Vote - Original 15%-3,5% service fee VS new 20% Fee structure.
Hello Everyone.
PPH wants to know whether the new fee structure suits the majority of sellers or not? please vote and comment (Comment is important)
If you don't know how to vote, click the Up arrow button next to the post title.
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CS Response :
If you want your buyers to vote go here :
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My advice is to create a new website and start promoting it. I did that two years ago and it's the best decision I've made.
I'm a Top Cert here with £126,000 billings in the last 5 years, but most of my turnover is from my website and I use SEO and adwords to promote it. I know adwords can be expensive but the quality of clients I get is great. And they are more open to monthly retainers than a client that comes thru a freelance website.
The sooner you start on your website the better.
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I opened a ticket too, I think that everyone should open a ticket as it was suggested, and even if they are not going to do anything, lets at least annoy the hell out of them. Earn the f** of your new fee.
I find simply amusing their notion of a €6000 client, by the way. They charge clients %10 every time they use the service, so that means that the clients are aware that every time they pay they are giving away money that could be spared if they work directly with the freelancers. If you are a repeating customer that will pay a freelancer €6000 in a few months, you will also be aware that if you work outside the site you will save €600 just in that fee. And you will not be subjected to all the annoying features of working through the workstream: sent messages that disappear, limited amount of attachments, email notifications that don't arrive, having to login again and again, not being able to use it from your phone, not having an app. Working via e-mail is easier and better for most people, most of my clients truly hate working via workstream and I have to do double messaging, one via email and another to keep the workstream updated. Since the 10% increase on the buyers side was implemented, it has been increasingly difficult to keep my clients on the platform.
And now, on top of all these "perks", I need to explain to my clients that I am VERY sorry, but I also have to add 20% to my usual price because, you know, these guys are super greedy heh heh. How do PPH visualize these conversations ending? With the clients declaring their never ending loyalty for the website and saying "I will pay WHATEVER THEY ASK but I will work through PPH to the very end!!!", or with the client saying: "eeehr ok never mind then" and either going somewhere else or contacting you later "do you mind if we continue via email?". And the second question would be: what do PPH expects from us? Freelancers declaring their never-ending loyalty to the site (that has been SUPER loyal to us) and screaming: "NO, NEVER!!!! I WILL GO BROKE FIRST BEFORE ACCEPTING PAYMENT OUTSIDE OF PPH FROM THIS CUSTOMER THAT I'VE KNOWN AND WORKED WITH FOR FIVE YEARS" and blocking this trusted person forever? Or sadly saying: "ok, as you wish dear. Is Paypal fine with you?"
I never take people outside of PPH but I will not be able to force them to stay either. It is an absurd premise.
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Clients really HATE the 10% so they are often asking if they can pay outside of the platform. The notion of a client paying €6000 through this platform, suffering those fees while knowing the worker is also being slugged 20% is laughable.
The clients I have told about the 20% fee have had some very bad things to say about People Per Hour. They are business people, so their first thought is "I could be getting this service 30%+ cheaper". PPH is going to lose both freelancers and high-value buyers, from these absurdly high fees.
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Hi guys - I've been here a few times talking - ranked 8th in Marketing/SEO
We need to do more to share this with tonnes of freelancers - then, what I recommend (if people agree) when the petition (https://www.change.org/p/peopleperhour-com-people-per-hour-pph-restore-the-old-fee-structure?recruiter=888266967&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=undefined) reaches a significant number of freelancers, is that we all agree on a time to send support tickets saying the same thing so that they literally cannot ignore it along with tweeting PPH's Twitter the petition link.
Or if someone has a better idea to share it.
We need to keep messaging peeps to spread the word, especially high impact level 5's / TOP CERTS as they've put the most money in PPH's pocket.
Something has to be done, this is absolutely shocking.
J
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I'm a top Cert and have been for a long while. I can produce my monthly figures for four years which prove a significant downturn in income.
We have had summers in 2015, 2016 and 2017 too - my monthly income always remained over 1K. This month I've earned £25 to date.
Additionally, when staff go on holiday, that should be prime time for freelancers to pick up work.
PPH are either themselves naïve or stupid or alternatively think we are. NONE of us have had work, enquiries or emails and they want us to believe that's seasonal? They need to sort out their management fast - not a clue.
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Those of us who have been around the block with PPH a few times, know that they are extremely unlikely to change this decision. They have done their future forecasts and modelling and worked out it is a sound profitable idea for them. My choice is to leave them to it.
After previous instances of not paying on time (in one case I was without any money for two weeks!) and other changes that have never been in the best interests of the sellers, I just don't think I am willing to put up with more.
It's a bit like being in an abusive relationship - at some point you realise you deserve better.
I have one client that will remain, I have two Hourlies that might generate some work (but I have increased the price to take account of the fees). but I will no longer bid for jobs or encourage my outside clients to work via the site. I will keep my profile, because one day it might improve...
I was ensuring that I did at least £500 worth of work via PPH to keep my legacy fee structure. But I don't even need to do that now. So walking away is even easier. Many of us rely on PPH too much - having all your eggs in one basket is never good.
But having said that... we now all need advice on how to gain clients outside of this platform. I think this thread is a great place to do that. How about we all support each other in how to leave? How about we form our own support structure as PPH is no longer providing a valuable service to us.
So what do you do to find clients?
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I sent a message to confirm the Workstream I started in March for a big-ish job would be now subject to the news fees.
I got a copy / paste response telling me that service fees have always been applied to jobs and a copy and paste of the new fees and how they work. Not actually confirming whether they are planning to make me have to take a massive hit on the job that was started months ago.
Have requested that they speak to the Buyer for me and explain why the price will need to go up 20% from what was agreed.
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Nick - that is fairly typical. What I read from that is that no one knows the answer to your question so they fobbed you off.
Have you read the Glassdoor reviews of PPH and in particular how Xenios is viewed. The staff seem to be living in fear most of the time. I doubt anyone wants to ask if you can have your fees refunded.
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Wow, you won't believe but they treat us as completely idiots..
Here is what Margarita from pph support told me when I complained for the 3rd time about not being even notified about fee changes (I never received that email on 4th June. Never. I checked twice)
"We sent the email regarding the new structure of fees on the 4th of June, hence you were notified about the change. If you did not receive the email, we would advise you to check your Notification Settings. If the option Newsletter and Community Updates is not ticked, then this probably is the reason why you did not receive the email."
This.Is.Disgusting.
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These Customer Support Agents though - aren't they freelancers picked from the site who 'volunteered' to do it?
I remember them asking - it would appear that they haven't received training - just respond with stock answers and copy and paste responses which don't address the initial query.
This is a company with a mission for self-destruction. That's fine, but now we need to safeguard what we have and establish it elsewhere. Trouble is, I can't find a UK alternative, Any ideas?
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There is Bark - it's a site where you pay a set fee to be put directly in touch with the client. It's not referral fee basically and no on going fees. it can cost about £5 to £10 per referral - but then they are your client to do with what you wish.
As regards the notification settings - important emails such as fee changes should override all notification settings. it is part of your terms and conditions therefore it is their legal duty to inform you. I don't think I received it either.
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Problem is there is no UK alternative to PPH, it used to be such an amazing platform but they just keep on making changes that effect us and our income.
I work on here full time so PPH is critical to me I know you shouldn't have all your eggs in one basket but as i mentioned above there is no alternative so in a way some of us have to suck this up and take a hit because I can't see them changing anything they never do!!
I have a website and have used adwords etc but the amount that comes through that is a fraction compared to this so i'm really struggling to find a solution/alternative!
Another thing that really angered me was changing our hourlie images to mugshots I can't for the life of me understand it and i complained about that as well but nothing was done they simply don't care what we have to say as so many others have said.
Unless we can get in contact with management to get our concerns across nothing will change CS reps are just here to tell us do one and thats as far as their powers go.
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Hi Chris. Freelancing forums can be a good idea. Sometimes they have a paid membership section where clients ask directly for people to do jobs for them.
Even though places like Up work are similar in their fees, they are at least upfront about it. There are many UK based jobs on those sites.
Offering yourself as a freelancer to already established agencies in your field can also be helpful. I sent out an email to around 50 digital agencies offering Copywriting as a freelancer and three came back to me. One turned out to be a £5,000 contract and another is a regular customer.
The money we spend on fees here could be put to better use. If you earn £500 here, you pay £100. That can buy a lot of advertising space, a couple of months in a local paper, 200 flyers, petrol to attend numerous networking meetings.
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I can echo Letitia here, Bark - I used it once or twice but the details I got for the money were laughable, they weren't really 'qualified' at all. It's the equivalent of some jobs that get posted on PPH - like - 'i need new website' - no other details.
I also echo what somebody said earlier in the thread, PPH are looking at this thinking 'they'll get over it' and that annoys me even more.
That mind-set and complacency is adjacent to 'preying' on people. Luckily, this isn't by any means my main source of income and I'm more than happy to drop PPH should this fee structure continue - it's just going to become pointless (or has been made that way irrespective).
What I can't figure out in my own mind is WHY they choose to do this at risk of losing their top tier sellers? We MAKE PPH. Literally. Rising fee's just make things unbearable to us and the client.
Naturally, this will fall on deaf ears to continue to line Xenios's pocket. But sure enough, people will leave the platform.
It's just baffling to me. If you keep the overall billing structure we can afford to give clients better rates and that means they'll continue using PPH rather than going to an alternative site.
Just baffling.
Ha! We're all developers / marketing / content / graphics / whatever else superstars in our own right, let's build our own Freelance site :P
J
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@Megan...can't even count how many times I've relived that paragraph lol.
@Chris - A fee structure that's fair for both sellers and buyers.
Oh...agree with the hourlie. Nothing worse than seeing my ugly mug on the hourlie page LOL ... if anything that puts off business! Haha.
Deffo, KoderKube and some of the others could easily build a site like this. I can handle SEO along with others, social buzzing for the social media along with others...i mean all of us collectively could literally ROCK IT.
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I don't think I would mind the fee increase if there were improvements with the experience in using PPH.
If the jobs were moderated properly and buyers were required to input as much information as possible before submitting the job. If spam was removed, if "freelancers" just blindly proposing for every job without reading were removed and if PPH were using the extra from the fees to really bring us high quality buyers.
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I agree that the service is so poor that we feel we are paying for nothing. But seriously, PPH position themselves as a large company, but they have a skeleton staff and probably outsource most of their work (as you would expect!).
They can't even keep up with payments and support tickets - they couldn't possibly pull their finger out and check buyer jobs...
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