Allow for additional status of 'mutual cancellation'
I have had a previous issue - and now have 1 pending and almost certainly 1 future issue, with cancellation or change of spec in projects making it non-viable for completion, for whatever reason.
I've found, through experience inside and outside of PPH, that often the only 'safe' way to negotiate these situations and preserve HONEST integrity of our feedback as a seller, is to cut our losses, accept that it is no longer to proceed with a job, and not demand payment for the hours already spent from client.
Unfortunately, even when I specified this as the reason in a cancelled job, I was still awarded 1 star negative feedback (not delivered by seller) - I did get this successfully removed after providing reasoned rationale for the non-completion, however I have now experienced an identical set of circumstances, where the deadlines initially outlaid were made increasingly unrealistic, and a decision had to be made to either part on relatively good terms, or face ongoing, excessive demands for work that fell outside of the discussed remit.
Given that demanding more money/standing firm will likely only result in negative feedback from the seller themselves, I feel a little more protection is required for the seller, as I'm now faced with having to request whether this can be feedback can be negotiated again - and I'm aware the argument for my case may not hold as much ground this time around. Similarly, another job I have had misrepresentations from the buyer on, and have full evidence of unanswered communications on their part, has ground to a halt with refusal of payment - yes, morally I have a right to chase this, but I don't want this stand to come at the expense of my feedback - which all previous ratings will attest to being in excess of client expectations. No real guidance is provided as to what action is possible, in the event a client feedback is unwarranted/unrepresentative of the outcome, so obviously this fear factor remains a burgeoning part of my decision making as to whether to 'hold or fold' on a job.
Any advice as to this would be great, and I'm happy to contribute further feedback as to the case for implementing a 'soft' cancellation when circumstances change, and a desire to mutually agree to part is necessary.
-
Seems like there's a growing call for it - have read feedback elsewhere alluding to it too, and given the accurate dispute resolution on a platform like oDesk (with their monitored seller snapshots) - the bar is arguably already set quite high.
Unfortunately I had my initial (second) dispute closed immediately, with little attention paid to the detailed points raised - and I've heard nothing back after about 7 days following my re-opening of the case (with essentially what you read in the post at top).
I'm not seeking to be paid to do not deliver here - I do however, as I'm sure we all do, take issue with allowing such liberal briefs in an already heavily price-eroded marketplace to dictate to us at times, incredibly liberal briefs with no sense of accountability at the buyers end.
I do feel in the interests of fairness to PPH, whom I do enjoy doing business through and think have a solid platform to grow in the RIGHT direction - I recently had a second dispute almost immediately follow my last - a client had failed to respond for well over a month, did not respond to 2 follow ups and then - shock of shocks - instantly responded when issued with an invoice for the completed work.
Although he took issue with this and rejected the invoice, I had no desire to enter a protracted chase given my previous experience (and still smarting from the previous negative feedback). I relented and wrote a very calm, polite response, wishing them all the best, stating I would not chase the payment if they were not happy/circumstances had changed. Admittedly I probably backed down far too easily - however, I made it very clear in the refund statement this was NOT a failure to deliver, and to read to corresponding messages above. To this point, I have not been delivered with automated negative feedback, however I will report back here if that changes!
Rather than this becoming just a venting ground, let's all pose some solutions to PPH on how to resolve this - I led with the suggestion of flagging seller responses as 'requiring feedback' or 'proofs' to hasten the workflow, and also allowing for a 'mutual cancellation' policy, where a perecentage is retained by PPH for 'handling' but both parties agree to part ways without recrimination. As the buyer already has their money in escrow, it will not feel quite so much as 'extra outlay'. It could even be extended as far as 'relist the job for free' - incentive to stick with PPH, but a clawback for PPH if they do leave after mutual cancellation.
-
I've had no feedback from this, nor my original request for removal of the feedback - I can sympathise with their situation, as I'm sure having already had to carry this out once, they were somewhat skeptical of the justification for doing so again. However, contact would have been very welcome to confirm this - I presented a detailed case and reasoning (almost identical to the previous circumstances), and received no response other than the unengaging, canned first response regurgitating the T&Cs.
I still maintain this feature would weed out a great deal of dispute on the site - barely a job goes by (with the exception of a couple of very good clients over Xmas), where at some point I feel like I have to tow the line more than my moneys worth, just to keep the goodwill of the job and the fear of less than 5 star feedback (or more serious reprisal). It's a seemingly logical choice to side naturally with the buyer in an eBay fashion - however, with so many competitors in this marketplace, there is no monopoly here, and it's dangerous to regularly make life harder for the sellers making the site monetised in the first place.
Here's hoping for a little 'Planned' tag next to this post sometime soon!
-
I have also found this can be very tricky. I have a current client who has asked for revisions on a piece of work, the job is only £20. I have asked 3 times for a screen grab of the section he is unhappy with and he is not providing me with one. This is making it near impossible for me to make the alteration and dragging communication out for a week, for what should have been an afternoons job.
It would be useful to have a mutual cancellation or a buyer nudge feature.
-
I totally agree with this. I have an un-invoiced job where after praising the updates I was giving during the work process, the Buyer at the last minute turned around and said that it is not what he wanted. The original post was a £10, brief one line description of some simple additions to a worksheet. I sent my proposal and he immediately just accepted it without consultation, then precedes to give a big list of stuff that needed changing. This continued throughout the project with changes and no deadline, but would agree to a bigger budget. Before I got to send a revised proposal, along came a deadline and then a resulting this is not really what I want and we have to put this down to experience! Now he's left the country never online and I have money in escrow, which I believe he should still pay as he got the original brief which he agreed to. I'm also not after the rest of the money he quoted me as the final budget as that would be futile trying to chase that. An experience - yes, but I had a super job come right after that and my client was thoroughly impressed, paid immediately and I moved up a Cert. So I did not stay too deflated for long.
Definitely would appreciate a mutual cancellation feature here. Although also, in these particular kinds of cases I believe that neither the Buyer or Seller should be able to give feedback on job which either side claim was or was not delivered correctly or late/on time. Thus saving face allowing both to move on and the 'dirty laundry' as it were not aired on the public arena.
-
This is a terrible situation. I have now had to complain twice about being penalized for refunds or other breakdown of a project that were absolutely, 100%, unequivocally not my fault. If it is clearly the fault of one side or the other, why should the innocent party be blamed and have negative rating lodged or their CERT affected? If anyone can explain to me how this is fair I will be very interested to know how, when there is no fault, punishment is still given.
-
I have raised the issue on here originally Amanda, and twice independently due to negative feedback being received personally as a result of having to resort to mutual cancellation. Once, granted, I was given the 'benefit of the doubt' - the second time unfortunately, I had to take it on the chin, with no real explanation nor declaration of my fault by PPH - it was merely stated in effect that they were the rules.
Once again I'm in a situation now where I've twice completed the work for some follow up work with a client on here - both times they've delayed getting back to me, until which point as the work was rendered 'out of date'. I took the understanding approach rather than demanding money, and asked for a revised brief for a 3rd time, to complete the work at no extra cost.
No response from client.
I've now twice had to follow up on this, by sending 4th and 5th forlorn messages, just to avoid the job being automatically cancelled and end up with yet another automated negative.
The lack of attention paid to this thread leads me to believe that perhaps PPH is happy for these situations to draw out - since of course, though they don't get the closing cut of a completed deal, they do have the money for that job tied up in escrow throughout the process, earning interest in their bank.
I should also point out at this point, I was burnt about 18 months ago the other way round - a client on here who I'd worked for twice (following up invoicing in the same thread of conversation) had paid absolutely fine twice, no problems. It reached the invoicing point for a 3rd job, which I'd done prior to declaring a new invoice to request escrow (naively assuming the security of the conversation thread and ongoing relationship was enough).
Weeks and 4 reminder messages (all maintaining politeness and civility) passed without any payment from the individual, so I invoiced for the work, remaining calm once again and stating to the chap that (or so I believed) the money would automatically be settled in my favour anyway if he did not respond.
A couple of months later, and still nothing - upon emailing support, I was informed that because I had no escrow requesting invoice, I was basically unsupported, there was nothing they could do except ban him from PPH. And yet a conversation thread including the response 'I'm not paying you out of my own back pocket' was there in black and white, along with several other blunt 'you don't get paid until I get paid rebuttals. Now of course I understand it's the real world - sometimes you get burned and have to learn and move on. But less than a week later, I saw the same account, with new listings for new work ongoing - no negative feedback left by PPH or otherwise, and no ability for me to do so either - so good luck to the unfortunate 'winners' of those listings.
I did make support aware of this - and I was apologised to, and reassured it was a 'mistake' - but to be honest, I'd lost a fair amount of interest and faith by that point. I still do the odd job on here, but much more fleetingly now, with the value for services offered eroding persistently since it first hit the outsourcing marketplace - and that's a shame all round.
-
I think we have to take part responsibilty for our own actions on PPH.
Working without funds in escrow to cover what we do is stupid. I know it's stupid because I've done it. I might do this stupid thing again, but I understand it's gambling that the client will actually pay up. I do the same thing outside PPH.
If a buyer goes bad on PPH and we've not made sure there's escrow money in place, that's our bad not PPH's.
I wouldn't expect PPH to be chasing our bad debts.
On the one occasion where a buyer who was happy and cheery up until the last invoice but didn't want to pay it, I had the remnants of the money released by PPH and a determined explanation of what I would be doing via the small claims court, had the final invoice paid in full.
I don't think much of PPHs stance on cancellations, but I don't expect them to chase bad payers. In their position I wouldn't either.
-
I do not expect them to chase money for me Paul I just expect that if a client is refunded because they have changed their mind or because (in the case of one of my clients, they had lost the plot) we do not get penalised by having our CERT score affected or some other negative step taken against us. It seems to me that PPH have lost the thing that we all loved them for so much in the beginning, their human approachability and their attention to their clients. ~I can see that rather than look into the case it is easier to have the programme automatically mark a freelancer down for a refund regardless of the circumstances, and ti saves the trouble of adjudicating properly. I have been on the sit4 for 8 years and am very sad to see the way that things have gone, generally. The inability to alter a proposal for a nominated time after its posting for instance, so that another credit has to be used. Very disappointing.
-
Paul - totally agree to a point - likewise got burned here and it forced me to put a better system in place to deal with the process in a secure manner than protected against any future escrow hiccups.
I would dispute however the black and white scenario of 'chasing bad debts' - debt chasing is one thing, and I would not expect that. However, this is not a free-for-use arena for sellers to meet buyers - PPH actively take a cut of the transaction as a processing/admin/provision fee, and if you provide an environment for transactions to take place, and effectively charge for it - you have some duty of care as as service provider to hold both sides of the transactions to equal, accountable standards.
Whilst this isn't necessarily enforceable or measurable from a legal standpoint, from the ethical - and the customer satisfaction - standpoint, it's pretty negligent to not even correctly pursue any kind of discipline against a member of your community, who has verbally stated he intends to circumvent an agreement.
Besides, even if the above were taken as 'par for the course' - as mentioned now below as I type this post, it still doesn't account for the 'mutual cancellation' - which for me is the real issue here, where escrow is already agreed upon so let's not get distracted - I mentioned the above more as a cautionary tale of the apathy towards negative member activity, rather than something I expected future action against.
For the record, I would concur fully with what Paul says above regarding the escrow, here or in any online/offline arena - and whilst it's redunant and self-destructive to beat yourself up as stupid, it is certainly a mistake we should all aim to make a maximum of one time! Trust me, learning the hard way works :)
-
I have to add additionally, for clarity that this wasn't born out of a frustrated rant - I made a firm and detailed offer to present structured feedback on the processes with all of the above, and even seek to gain enthusiasm from others here to do the same - they acknowledged the idea, but instead pointed me back here which is what led to my first post.
-
I think the mutual cancellation idea is something PPH should have allowed for from the beginning and in the past ( before cert) used to be doable.
The debt chasing is another idea altogether.
Punishing buyers? PPH has always been reluctant to admonish the people who generate stump up the money that feeds us all. I kind of understand that, within limits, but the really bad buyers should get their marching orders.
Truth is that bad buyers often pop up under new accounts.
-
Yes unfortunate that the 'ebay' syndrome does tend to prevail - not difficult to grab another email address and sign up again even if you are banned so to speak.
I think the threat of it should be there as a deterrent at the least though - at least we'd feel like there was some accountability then. I agree with your sentiments on punishing buyers - I think PPH know all too well that there's always someone on here willing to pickup the oft undervalued work - and rewarding this (and rewarding bad buyers by taking no action) only serves to reinforce this negative feedback loop - sending value and work quality spiralling.
I'm certainly not for a 1 strike and out policy - I initially thought why not a buyer CERT too? The system is familiar, so not going to be too much of a culture shock for the current user base. Provides a natural medium to evaluate buyers, but of course it will lead to reluctance on the sellers part, which again - affects the PPH bottom line.
-
I stand by my comment that PPH is a flawed concept where truly good artists do NOT flourish in PPH's restrictive protocols. Clients can extort good artists by making unreasonable demands or suffer the consequences of their pettiness. I am so thankful there is another site, which I can't name since PPH deletes it on this posting. (starts with a "G" and ends in a "U". And why are there so many UK job offerings? I have to figure out pound conversions. This site is just one headache.
-
This is absurd. My client and I have been working well together and decided to mutually cancel. There is no question that he is going to give me a good if not great review. But because of this problem, he is going to pay me in full, and then I am going to have to reimburse him privately, in order that he doesn't get charged. I'm new to this site, but I can't believe that there is no system for simple, no contest, mutual cancellations,
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
29 comments