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?
-
If a client expects something amazing, then they should expect to pay for it.
A low rate does not equate to low quality. It equates to the brief being edited to accomodate the buyers budget. The quality of a product or service can be just as high, but with fewer features.
We are used to the concept of add-ons with mobile phone tarriffs. You pay a core monthly rate, then if you want other features, you add them on. The quality of the service remsins the same whether you have the basic or eenhanced package. You just have more features.
And if PPH didn't take 20% in fees, then the seller would be able to offer a bit more in their basic package.
-
Cake baking - It was just a short version of a rather long winded analogy & a little tongue in cheek loosely illustrating a point.
"Having the client only discover this when the job is done is unprofessional and unethical on the part of the contractor."
With experience spanning over 20 years I couldn't agree more Joseph.
A client who you spend more time chipping away at the package to fit their budget totally undermines the contractor and the whole job sets off on the wrong foot, any contractor worth their salt would just walk away as it's not worth the hassle.
That coupled with PPHs huge commission is no laughing matter when working out how & what to charge. On all sides it does cause issues, clients wanting a low price and those contractors offering ridiculously cheap hourlies.
Where low rates are concerned I have seen some some ridiculous examples today. We live among a generation where people are used to buying cheap dull, run of the mill, throw way, fast fashion from supermarkets & cheap high street chains, some of our industries have already fallen foul in the UK. Equally some clients may want to take at closer look at how much their everyday choca mocha skinny latté coffee habit at some generic high street café chain costs per day, and how it weighs up in comparison to how much they are willing to spend on a new brand identity for their company.
-
IMHO the whole hourly system is flawed for many industries/ sectors on here. To use Media Naranja's analogy, this can only happen for a small number of examples.
Firstly, I know how to bake cakes. If I was running a business baking cakes I would have a stock of ingredients, would know how long it would take to make one (say one day) and would know exactly how much it would cost. However, what the hourly format does not allow for is where 3 people ask for a cake baking on the same day whilst I am also working for clients away from the site (and before PPH try to ban me I mean non-PPH not PPHers taken off-site) for 4 people wanting a few dozen cup cakes, tray bakes and tea loaves! Perhaps by saying it will take 5 days would avoid penalty but would put most people off because - in all sincerity - it doesn't take 5 days to bake a cake!
Okay, back to my actual business. I am an accountant. I have the following issues:
Professional Clearance - before I even enter a client's info into my system I have to obtain professional clearance from their previous accountant. This may take 2 hours, often takes 2 weeks can take 2 months. Before starting I am penalised for time taken!
Time Period - it is almost impossible to carry out any accounting works in less than 5 days. The client invariable does not have the information to hand, they pass incomplete records through, they can't find bank statements, they don't know their UTR and in so many circumstances, they are simply disorganised - not a criticism of clients, they have their own important businesses to manage and unfortunately, accounting is bottom of the list.
The baker mentioned previously may have to ask the client what type of decoration they need and invariably the client will take over a day to respond.Start time - PPH assumes the freelancer is able to drop everything and start right away. In some cases this is correct. In many cases it's just simply fantasy. I understand you are able to pause hourlies but, to pause them every time one takes on each project that may last longer than an hour is not only unrealistic but would only go to cripple one's business.
Imagine if the same baker shut shop every time a customer asked for a cake. It would simply be bad for business.Extras and add-ons - so, a client purchases an hourly for a month's worth of some bookkeeping. In the long run, they actually need a full year of bookkeeping, a set of accounts and a corporation tax return. It is not best business practice to ask for payment of the first month's bookkeeping before starting on the remainder of the work (a high quantity) but PPH will penalise if the hourly is not returned on time.
Our friend the baker may have been asked for a basic 12" sponge cake but the client will change it to a highly decorated 20" fruit cake (iced with icing lilies) with cupcakes (fully decorated), tea loaves, tray bakes etc. If he/ she then asks for payment of the 12" sponge cake before commencing work, there would be a high chance of cancellation.
And finally...
- Busy periods - I have just finished tax season. I have completed over 20 returns in the month of January alone (not to mention other accountancy work). I have had to juggle clients to ensure everyone's returns were submitted by 31/01 deadline. I was successful, every return was filed by 23:50 on Saturday! Not one return took less than 5 days (for the reasons stated above) but I was also not going to turn any work down in what is the only real busy period of the year. Luckily none of the returns were completed as an hourly otherwise I would have been penalised to high heaven and would never have got a job on PPH again!
Take our baker again, December is clearly his/ her busy time. They will take orders for Christmas from October/ November onwards. The delivery date must be the week before Christmas. If they only open their order book 5 days before Christmas, they will have no business. If they deliver cakes within 5 days of the order being placed in October the cakes will be mouldy by the time Christmas arrives.
I don't know what line of business Media Naranja is in but, if they only deal with clients who know exactly what they want from the outset, never take on additional works, don't require client approval, never have busy times where more than a single client is being worked on and never have jobs that last for longer than 5 days (let alone 5 months in some of my cases), they are in one of the few "lucky" lines of work where True Hourlies work. If not, it would be helpful to the rest of us to know how they manage to fit 5 months of work into the 5-day maximum hourly period.
Finally, and I'm sure no-one from the PPH team will read this but... please give us the option of being able to work within your limits. Either, please allow us to submit hourlies which can be completed over a longer period or allow us to convert hourlies to normal work (with the acceptance of our clients) to avoid the penalties imposed on taking longer than 5 days. I was considering featuring my "Payroll" hourly but, am now considering removing it completely as the indefinite provision of payroll services may take many years before it can truly marked as "complete"!
-
Totally agree David, the hourly is flawed. Much of what freelancers offer is a service and not an end product as such, or at least certainly not until all revisions are complete, your client is back from lunch and they're not away on leave for a few days. As a designer, photographer & retoucher, client sign off and approval for a project can take anything from one phone call after presentation of proofs, to three months all very much dependent on how it is passed, who it is passed by and by how many, some of the larger scale corporate projects require sign off from at least four people. Most of my/our (as I work with other freelancers in co-working studios project managing a wide variety of propositions which all require mixed skill sets) work comes via word of mouth but I wanted to try PPH to see how and if it works as a freelancer networking platform. It would be great if there were more interaction from the PPH team as I for one would love to hear their thoughts on penalisation for late hourlies, or if there is anything in the pipeline pertaining to this. One size does not fit all.
-
PPH are tight-lipped about their plans. Generally they do something badly, congratulate themselves, then move on.
Many people have made excellent suggestions about how Hourlies can be improved or extended.
I've never been a huge fan of Hourlies and was very much against them at the start. I can see how Hourlies can work well for some people, but the flaws are many and it's beyond comprehension why PPH hasn't improved their system.
-
I have had a similar experience with 2 providers applying for a custom job, charging more than the budget wasting our energy and time... this is ridiculous! To get to a client deadline of 2 weeks, I spent 2 weeks on PPH, with every 2-3 days of non delivery, then reposting jobs, and on top of it PPH pays you back in 3 days! They take the money instantly but the payment is late, so you have to pay again for another job to be done until you get the refund of your own money!
-
What I hate most is to see a SELLER TOP when he is the worse: grabing tons of jobs and being able to complete all, changing terms during the job without asking the buyer. And if pointed to his behaviour he feels patronised. I hope to never have to work with that TOP selle ever. he's the worst!
-
sorry mistyped: he got the job like february 16. Untill today he never sent ONE report only excuses and explanations, vexing everyone and damaging our situatione due to time loss. Wish it could be a form of penalty for undelivered jobs that take the seller and drops him to lvl ZERO
-
I'm a both a seller and a buyer for services I do not provide. As a seller I always deliver in time and often before deadline. Freelancers should consider not takin in too large ammount of work if they can not handle it crating embarasing situations. When a buyer hires is because he has also a deadline to consider. And it make it clear in his statements. You know as well as I do that every day past without results is money loss. If you love what you do, as many real professionals do than you cannot disagree on this: deadline is crucial. Otherwise it's all a never ending message exchange and los of time. And when it comes to businesses time = money.
But I'm maibe naive and think that all people are correct. Indeed I'll state this thing to the helpdesk and try to find a solution that fits the client. -
Antonia,
All I can say is that, as a seller, you must have been lucky enough to only ever work for clients who know exactly what they want when they contract.
Unfortunately, I would say 50% of my clients on PPH contract for a "loosely" specified project which in turn ends up being something completely different. Where say 4 hours work is contracted and 40 hours work is required, how can a contractor possibly deliver those works within 1 day?
A tax return will take me on average 8 hours for a £50K turnover and if sufficient information is given in a suitable format. My hourly is for 8 hours completed within the maximum available delivery of 5 days. Where a client has a turnover of £250K (a turnover which they have no idea of the level) and is only able to provide a bag full of receipts that need posting by snail mail, manually sorting and entering line by line, how can I be expected to deliver within the correct timeframe and then be penalised - not because the client wishes to penalise me but because** PPH** deem me to be in contravention of policy?
It is the fact that there is no apparent lee-way for the fact that clients are not specific enough in their contracting. The seller is always penalised whether it be their fault or (in so many cases) that the client is at fault.
As an aside, there are many buyers on here who use PPH's contracting facility as a stick to beat the seller with and effectively abuse the system. They will buy and hourly/ post a job appearing like it is much smaller than it is in reality. Good examples are... "I need a few formulae changing on an Excel spreadsheet £10". It turns out the requirements is for a huge spreadsheet taking many, many hours to complete - a moving goalpost which evolves and increases daily. In trying to obtain a fair fee for the works, the contractor simply states they had agreed £10 and that if the invoice is raised above that, negative feedback, non-payment and reporting to PPH ensues!
Would you expect to contract a builder to price to build a conservatory in 4 weeks and then expect them to build a 4-bedroom house at the same price and within the same 4 weeks? I have to ask what the difference is between the price of bricks and mortar and the cost of professional time?
Basically, what I am trying to say is... there are so many issues raised in this forum about "bad sellers" and I accept there are a good number of "bad sellers" out there. However, the continual criticism of sellers who (despite the fact the volume of works has increased ten-fold) has not delivered on time is unfair and unjustified.
Buyers who expect revised/ increased works completing at the same rate and in the same time are surely as bad, if not worse than the sellers who are delayed by a few hours?!
Basically... there has to be a middle ground. I appreciate you are subcontracting works on behalf of a client and hence want the works completing by your "sellers" within a specified timeframe and budget. However, if your seller cannot complete on time yet still keeps you in the loop, I can only assume there is good reason for this and as in all matters business, there would have to be some leeway.
If you are subcontracting, always build in leeway for unforeseens - be it artwork approval taking longer, the realisation that accounts do not balance (at all) or simply that the works turn out to be more involved than expected/ assumed. Furthermore, if the job is yet to be completed, I would not start threatening to report the seller or insist that their Top Seller status be reduced to CERT1. The seller will certainly not bust a gut to complete your project and you are likely to still be liable to pay his/ her invoice! Try and negotiate with the seller without threatening to throw the kitchen sink at them!
Finally, to achieve a "Top Seller" rating, the seller has a very good history of service. There is no way to "cheat" yourself up to being a "Top Seller". He/ she will likely have a few hundred buyers giving positive feedback. If you have contracted accurately and honestly, you will likely have a case. If your contracted and required works differ, I would advise you consider how the seller would be able to deliver more in the same length of time?
-
In a generic way of putin things David you might be right. But it's not my case. In our workstream all things were made clear and trust me on this one it was a straight forward task. I'm 99% sure that if you would have a seller that changes terms regarding the job after you approved terms, and he imposes you his terms without you agreeing on it, than cuttin out communication and delaing always, I'm sure you would be angry too. because in the meantime tyhe same seller did other works and unfortunately he got positive feedbacks right during the time he disappeared on us. So this means he got far too much work than he could handle and neglected some.
Looking better to the profile I start wondering how can one having TOP might have feedbacks like: Job undelivered and still be on top? -
Hi Antonia,
Yes, it looks like you are at the hands of "bad" seller. I would assume the seller works on bulk offering low prices or similar. This is not my way of working and indeed, sellers such as this ruin the site for the rest of us.
I'm sure it's for another thread but... I do not understand the CERT system now. Indeed, I thought TOP used to be reserved for the "Top 10"? The criteria seems to have been changed in the last couple of weeks. I had a look through the seller list for a job I submitted a proposal for.
I am CERT4 with a good number of jobs under my belt. Yes, a couple of those jobs were classed as "not delivered" which were due to buyer requirements changing (one was pricing for building works - something I can do well, but turned out to be architecture!). I also have a couple of refunds where jobs came in under budget (although I can't understand how that can possibly be penalised!).
Anyway, I'm happy that my CERT reflects my works. However, there were a number of "newbies" with either "no" completed jobs or 1 completed job who are showing as CERT5? How can that be right?!?Anyway, I hope you manage to get some level of resolution to the problem.
Kind regards
-
From what i can gather, regarding the CERT changes it's entirely possible to become 'top cert' with just one or two jobs billed in the month for which you're being ranked. 'Top' now refers to the highest ranked 200 PPHers. Provided you bill enough (around £1200 a month puts you in the top 60 easily), and have 5 star feedback for your invoices, you can gain that accolade.
To stay 'top' you need to continue to bill and gain 4-5star ratings however. Ad I honestly think that billing is the most important part of the algorithm. My ranking doesn't drop if I bill and a client doesn't immediately rate me. Nor does it suddenly jump up when they remember to rate my previous invoices (which happens a lot!).
This doesn't take into account the possible lowering in ranking due to refunds however, I'm not sure how big the hit is for that, or if it's changed.
-
Look, first off I don't have problem spending money on good work, but the main problem is lack of communication. Now out of the 10 Hourlies Ive worked with so far only about 4 did what they was suppose to do. And I know the time frame can be challenging so tell them give me a time frame, but when it takes a week to get someone to answer you, that's a problem. Because not only you wasted my time, I could of took the business elsewhere. Now Im dealing with a guy who told me since the date has passed to pay the money so he would not get penalized, I did it and now no words from him. What should my next form of action be, I don't want to take my issue public, but he should not be doing business if he doing this to some one.
-
a guy who told me since the date has passed to pay the money so he would not get penalized, I did it
A lesson to learn from, I think.
What should my next form of action be
-
Dashik,
There are clearly a few issues here...
Not completing in time from a PPH perspective is not completing within the (maximum) 5 day window. My argument is that 5 days is unreasonably restrictive and does not reflect a great number of normal working practices (i.e. how can I possibly provide a monthly payroll service - which by nature is open-ended and could last for years - within a 5-day window?)
Where your case is concerned... non-communication is a separate matter and assuming your brief was specific enough in the first place to put forward a well-thought out and planned proposal, non-completion of a task is another serious issue.
Unfortunately, your concern regarding paying a freelancer before completion of the task in hand is what I would deem a by-product of penalising tasks for late completion. Firstly, I must say that I do not condone the actions of your freelancer and indeed at no stage should anyone be asked to release funds until works have been completed (or a partial period at a suitable milestone for long-running works) nor would I ever advocate a payment be made until satisfactory completion or a significant milestone has been reached. However, whenever strict measures are implemented, people (by which I mean, the less honest freelancers) will try and find a way to bypass those rules. It appears you are one of the victims of such a freelancer.
In light of the above, I think it is even more important for PPH to review the restrictive (and somewhat draconian) nature of the "hourly" to allow for longer completion times and/ or the ability to "put a project to sleep" so that realistic timescales are achieved and situations such as that experienced by you are averted, if not avoided entirely.
Finally, I don't know how you would get your money back... that is simply something PPH alone can answer (and indeed, I feel you may have to put it down to "experience"). However, please report the seller to PPH (use the contact page to send an email as opposed to "reporting" the seller - I find direct contact works better). It is only by reporting the sellers, having your feedback removed and, possibly having them further investigated - even removed from the forum that PPH can remain a professional freelancing site.
-
Wow, there are a lot of comments on here. @Daisy I have had a couple of bad instances here, but I believe the issues are not organic to PPH. First of all, if I start a project, I will be flooded with offers that are clearly obvious as not having read the project outline. The first shortlisting I do is to cut anyone who does not reference my project and some form of its specifics in their proposal. This should cut down on your liability in the future from there. Secondly, as should seem common sense, I make sure the counterpart has a full understanding of what is expected and the associated deadline before funding.
The couple of bad instances are as such: One counterpart, no matter how well I explained the next steps of the project, would take the project in a completely different direction; to the point of shame. There are a number of factors which could contribute to this but at the end of the day this is a contract job not a charity. I overextended myself to communicate as thoroughly as possible, and even switched to basic steps; the counterpart still veered off dramatically on an unidentified vector. I had to request a refund. At that point I even offered a partial to compensate for time wasted but still time spent. The response was effectively an ultimatum: "I will issue your partial refund only after you have given me 5 stars and positive feedback." At that, I realized that several star ratings and associated feedback looked forced and decided I did not wish to propagate that issue. I demanded a full refund and escalated the issue to customer support where I received satisfaction.
The other issue was related to a job that was quoted to be 7 days. Every communication ended with I will get you X in: 15 minutes, a couple of hours, tomorrow. After 2.5 weeks I received a concept (my task is now dramatically behind and we have zero product) which was in no way related to the job specifications. I tried still, thinking I can steer this concept into the concept requested. I never received another file and we then entered into a situation where product wasn't being promised, what was being promised at that point was the next time the counterpart would be online. After one month I had to do as before, initiate refund and escalate to customer support. To clarify, you cannot supply a star rating nor feedback when a refund is issued.
I have learned at this point that once you have found a reliable counterpart, it could be suicide to attempt to diversify as you run the risk of placing responsibility on someone who might not deserve it or be capable of handling it.
I have seen several responses which indicate "-1, perhaps you are a bad buyer." "-1" because "perhaps" is a non-response unless these people actually have business history with Daisy and if that is the case they should reference that. Otherwise we could "what-if" ourselves to death over information not available to review. Truth-is, there are bad buyers on this system and there are bad sellers. If you gave a -1 merely due to the notion that a counterpart should be punished for a late hourly, then I support it as I have seen many contracts go long permissively and due to either unrealistic expectations or poor communication with either party and this is not a responsibility that should only lie with the seller. The grieved party should consult with and both parties should support the decision of the arbiter which would be customer support.
In conclusion @Daisy: it is rarely good, in business or politics, to arbitrarily assign punitive measures or to even allow these consequences be based on one single metric when many are at play. If you have an issue, know you are always taking a risk on a new party and keep backstops in your timeline to cover for that so you may reassign within a responsible time so the project doesn't fail. If a seller is constantly being fined for lack of consistency or competence they will likely have to go elsewhere; if a buyer is incessantly having to pay out for work they do not agree with, they may have to adjust their expectations. On the flip-side, if your suggested policy change were to be implemented; the only natural next step would be to allow sellers to penalize buyers at any point that they change the agreement or ask for a modification of project. At that point everyone is penalizing everyone else and little work is getting done.
Warm Regards,
Glyph
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
236 comments