I've been freelancing for ~6 years now, it really depends on the initial time you spend knowing about your client. If you set the expectations right to your client about payments upfront and send them a contract that clearly has consequences for them if they don't pay on time, and if you walk them through it, you shouldn't have any problems getting paid.

That's why understanding your client in your first few meetings before you commit to the project is SO important. I let go of a lot of deals in my career because the client was very stingy - they want to know how you spent every second of your time or they want to know how many vacations you take, etc. It boils down to trust.

It's your responsibility to instil trust and this trust will pay itself off in the long run.

Also, I work with Google cloud, I'm always the project owner and at no point my client has access to the source code until full payment for the project has been made. So, it also depends how desperately they want that software/product.

They stopped paying? Simple. Just add an auth layer to the app (very simple to do with Google Cloud). They will come to you if they really need that product that bad. They didn't get back to you? Too bad, in my contract, it says this is now your IP and you can do whatever with it, including selling it off to a competitor or someone else who can find use for this.

The point is, I don't see why your personal space needs to be violated by an intermediary agent for you to be guaranteed to be paid..

Isn't there some deliverable that proves the work was done?

Yes but Upwork wants a metric that doesn’t need a software engineer to adjudicate. If you say “this XHMTL validator works as specified because RFC 1913 was never formally accepted” it takes someone with a clue to figure out what you mean. Upwork would rather say “you types all day, you get paid.”

Still very easy for people to bypass. Just pushes the adjudication into the "interpret screenshot" layer. The screenshot can be a completely valid Photoshop mockup that looks exactly like the client's specifications for the Rails app they hired you for, showing that you pretended to do the work.

I'm guessing that that ploy would work once or twice before you got pushed off the platform anyway. Same goes for a client that regularly claims the work is incomplete.

But you still have to prove it to a court, get a judgement, and then find a judgement collector which is all very time and money consuming.

Of course, and if you're delivering work and that's working out all well for you, then great. And it appears that you can go that route instead on UpWork, agree on milestones, and no tracking required.

But, if like many people you are getting burned by non-payment, then turning this feature on seems like a pretty good route to go for stability in your wallet.

Could you explain a bit why Upwork, who are a company that have countless forum posts, blog posts, ... about non-payment, clawing back payments in entirely unjustified circumstances with zero recourse, ... I'm saying they have a very bad reputation in this regard.

Why would giving these people more power over you result in more payment ? They are looking to exploit these freelancers, and this gives them more power.

Why would any reasonable person expect that giving cheaters more power over you result in less cheating ? It will obviously increase the chance that you, as a freelancer, won't get paid.

https://hackernoon.com/why-you-should-never-use-upwork-ever-...

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.elance.com

https://entrepreneurs.maqtoob.com/a-top-rated-freelancers-ad...

https://screenshotmonitor.com/blog/how-to-avoid-scams-on-upw...

http://launchastartup.com/odesk-vs-elance/

I've used Upwork in the past with no problems (from Upwork, I've had problems with clients). I ready the links you posted and not one of them mentions Upwork cheating or clawing back payments. Only the first article is really critical of Upwork per se, and all the truly damning stuff, if it exists, has been removed, so it's hard to judge.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but you made a pretty contentious statement and your evidence is lacking. Do you have a more explicit link to what you're talking about?

Yeah, but lawyers are expensive

Not if the work is like that of a security guard or janitor. You can skip a night every once in a while and no one will notice

I’ve had a company owe me about $14,000 for....15 years now. I’m guessing it won’t be coming in anytime soon! Back when I was younger and naive about such things it would have been nice for a larger organization to have my back.

No, I think the reality would be that you'd have never allowed that client to run up $14k. You'd have had a payment plan in place so that at each milestone you'd get paid. If they stop paying, you would down tools.

You don't need a big brother watching your every working hour. There's happy mediums, this Upwork spy thing certainly isn't it.

That’s a really good point. I was young and just sort of “trusted” people and clients to do the right thing.

Why not sent proof of work ? Like the actual stuff you wrote, instead of having a program constantly monitor what you do.

I wholesomely agree, it's a great deal to have this safety net as an option. Factoring is often an issue with clients, especially smaller ones.