'We're reducing our fees' - No You're NOT!
Dear PPH please take note of the time between you having sent out an email notice, and me writing this to recognise just how I feel about your proposed changes.
Just this weekend I felt a few inches taller having just achieved the milestone of having billed over £100,000. No point mentioning my top cert status as it doesn't seem to have got your attention in the past, so lets talk money, because I've generated, I suggest, a higher than average amount of fees for you over the years.
This is despite you charging a 10% fee to buyers, but apparently, this STILL isn't enough. PPH wants to make even more money.
Whoever wrote your email, talk about creative writing. Haven't seen that much spin since Blair's spin doctor Alistair Campbell. No amount of emboldened text however, disguises the fact that you are about to charge me a hell of a lot more money for my work, despite past assurances that the terms on which I joined PPH way back when, were preserved.
As a reminder - I currently pay 15% each month on the first £175 earned, and then 3.5% thereafter. I recognise that other sellers mightn't be so fortunate, and pay a higher rate on larger amounts but, lets look at what you intend to implement on 1 July 2018.
Regardless of date, that for each buyer the first £500 will be at 20%, the next £4500 (per buyer) at 7.5% and anything over £5000 at 3.5%
The fact is that if I were to look at all of my clients over the years, the vast majority fall in the middle category, most of which I would have paid 3.5%, but now will pay 7.5%. In addition to which of course, is another additional fee, which is whereas I only ever used to pay 15% on £175 per month, you now want to take 20% of the first £500 from each client.
This is a lose lose situation. How DARE you then, send me an email that says 'we are now reducing our fees'
If a seller recently joined, they would be, under the current system, paying 20% for the first £500 per month, and then 5% thereafter. NO matter which way you look at it, under this new system, they will be paying multiple batches of 20% on every new client not yet billed £500, and pretty much the rest will after 1 July be at 7.5%. This is an INCREASE in fees not a reduction. The ONLY instance when the 3.5% applies, is the rare occasion a client achieves more than £5000 of lifetime billing.
I put it to you that the vast majority of PPH's transactions will be at a significantly higher rate than before, that is if your sellers stick around because this could be the final nail in the coffin.
Even I, at times charging £2000-£3000 per month per client, for one of my services, have in reality a small percentage of clients that I have ever billed more than £5000 in their lifetime, and this is from over £100k of billing.
Why would you want to penallise your most loyal and seasoned sellers??? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Unless that is, you see it for what it actually is, which is a way to make yet even more money. How do you make a profit?
I only wish PPH would put its time and effort into being more innovative and creating greater opportunities instead of finding ways to cut a larger slice of the cake.
I have no doubt that this will fall on deaf ears and result in nothing. If I had enough energy I'd try to organise a mass revolt. Chances are instead, that the day before 1 July 2018, will be my last on PPH.
Unless I hear otherwise, consider this my notice to leave at the beginning of next month.
Yours, an extremely hacked off Top Cert.
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I gave up selling on PPH at the start of the year when I didn't get any work on here for a month (this isn't my primary source of work so that easily happens) and so I lost the 'pay 15% on £175 per month'.
For a £400 job, I get £300; I'm working the hours for a £400 job but only getting paid £300 for it. In the end I'm getting paid minimum wage or less than that, modern day slavery.
The jobs on here have become awful, job proposals that have a 5 word sentence and I'm supposed to spend proposal credits on it. I'm often being contacted by buyers who suck me dry for free information and then never reply back. I compete against sellers with fake identities who have work that isn't theirs in their portfolio and charge barely anything and buyers are dumb enough to be fooled by it.
This site is a huge scam, half of the buyers are scammers and half of the sellers are scammers.
I no longer sell my work on here but after reading the email I had to come check out how much more of a big joke it could become.
To be honest, why are you even waiting til the beginning of next month? They care about robbing people and slowly enslaving them to work for nothing. They keep upping the fees but when they do the site gets worse, not better, every new thing they add isn't a feature for me to use but just a way for them to get more money.
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“How DARE you then, send me an email that says 'we are now reducing our fees”
Exactly!!
This must be a joke. It’s a joke or you just think we are stupid.
This site is doomed, fees are the most expensive on ALL the freelancers’ sites, it was before this new fee system, and now it even more!
Please please please!!! Don’t do as any more favors trying to reduce the fee. You are really bad at it!
The fact that freelancers are not even complaining about this makes me understand that they do not care about this site anymore, open your eyes, you will go bankrupt in greed.
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It is disgusting that in respect of such a fundamental change for ALL sellers, that nobody from PPH has even dared to justify or answer any threads relating to the incredible hike in fees that PPH are due to instigate in about a week's time.
Absolutely terrible way to treat your most important asset, because without us sellers, PPH wouldn't exist.
In addition, the way you manage your Facebook page is equally shocking. If you have a Head of Communications sack them without delay. If you have a Head of Business Development, the same applies.
What an awful way to do business. On 1 July 2018 PPH will become the most expensive Freelancer platform if it isn't already.
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oh and this extract from the FAQ is an absolute peach:
'Research among community members has shown that a fee structure that encourages the building of high value long-term relationships is something the majority of Sellers welcome and will reap clear financial benefits from.'
I doubt that PPH has actually asked ANY of its most prolific sellers, some of whom the vast majority of their work are small orders for simple short tasks.
PPH just doesn't attract a flowing stream of businesses looking to engage with high billing freelancers month after month.
The ONLY people that think they will reap clear financial benefits from is PPH. Particularly when most of my work is at a fee rate of 3.5% which will now only be applied beyond £5000 PER CLIENT.
As the saying goes, at least Dick Turpin had the common decency to wear a mask.
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Hi Martin, already there. Some really dodgy ones to avoid, make sure you check reviews online first and have a good look at their social media accounts to do due diligence.
I've already secured work on about 3 other platforms in the last couple of weeks and the quality (high value, proper businesses) on one of the biggest platforms has been immeasurably better.
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My money has been dramatically reduced.
Too many poor sellers charging $10 dollars with no experience. I had one individual copy my offer word for word (it took 4 attempts for support to remove it). Fake profiles and portfolios are a nightmare on this site.
Payments now take longer - currently I am on my 5 working day on a pending withdrawal - this issue has been ongoing since May and yet they still take 20% but don't offer the service or support, first blaming covid now too many withdrawals (highly doubtful)
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