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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@Mohamed
I've always been fairly happy with PPH's platform, especially since the reduced fees, I just find the lack of transparency and notice frustrating and the long processing times difficult to adjust to. If people had received forewarning that this was going to happen, they might have been able to prepare for it by setting some money aside.@Meri
That's good that someone has finally responded to you. At least they're listening, although it doesn't sound as though they will be making any changes to the payment policy any time soon.@Simon
Completely agree! -
@Simon, ALL.
This is the soundbite in your post:
"I don't have to like them and they don't have to like me."
Come on! Work is so much like marriage: If you're not happy, why would you carry on? Unless you happen to be married to a woman who's got something against you or that you cannot just get out.
I'm so aware to each and every policy on other platforms. I've worked for Fiverr, Workana (have anyone worked for this before?), Upwork, Contently, and many more. So, my issue is with HONESTY and ETHICS.
Plus, what do you call people who are "unethical" and "dishonest"? Are they "good" people?
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@Simon
I always compared the work payments matter, my work and other people work like being shopping in a store. So, if you pick up something you must pay for it the same moment you got the product. You cannot cross the exit door of a store without paying because should be treated like a robbery. Am I right? This must apply here and everywhere, this means to receive a fair and decent treatment from your buyer. I agree, a lot of persons enjoy the delay, are not rushed to pay but waiting for 30 days??? This is crazy. This is absurd. This is even worse than the present PPH situation. It's a matter of ETHICS. It's abut a lack of consideration for someone else hard work. If you laws in UK allow this it's really bad. It's a big difference to be a fix employee, being paid at the end of each month and being hired for an ocasional job. I'm really sorry.
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@Sam- very good point and one I am going to put in my reply to CS.
@Vicky- absolutely. I would never be in the financial situation I am in now if I had had a month's notice of the change. I would have made sure I put money aside and would have spent very differently. When all the delays in payment were happening, I was assured repeatedly by CS (Panos) that in a couple of weeks a new, improved and faster payments process would be put in place that would benefit freelancers. Nothing led me to believe that this would happen.
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@ALL.
Time and again, it's all about freelance industry, guys. It's how it works. Even T&Cs can change anytime, as you already know. I've seen so many similar instances. What makes it so outrageous in current case is that we as freelancers do not only know HOW this is happening but also WHY. Even the most absurd platforms I've worked for had the decency to tell me what might happen next or why it is the way it is. Now, I'm told in what is supposed to be "UK's largest freelance platform" that, "Hey, we are growing [has anyone seen any sign of growth anyways?], we've new regulations [@Sam: "Strange how these "regulations" are never actually specified"], and you [freelancer] should expect your money much later."
So, anyone not convinced yet to defame PPH? (Don't tell me what the point of that would be. Or do you accept to brutally spanked in a dungeon as in BDSM and expected to come out happy and cheerful? (Sorry, it's just how I see all of us being treated here: just being brutally spanked)
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@Florin. It is a big problem for small businesses in the UK. It always has been. I think what is upsetting a lot of people about PPH is that they had a good system of paying promptly and that has gone, suddenly and without any warning.
@Mohamed. I am getting old and cynical and should really find something else to do. I'm at an awkward age and time of my working life where the skills I use are becoming obsolete and I'm too young to retire and too old to learn something new. I have a good working relationship with some of my clients, it's just PPH (and others like them) that I don't like. Occasionally something pops-up to give a ray of hope. The last 2 PPH projects were good, but small. A few more of those and I will feel better about the work.
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@Simon.
I relate to what you're saying. But again, why would anyone from whatever background or having any kind or skillset be treated like that? It's a matter of dignity and it's my choice to freelance. I used to work full-time for really big companies (one of them was Ernst & Young). Like many here, I've a lot of experiences not just at work but in life too. So, what I see here is just so capricious, to put it in very polite terms.
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@Mohamed. I agree with a lot of what you are saying. My biggest grievance with PPH and the others is the low pay and the fact that the low pay is unchallenged and even encouraged. People pay low wages so that they have more for themselves and it's stealing by another name and it does make me angry. I'm not looking to destroy PPH and take my revenge, I just try and pick what I can from it. I've had some good, well paid work here, and I'm hopeful that I will get some more.
I've done other things as well. I've only been freelancing for 5 years but I went self employed 20 years ago. I sell my own software online but that has been fading as technology moves on. It was fun when the internet was new, before the big boys moved in. The freelance work has been to replace what I'm losing there and it was doing quite well until recently. I couldn't go back to working for somebody else. -
It sounds like you're in a very similar situation to me Simon.
Have you noticed a big drop off in decent work available on PPH since the payment delays came in? That's my main bugbear but I'm not sure if it just seems that way after being put off bidding knowing that I won't get paid for 3 weeks...
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@Simon, Thorsten, ALL.
On top of that, I'm US-educated (Oregon State University & University of Northern Iowa) + Egypt-educated (Cairo University + Ain Shams University). So, with all respect to people who may not have had the chances or the education or work experiences I had, what I'm doing here is a sort of activism. To defend others who has done nothing wrong other than working hard and to get paid for hard-earned work is nothing short of being true to one's own values, education and experiences. These are samples of work (resume and white paper excerpt) I'm ding here on PPH. So, clearly I know what I'm doing.
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Of course Rachel- but I think it is the same old blog post they keep sending us to: https://www.peopleperhour.com/blog/product-platform/freelancer-payments-process/
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@adam same for me - I'm quite high in the rankings, but had a sudden drop off in sales the last few weeks. Everyone is suffering it seems.
Thanks Meri - yeah that article is useless. And the sheer volume of disgruntled freelancers who have been ignored in the comments section is quite shocking.
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@Rachel, Adam. Still, rankings without sales are nothing. I guess no one is here to be told you are great but not paid a penny in weeks or even, in some cases, for months, and spanked on her/his, well, you know (I'm trying to be polite). So, are we here to get ranks or to make money?
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@Adam, @Marcus, @Rachel. I would have to be a Limbo Dancer to notice that the work levels have got lower in recent weeks. It has got steadily worse for me over the last 3 or 4 years. The pandemic seems to be another point where it took a downward turn and I've had almost nothing new since then. I have found other things to do and probably haven't been looking as seriously until the last few weeks. Now I am not getting as many emails notifying me of jobs and I don't know if that is because I've not applied for enough to trigger the notifications or if the jobs are not there. Last week I went 3 days without a notification and usually the phone pings fairly regularly.
I had two serious proposal submissions that got a reply but then went quiet. That always happens from time to time but two in a row makes me wonder. I suspect the large number of low quality freelancers is putting buyers off, but that might just be me jumping to conclusions.@Rachel and @Meri. If you are looking at the blog article, remember that the comments are censored. I posted 2 that never appeared.
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@Rachel, Adam, ALL. I do not mind being at the bottom of the rank (and leave the highest ranks for you guys) but to just get paid. People who say they've worked hard to build a profile and to get higher ranks seem to forget that it's all about The Platform's (any platform) rules. r else, do you guys have any explanation for your rising ranks but falling sales? Even more ridiculous, I've been making some sales recently but with barely any changes in my ranks. So, in addition to the recent payment policy, here you've a CERT system even the "most established" PPH freelancers do not know how it really works. Is it not that just interesting?
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Sigh. Mohamed, no one is boasting about ranking. My point was if I'm high in the ranks, but my sales are low, it must mean that a large proportion of people are doing even worse, which is bad.
Can you just take a break from telling everyone how little they know in comparison to you. You're the expert, great, I don't care. I'm trying to talk to fellow freelancers, and your refrain seems to be to just jump in and tell everyone how rubbish they are. It's deeply frustrating.
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@Rachel. I'm sorry if you think that's what I mean. I do not claim to be an expert or anything. I'm just not taking PPH seriously really. All I'm doing here is that I'm showing in every possible way that freelancers who have been around for so long have never questioned so many basic things about PPH works. So, now that things have gone sour, everybody is complaining. And yes, like you said, even top sellers like you are suffering, so how do you think about others? It's really worse than you think and that's why I'm taking the position I'm taking. All respect to everyone. Simple as that.
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Same Meri, it's really recent. Which is what brought me here in the first place...it must be to do with the clearing period, but it made me wonder if buyers had had new rules inflicted on them too...it seems not...
Simon, how annoying - I wonder how they are choosing to censor, pretty much all the comments are negative! Maybe they have given up trying to hold back the tide...
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@Rachel, Simon, ALL.
On censorship:
Actually, some posts are held back not because of any additional layer of censorship. Just try to remove a word you suspect has been detected by the system here as inappropriate and you'd find your post published right away. Or, you can simply include that word but with dots (. . . . ) or dashes (- - - - -) in between so you avoid detection. This is how moderated content works. Try it and let me see any posts you might have wanted to publish but thought were censored. I've already tried it myself and it worked.
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@Mohamed- I know all you are saying is meant with the best intentions and it is clear from your posts that you do care about other freelancers and want to help, and you have been very lovely about my letter.
The stark reality however is that for many of us, taking PPH seriously is exactly what we do as it is our sole source of income. You clearly are very fortunate to have income coming from other sources- but I don't. I have invested years and years of work into PPH, have an outstanding feedback record and it really is my only source of income. I tried to go it alone without PPH a few years ago, but I just couldn't get the same traffic as my PPH profile does.
Every time you say you are bringing PPH down, or burning it to the ground, it just highlights to me that you really don't need PPH- but I do. And I need it to work. I need buyers not to see really negative and potentially libellous reviews all over the internet and I need PPH to see that we are a professional, realistic group of freelancers that are taking this very seriously.
I know it may not matter to you other than destroying PPH- but please don't ruin it for the rest of us. Anyone reading through this thread will walk away with your comments sticking out the most, when that's not what it was about.
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