only issue is I've wasted 10 days as PPH rules state that if they start work then you must let them complete it. As she wouldn't contact me, even once the refund was raised I couldn't repost the work as she may turn up with it. So this delayed me further additional days.
FYI, i do know what it's like from both sides, I'm an ex freelance graphic designer, clients can be..... irritating. However the amount of contractors who are useless is equal to bad clients. PPH should really inforce the fact that a whole job is discussed prior to the job starting. Then there will be less confusions. On top of that add a button for amendments to the original spec. The people involved can negotiate on extra time and an additional amount added to the original invoice.
Alternatively Contractors should learn to ask for more and full specs upfront with all details and make it 100% clear to the client any additions to this will add to the time and cost of the project.
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Ah, so you did request and receive a refund. Yes, I see. the issue is that you feel a refund leaves you unable to state why you were unhappy publicly?
Refunds can very negatively affect the ranking of a freelancer, and this is why PPH have put in place a statement of why the client is being refunded I believe. So that ratings are affected more fairly (sometimes there's a genuine no-fault case for instance). But yes, this is only reflected in ranking which is not entirely public and transparent - ie no client can see an actual ranking figure, or reasons for movement in rank, never mind change in rank at all.
At one point the refund count was listed against a freelancers profile, but because it was perceived as negative and they were not always the freelancers fault, there was an understandably uproar.
I'm not sure what the answer is, because, like you say, there are always two sides to a story, and in almost every case i think PPH would need to get involved, because when someone's reputation is on the line, publicly, then no-one is likely to want to admit to fault.
Even if you fill in a questionnaire, there's nothing to say you'll be truthful, or indeed fair about it. When work relations go sour, people can get mean. And indeed, some people (I've done this myself) even pay for work they weren't happy with, and don't leave negative feedback for fear of retaliation!
So complex. But definitely worthy of discussion.
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Aren't there other ways to penalise late delivery than a built-in 'thing' to do that? Can't the client complain or something? That makes more sense rather than having a built-in tool to do that. I've had a client request refund to make it seem as if I was tardy when they did not provide me with FTP login info by the delivery date.
One important factor in hourly delivery is the client. If the job sucks, there is feedback and a myriad other avenues to register a complaint. This one makes no sense to me
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- 1 As client I can say I can be the main reason for a delay. I get three people here to work for me at the same time. With one we finish immediately, with others two take more time, but it was just me to delay the job, therefore if you want implement this must the option by the client to say we will need more time to finish, and exclude any automatic sanction. My 2 cents.
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I'm getting sick to death of this issue not being sorted. I have been working my balls off to get half way to CERT4 only for someone to purchase an Hourlie without speaking to me first forcing me to stay up till 3am because of 'late delivery' notification notices from PPH, to finish a job I did not want!: which had a massive impact on my CERT dropping it right down to the near the bottom of CERT4.
This is ridiculous now, I put in about a 60hr week a slowly improve my rating, only for it to come crashing down from one job: which was out of my hands and delivered within a day anyway.
This needs sorting now!
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i wonder if this problem would be sorted out. I'm quite new here, but i got this problem once already. I have my work done in time, but the buyer went missing. I have offer them revision for the sake of good rating for a nice start in PPH. But they ignored me. Whatever, i moved one.
Now, i have an hourlies on a go now. My client is is kind of "hard to communicate" and really slow. I got warning for dead line already, but..... what can i do? My client still silent, i can not move forward.
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First the instant messaging system, the removed ability to contact a buyer until they message you (you could at least limit to 2 - 3 messages), and then this.....Come on man. Lol
Aren't you able to provide ratings as a buyer already? Wait, so this feature for penalizing late deliveries is being planned? This will add up to the bad ratings....A seller might as well just give up their account due to mass discouragement. Who would want make orders from them anymore? In a marketing prospective, you're chasing not only bad but GOOD freelancers away also.
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Hi PPH,
I think its really bad idea to Panalize the Seller, Delay has many reason if client not respond, if not get any information which require on time and many more, so why should only seller has to face and penalize due to the delay by the Buyer, i think PPH team have to find out the thing which can apply mutual decide by the Seller and buyer ! Because there are Honest and professional seller available on the marketplace and getting really hard work to get improve the Ranking and CERT and Get more and more feedback , but some time due to the buyer not availability or might busy in other things, Seller has face the problem of Penalize,
So, i would suggest you to make a way and give some good choice and options if seller are not reliable , make it better instead of make a fault of seller
I hope you understand the hard work of seller
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It's getting really hard for me to improve me CERT level due to buyers ordering hourlies and then taking over 2 weeks to get back to me with the information required. Anyone thinking of purchasing an hourlie please have everything you need first before ordering. (This should be made clear).
Couple of my hourlies was express now there not due to the above.
Also my CERT level doesn't seem to be going anywhere. It's going down if anything.
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I think we can Game-FY it a bit. Add an twin clock system like they use in CHESS. Once the provider completes his work and send it for the review, his/her clock should stop clicking & once the client review it & provide the feedback or other information needed, the clock should start back on.
I think this way, one can measure up the total time person has worked on that Hourlie.
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Hi
Still not happy with this being planned. I had someone enquire about an hourly, hadn't realised they could now make enquiries rather than an instant purchase and they took 15 hours to get the right password to me to work on their problem. If they'd bought the hourly outright under this idea I would have been penalised for 'client error'.
So I think it would help if we could stop the clock on individual work-streams arising from hourlies until the client provides the right details. Obviously there's potential for abuse in this but could that be mitigated?
Currently I can only pause the complete hourly so I miss sales on that hourly because one client hasn't got the right details.
Kind regards
Lesley
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The very idea is a joke, I very rarely deliver an hourly on time and not once has it ever been my fault, I'd say 80% of my clients wait 1 to 2 days to reply to me, though I always reply to them within an hour, why should I be penalised for this. Most good freelancers want to complete the work quickly, whereas most clients have other responsibilities and get to you when they can and thats fine, but the freelancer shouldn't be punished.
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You also have to remember that we do a lot of white label work on here so the buyer has to wait to hear back from their client before they give us feedback. Back and fourth etc. Iv'e had this happen more than 100 times. You sound like a disgruntled buyer that is expecting more than what you paid for. Save yourself the hassle and do some research on the hourlie sellers at PPH. I myself have found a ton of fake designers on PPH that use other peoples work as their hourlie cover in order to reel in naive buyers.
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