An Open Letter to People Per Hour: Please Comment Below on Payments
Dear People Per Hour,
I wanted to let you know just how much havoc, chaos and panic you have caused in my life since you announced your decision to subject us to the new payment clearance process and times. If you are a freelancer reading this, please comment below so we can try to support each other and so that we can let PPH know what damage this is causing us and that we, as freelancers, are not only the lifeblood of the platform but also real people with real lives and families to support.
I am a freelancer, but I am also a single parent to two young children. We have all lived through a year and a half of the most disruptive time in any of our lives due to the pandemic. I am sure it hasn’t escaped PPH’s attention that freelancers have had a rough ride during this time. I am mainly referring to the UK here as that is where I am from, but I am sure these problems are global for freelancers. As freelancers, we did not enjoy the benefits of furlough, of the Job Retention Scheme and many of us were not eligible for government grants or benefits. As we start to move out of the pandemic, many of us are reeling from the effects and have now been served a huge blow by PPH-a platform that is supposed to support us as freelancers and make our lives easier-by making us wait up to 18 days to receive money we have earned and worked hard for.
I don’t know about other freelancers, but my family relies solely on the money I earn from PPH and we live from invoice payment to invoice payment. We don’t live beyond our means, there is only me earning money and I work very hard.
On Friday, I came to the realisation that due to the new payment clearing processes, we did not have enough food to last us the weekend, let alone 18 more days. My rent was due on Friday, and I have not been able to pay that. So, we are hungry and on top of that I am now really anxious about not paying my rent. I earnt enough money this month to pay my rent and buy us food and everything on top, but it is sitting in my PPH account, and I cannot access it. This morning, my son’s school had to arrange a delivery from our local food bank. I have never, ever had to ask for anything like this before, but we had no choice.
I have not heard anything from PPH that makes me understand why they are doing what they are doing. I simply do not believe that in the world of instant payments, high tech and on-demand services why they need to hang on to our money for 18 days. It just won’t work for me in the long term, but at the moment, I am wondering what we will do in four days’ time when the food runs out, when I can’t pay my internet bill leading me not being able to work at all and when the stress of this will just be too much to bear.
I hope people don’t think I am being overdramatic, for some freelancers this will just be a frustrating experience, but for some of us, this is having real life, damaging effects on our lives and the lives of the people we love- and I am sure I am not alone.
Please comment below and tell PPH how this is affecting your life if you can.
Yours Sincerely,
Meri Williams
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I looked PPH up in Companies House and their latest accounts do show their profits increasing compared to last year. I don't know where it is coming from because there are fewer projects posted than ever. Do they charge new freelancers to register? The forum is usually dominated by freelancers complaining about rejected applications but I don't know if any are paying money. Perhaps they are buying proposal credits. If PPH are making money without work getting done, we are in trouble.
Companies House also shows that PPH had a compulsory striking off warning in December, and it wasn't their first. That indicates that something is wrong in the way the company is run. I found a few subsidiary companies who also had striking off warnings, so they are struggling to follow the basic laws of being a legal company.
I noticed that the last 2 payments I have had have come through WorldPay and there has been nothing on my bank statement to say it is from PPH. I thought I had been overpaid something and spoke to the people I deal with at WorldPay and they didn't know anything about it. On closer inspection I found that WorldPay have a section who handle making bank transfer payments, so PPH have moved to a new system in the last two months or so, and I would guess this is causing some of the problems. I wouldn't be surprised if WorldPay have a stupid rule about needing a money laundering policy and this is where the 14 days clearing comes from. PPH can't be keeping it to make interest with rates as low as they are. Maybe they are just very badly organised and understaffed and too ignorant to tell us what's happening. -
There is an option on Upwork to request testimonials from non-Upwork clients. This could help bring over some of your existing clients maybe Meri?
I agree it's a pretty daunting thought to start again but suspect it's a little unwise to hesitate, expecting the PPH situation to improve. It feels like an end of life situation to me, just not sure what kind... Hope I'm wrong!
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Don't know yet Meri - I've put in about 8 bids but haven't got a bite yet!
It looks like they offer more protection though and the ability to ask for 'Milestone' payments which could help with cashflow on bigger jobs.
It looks like your exposure there is limited until you get going though so it's going to be a tough start I suspect...
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Marcus, that is useful to know. I've started looking at Upwork again after a long break and put in a bid last week, but I've never had much success there. I suddenly got 2 jobs in quick succession 2 or 3 years ago and I thought I'd cracked it, but then it went back to normal after that. I put a link to my PPH profile in the covering letter and tell people that is where I do most of my freelance work. The $5 jobs put me off and once I see some of those I'm left banging my head against the desk in despair and I can't bring myself to log back in for a bit.
Some of the payment features I remember are that you can set a threshold and get paid automatically when that is reached. When I first worked there, I had about $20 in the account for months with no sign of getting anything else and Upwork paid it into my bank account without being asked. PPH would have stolen that and said it was my fault for leaving it there. -
That's very interesting. I was blocked from the Upwork site for that exact reason... telling the client I had good reviews on another site and the only reason I had no reviews was because I was new! I was blocked for "mentioning a competitor site while chatting with a client." Perhaps things have changed over there.
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@ Joseph, Simon, Marcus.
Let's not get diverted from the main issue here: paying PPH its due while also helping each other to grow elsewhere. So, let's focus on how to get through this and force PPH out of market and, if at all possible, asking for claims for the clear damage PPH has caused to so many.
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@Mohamed. I'm not sure there is a desire to force PPH out of the market. As things stand at the moment I would be worse off if PPH folded, and I think a lot of others would here as well. I've had disagreements with employers in the past but I will always try to improve my position rather than try to put them out of business. With most of my former employers they were more than capable of putting themselves out of business without any help from me.
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@mohamed Personally, what I would like to see from PPH is not their destruction, but a move towards a healthy and progressive practice, that supports their high-quality sellers by promoting them and making it straightforward for them to earn money, instead of these constant punitive measures - if they can foster a positive environment like that, that celebrates the talent they have working through them, we will all benefit.
I would also like reassurances that the company isn't in financial strive - I have built my business model around this platform, and if I am about to have the rug yanked out from under my feet, I would like some warning of that. I guess I will start putting together other freelance profiles now, presuming that this is the reality of the situation here, but I would be financially destroyed for a long time if PPH crumbled, and my freelance career would be in tatters.
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@Mohamed. I believe that is People Per Hour Holdings Ltd. Not to be confused with People Per Hour Ltd. I am a bit suspicious of why this "holding" company has appeared in the last year or so and why it appears to have a lot more money than the original, but I don't really understand company law. I was just looking for the account balance and how many directors they have.
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@Simon. To answer your question about "PPH Holdings Limited" and "PPH Limited," I knw both are "separate" but still "connected" in many ways. This is going to take too long to explain here, but my main point here is to show that this entity with "PPH" label appears to have some incorporation issues since directors, financial status and more change so frequently and since "PPH" (Limited or Holdings) is private, so disclosure rules, applicable to publicly-traded companies, do not apply to it/them - all the more a reason to wonder how "PPH" is really doing financially. Plus, if you did a little bit deeper, you'll find the de facto CEO Xenios Thrasyvoulou is a Cypriot who "resides" in the UK but is also registered as a "resident" of United Arab Emirates. So, what the heck is this Xenios Thrasyvoulou all about?
In short, there is every red flag to raise not only about PPH and it's supposed founder. Is it not interesting that many of you guys, including Simon, have been around on PPH (many years before I joined PPH) and you know little, if anything, about PPH and only started to wonder what is going on when PPH has changed its payment policy recently? Does not that tell you something?
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Mohamed I agree with your sentiments about PPH but the fact that the visible part of the company at least seems to be shrivelling away suggests they won't be bothered by a social media campaign, perhaps only a court case of some kind, civil or criminal if it can be made to stick...even if one of those were successful it may not help us freelancers materially.
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@ Marcus. I understand your point. Still. do you just want to keep kissing their asses when you can see details are emerging everyday of their business?
At least doing something about it would prevent others from being scammed. Now imagine this: You're someone so desperate in these hard times and you're trying your hands in freelance work. Then, as Simon, suspected, many newbies might be actually paying money to work only to get rejected. How do you feel about that?
Even more, here is Meri who started all this thread and she's going out about it all. Do you think, we, as freelancers who have spent some time here, just jump out of the ship and that'd be it?
It's not just about personal gain, Marcus. I wonder how many of us could actually feel okay and just move on after they have read Meri's open letter with all its really touching details?
Whatever your faith or your set of values are, do you think it's just okay we are all happy when we are having gain and just start to complain about being "used" when things turn sour?
Now, this is not a lecture on ethics. I just want to make it clear that many people (really many) including Meri have been brutally abused. For what? Because they just wanted to make a living? I've ben through Meri's very same situation and reading her letter was just "it" for me. I'm so surprised many of you guys who have spent years here had to put up with so much pain.
Yes. We'll all move on but we must not forget to make it clear no one would not be used just as many of us have. Or else, do you, Marcus, guarantee not to be used by any other platform if they, like PPH, decided to "change their mind" any time they want about payment or anything else in their policies?
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@ALL
Now, ethics and all grand talk aside (important as they are, at least to make some, including myself, feel not guilty letting some fraudulent company scamming more people), anyone has got any practical solution? Talking here on the platform of the very entity (PPH) we are upset about does little, if anything, to what we are asking for: reasonable payment policies.
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@ALL
To put you into more perspective, do you know I completed a project yesterday which was paid for by my customer but "for some reason" I still see "Pending" under my "Invoices" section on my "Payments" page? Take a look:
Even more ridiculous, I've asked my customer to send a request to PPH support to mark my invoice as paid. You see how farcical this is? I'm not even asking them to pay me now or to withdraw my money in less than 14 days (God forbid) but all I'm asking is to get my invoice marked as "Paid" so I start the eternal journey of withdrawing my money which I think my grandson will be able to get (someday), if at all.
So, what do you guys think about this? And for those of you who still think we should be more patient with our "employers," do you think patience here is even relevant?
You tell me.
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I think Meri is best advised to consider alternatives to PPH. It can't do any harm to get prepared for the worst and spread your risk...
I've lost a lot of money in the past to businesses that have folded (and a couple of dodgy ones) and in my experience the sooner you accept what's happened the sooner you can get back on your feet rather than wasting your energy wondering how you can get back at the offenders, as understandable as that is.
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Hi @All and @Meri 100% same situation of me its time no body can think how much i disturbed and rent food bills all are pending My Son birthday i can not celebrate in a simple way with a cake what PPH doing with us and they given the reason is very ridiculous and nonsense .they are cheating with us they dont think what they are doing with us and when contact CS then responded very rudely and angry on us i was given 5 star ratting on trust pilot with good comment but last night i change my reviews as well with one star and record my protest because i dont see any forum where i record my protest and i seen many of other freelancer as well ,so all those comment here please record Your protest on trustpilot as well and if found any other forum please tell every freelancer as well then they also do.
please pph administration try to understand every freelancer position other wise You will lose all the work freelancer and Buyer as well .
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@Yuri
Action Plan:
1. Initiate a page on as many social platforms as possible to share experiences and stories.
2. Report PPH to as many agencies as possible to soo attention is focused on PPH.
3. Including as many links from PPH into dedicated platforms and also sharing PPH CEO's profile on as many platforms as possible with comments about abuse stories.
4. Reporting PPH to business and trade chambers and agencies (such as Companies House) to remove or warn PPH against possible legal actions because of company's business practices.
5. Sharing as many stories and comments on each and every video or post PPH CEO shows up in so people checking his video or posts see what his company is all about.
These are just a few ideas. I've already started doing some of them and if anyone interested, we could coordinate efforts.
Wrongdoing should not go unpunished.
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Mohamed, with respect - I don't care too hoots about the CEO's date of birth, education details.
I do care about people trying to make a living. PLEASE don't bring PPH to its knees. I'm doing my level best to keep going on the platform and would be extremely grateful if you didn't crucify me. You're helping to punish the wrong people. Please....
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Hi @Mohamed i am agree with the @Nancy But Nancy we can and we should record our protest and i think the best platform for this is Trustpilot so i request all the freelancers record Your protest on Trustpilot and request PPH to restore previous payment process setup as after my message @P.J Dexter done and left the review on trustpilot Thank You @P.J Dexter and please do all freelancers same
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