Even so, my initial sympathies were with the freelancer. But then I looked at the main page of his website. he is a "Blockchain & AI Focused Tech and Investment Consultant" specializing in "investments related to Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Fintech, Artificial Intelligence". It seems to me that a) somebody claiming this level of business sophistication should be walking the walk, and b) anybody working in the cryptocurrency space should vet clients very carefully given the high level of fraud and insanity in the space.
So I think what I'd really like to see here is Upwork saying, "We're very sorry the client screwed us all over and we suggest you consider suing them to get paid. Have your lawyer contact us and we'll turn over any records you need to that end."
Are you saying that as something to aspire to, or something that's standard practice? I don't think most people would have a problem with bigcorp absorbing the risk, but in practice most e-commerce platforms pass the chargeback risk to their sellers.
Note that there is absolutely no dispute at all about the work being performed or the quality of the work, and if there was they might have a leg to stand on, even if that came to light this long after the fact (though, again, that would point to some process errors at Upwork).
The responsibility of payment processing and due diligence with respect to which customers they do business with and how they arrange the various payment options lies entirely with Upwork. In this case Upwork is the seller. They buy the product from someone else and that's two separate relationships, Upwork now suddenly wants to pretend that they weren't part of the transaction after all and that the relationship ran directly from buyer to their supplier but that isn't the case.
Upwork asserts that they own the relationship between client and freelancer/agency, to the point that freelancers or agencies must pay Upwork thousands of dollars if they want to move their client off of Upwork.
Service not delivered is normally dealt with by services like Upwork through escrow like arrangements or review procedures where the customer will only pay for approved work. Upwork chooses the second method, which means they have all of the control they need to ensure that freelancers only get paid if they deliver, substantially reducing the risk of such chargebacks.
And if these do happen, then the problem, again, lies with Upwork and the fact that they choose a payment method that offers that possibility. They could choose wire transfer instead if they were concerned with customers charging back after approving the work.
> We continued working via Upwork while locating in Zurich, as to not violate any Upwork terms.
If you sell something through Amazon and the buyer commits fraud, Amazon will still pay you provided that it was credit card fraud.
If you sell something on your Shopify store and integrate with Stripe, you are responsible for your KYC, and will have to take a loss for fraud.
The former takes a larger percentage of your sale for handling KYC, while the latter lets you keep more, but you're responsible for KYC.
The problem with Upwork, Airbnb, etc. is that they act like the merchant of record but not when it comes to fraud. They try to pass that onto the seller.
Large platforms where the customer thinks they are paying the platform, such as Lyft or Uber, take on the chargeback risk. Etsy, Shopify, and others where the customer is paying a vendor tend to pass on the fees to the vendor.
Ultimately, it’s up to the platform how they want to handle this. It’s most likely listed in the terms of service.
He needs to go after the thief. Upwork certainly ought to help with that, rather than trying to get the bank to not do the chargeback and screw over the fraud victim after all.
Whilst I have little time for the crypto world, this is totally irrelevant. They were using a large & popular freelance platform for legally acceptable work and the exchange of fiat currency for billable work. People use platforms like Upwork in the (often mistaken) belief that it adds a layer of trust and safety to a working arrangement, including billing.
Normally I'd agree, and I'd just flat out refuse to do crypto work for people over Upwork.
But these payments came over the course of two years. After the first few settle, I can't blame him for assuming everything is hunkydory.
What's insane is that the bank is letting someone do chargebacks going back two years.
If that's the case, then the freelancer could still be well ahead on his slice of the credit card fraud.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/upwork...
I agree that it's hard to tell the difference, but do not believe that gives Upwork the authority to require a refund from the freelancer. The freelancer made an agreement with Upwork that, in exchange for payment from Upwork, the freelancer would perform work as directed by the client. By requiring a refund, Upwork is claiming that the freelancer either (a) did not perform work as directed or (b) is conspiring with the client to scam Upwork. In the case of (a), the client may give evidence against the freelancer. In the case of (b), the burden of proof lies with Upwork to prove that such a conspiracy existed, not on the freelancer to prove that no such conspiracy existed.
Upwork has four ethical options going forward. First, Upwork may accept the cost of fraud as a part of doing business, and continue working with this freelancer. Second, Upwork may accept the cost of fraud as a part of doing business, but limit that cost by refusing to hire this freelancer in the future. Third, Upwork may recover payment from the client through the courts. Fourth, Upwork may accuse the freelancer of being part of the client's fraud, and may recover payment through the courts. Instead of taking any of these options, Upwork has chosen the unethical option to require payment from the freelancer without first establishing any culpability on the part of the freelancer.
> he is a "Blockchain & AI Focused Tech and Investment Consultant" specializing in "investments related to Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Fintech, Artificial Intelligence". It seems to me that a) somebody claiming this level of business sophistication should be walking the walk, and b) anybody working in the cryptocurrency space should vet clients very carefully given the high level of fraud and insanity in the space.
I agree, considering Blockchain and Cryptocurrency as realms of unmitigated fraud whose entire existence consist of nested pyramid schemes. However, I do not think that establishing a precedent allowing abuse of a power differential in somebody's livelihood is acceptable, even when the victim is part of the larger Blockchain/Cryptocurrency scheme.
> So I think what I'd really like to see here is Upwork saying, "We're very sorry the client screwed us all over and we suggest you consider suing them to get paid. Have your lawyer contact us and we'll turn over any records you need to that end."
Except that the freelancer's agreement is with Upwork. The client screwed over Upwork. A bank is responsible for verifying the identity of somebody accessing an account, and may not pass on the costs to the account holder. Upwork is responsible for verifying the identity of a client's payment, and may not pass on the costs to the freelancer.
Do you have proof of any of this? I'd bet cash money that everything that happened here is entirely covered the actual agreement.
It is the rules Upwork sets that gives it the authority, rules everyone agrees to before entering in a relationship.
1. Banks are bad at security.
2. People are bad at security.
3. The responsibility in the case of fraudulent transactions is not clear. Who is to blame? The bank or the user?
Cryptocurrencies either solve these problems or neutralize the negative consequences of these problems:
- There is no bank to impose dumb security rules
- When credentials are "stolen", the user has no one else to blame than themselves.
- There's no concept of fraud. Whoever holds the credentials (private key or nmemonic seed) is authorized to realize transactions using the credentials.
- There are no chargebacks. Once a transaction is confirmed, the receiver can be certain that their money is not going to get pulled back.
Also, what happens in transactions where the seller does not deliver the right item? What if I buy a laptop off eBay, but I receive a box of rocks instead?
I disagree. I live in Europe and all my online card transactions over a nominal sum (~$10) are tied to a certificate-based security application that requires confirmation on my phone. This same application is used by all banks and most government entities.
There are of course banks in the world that are bad at security, but “banks”, as a general term, most definitely are not.
The fundamental problem is, of course, that security is annoying, so any fundamental security improvement to online banking needs to be mandatory and centralized, and if there is no will to push something like that I’m not surprised nothing happens.
That alone would cost several thousand dollars.
Upwork should provide free lawyers for incidents like this as part of their package.
Yes. To me, it's whoever's in the best position to reduce fraud that should be responsible.
It's Upwork who can verify payer details, implement identity verification, require back-up payment methods, etc. If Upwork isn't the primary entity feeling the pain when a stolen credit card is used, then they're not as incentivized to address it. And there's nothing the freelancer can realistically do, aside from maybe limit risk by breaking the project up into smaller costs.
NEVER EVER give access to your bank account to ANYONE.
e.g. INTUIT (They personally scammmed me out of a month's worth of subscription that I never used).
Do NOT give your bank account to Paypal, they WILL withdraw money if they have any excuse.
You can however, give all of these your credit card, as any wrongdoing can be ammended via a Chargeback, but there's no chargeback for direct-to-bank withdrawals.
Despite Air Canada cancelling the flight (we didn't cancel our tickets), despite a public campaign waged to get them to refund passengers, despite the US Department of Transportation fining them $25 million (reduced to $2 million because US gov't), despite Air Canada changing their public website multiple times (I saved screenshots to include "we will fully refund") but then not actually allowing your ticket to be processed, despite me submitting DOZENS of responses to Chase for clarification on why all of this is wrong of Air Canada...
Chase: "I'm sorry, if they don't want to refund you, even if they said they would, there's nothing we can do."
https://viewfromthewing.com/dot-issues-largest-fine-ever-aga...
Did you use the magic phrase: “I need to issue a chargeback. They charged my card for services not rendered. I called their number to contest it and they did not issue a refund.”
That (or “they charged my card but did not send the product”) has worked 100% of the time for me. I’ve never provided documentation beyond that.
Chase has a strong financial incentive to issue the chargeback (Air Canada ends up paying Chase a fine), and it’s no sweat off Chase’s back if Air Canada sues you.
Card issuers have no incentive to investigate further, and (in my experience) never ask for further documentation.
I would have taken Air Canada to court though, assuming all the facts are true. A small claims court would have definitely supported them.
I once called in to make a price protection benefit claim (would refund the price difference of a purchase). The agent assured me it was done and I find out later all they did was create a chargeback and I got refunded the entire price because the merchant didn't respond to it.
The dispute resolution system seems like it gets no investment or attention from any stakeholder, a merchant could easily get DOSd by spam disputes if some sort of consumer protest were organized. That’s how overpowered of a consumer tool it is.
You are correct about credit card companies, but for whatever reason, Chase has different incentives.
[1]https://www.aircanada.com/us/en/aco/home/aeroplan/credit-car...
Bad service isn't a reason for a refund. And if the person doesn't say "This debit was in error. I wasn't given notice" or similar the bank will usually say this is a legitimate direct debit [0] https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/pages/dir...
The thing is, that’s the only way to do direct deposit. It makes me uncomfortable too, but that’s been the standard for decades.
That is literally how checking works in the united states. You can withdraw money from a bank account if you have a routing number and bank account number and "permission." The permission could be a signed check, it could be an auto-pay ACH you set up by handing a paper form to someone, it could be a web-form you signed without looking over the fine-print.
Most extractive companies (e.g., gyms, verizon) have so many fine print and so many lawyers that they can literally take anything from you without recourse. You'd spend tens of thousands in lawyer fees without getting the money back. You could go to the attorney general's office for your state. Good luck with that, unless its a common issue, you just have to eat the cost as part of being American.
Or it could be nothing. In this case, its still on you to figure it out and get the money back in time.
The gym industry is very predatory and it needs far more regulation.
It should be noted that in the US, some banks will allow you to request a default ACH block/lock on your account, and I highly encourage you to ask for such.
That said I haven't heard of companies or fraudsters abusing it
"A no-questions-asked, fast and simple Refund procedure available within eight weeks of the debit date."
Within 8 weeks of the charge, you just phone (or otherwise) your bank and ask them to undo the charge.
Maybe it still works that way in some parts of Europe, but in others it has been changed to work differently, or doesn't exist anymore and has been replaced by other systems, depending on how you want to put it.
What do you think a check is? It's a piece of paper with your account number, who to pay, and how much. There's a signature field, but it's not checked too closely (I don't think my bank even asked for a signature sample when opening my account) and signatures are trivial to forge.
My bank doesn't give me a cheque book any more - haven't see a person use a cheque in about a decade. I can't believe they'd let someone cash a random cheque with no authorisation.
Which is why the rest of the developed world wonders: So why don't you stop that and catch up to, say, the 1990s?
Our payment infrastructure ... has some legacy features.
It happens in Australia as, just fill up a direct debit form which has the client's name, account number and sign.
It gets worse too - once I moved and wanted the withdrawals to stop, my own bank claimed there was no way they could stop them, only the withdrawing bank could cancel it. Of course I wasn’t a signer on the strata account as I was no longer a resident, so was completely reliant on them to stop.
Legacy features doesn’t even begin cover it. Those people that keep all their money under their mattress aren’t quite as insane as you might think.
There are two things you can do, however: one is request your bank set a default ACH block, and the other is to create a sub/second account from which you do all your ACH transfers for utilities and whatnot. It's a bit of an extra hassle (unless your bank allows for scheduling automatic transfers; many do) but it assures that stuff like can't happen. I've done it for a business that took paypal payments, specifically to stop paypal from being able to yoink back funds a month or two later. Within hours of a payment coming in, I'd transfer it out of the ACH-linked account into the business's main account.
It’s true though. This was essentially the plot of “catch me if you can”.
You might enjoy looking at how things were done before the internet existed, because all the stuff that you do with the internet also was done before just in a different way.
This reminds me to look into a long standing request of mine. I want Chase to give me an account that has no external bank access allowed. Money can only be moved into/out of it from the other Chase account under my ownership. My immediate look a few years ago did not reveal any built in way to make this possible.
He does this all the time. He has a "cannon fodder" bank account that gets just enough for the expected payments.
This isn't correct within SEPA (the Single Euro Payments Area). You do need to issue the chargeback within 8 weeks, though. [1]
[1] https://stripe.com/docs/payments/sepa-debit#disputed-payment...
Moving to America and finding out that these two are your top secrets certainly seemed odd at first, but then I found out that no matter what you are doing you always have to give out your at least your SSN, but also your date of birth and sometimes your banking info.
The amount of times you need to give out information which is supposed to be private is so often that for any normal person it is unreasonable to assume they know when their not. That is, there are so many situations where you are unable to refuse handing out this information, that when the time comes where the right thing to do would be to not give out the information, you won’t know it.
This system seems optimized for scams.
May be there is a need of new Upwork. Shall we start a new platform given the fact that remote work is going to be the future.
Even if you make your own Upwork, how are you going to avoid those exact same problems?
why should they have to walk away? why even suggest such a strategy?
UpWork already has a 10% market share. so if there were 1000 employers, 100 of them would be the same company.
i'm not sure if you're aware of all the gigification and precaritization of digital labor going on? it's emerging as a frontal assault; a full-force attack on labor rights.
"For all of its forward-looking ‘innovation’, there’s something suspiciously feudal about Silicon Valley. Tech royalty compete for dominance in platform wars [...] They hoard resources while showering key personnel with lavish gifts to ensure loyalty and peddling a compelling story about their right to rule. Meanwhile, the remaining workers, dependent on ‘gigs’ for their livelihood, are made to battle with each other for scraps."
The last time I was looking at contracting I was negotiating $100+/hr contracts through Upwork. I had high leverage and negotiating power whereas gig jobs do not. I also had recourse for stuff like what happened here as long as I worked it into the contract I was signing, again not something you get in a gig job.
For 12.5 grand my next words to Upwork would have been, "My lawyer" and if that didn't make any headway I'd be going after "Robin" in court too. These are not avenues that a typical gig job have either because the amount of money doesn't make it worth it or their contracts which are created by the company don't give them the option.
author is not a dev.
> Upwork provides a platform to get contracts but it's not quite the same as the auto priced marketplaces like Uber, Lyft, Doordash etc.
yes this is a great point that makes me reflect on the term 'gig', thanks for sharing it.
if the author was a dev contractor who was contracting through UpWork, i would agree completely with your statement about 'gigifying'. since he's not, i'd argue that this non-dev work is still part of the gigification because 1.) it's part of the shift where more and more administrative and creative labor, which was formerly structured as full-time (and in Europe, unionized) jobs, is being atomized and increasingly mediated through faceless unaccountable corporate platforms (where labor rights are shit on, exactly like in author's story), and 2.) one's reputation is stuck/held hostage on a third party platform (where things like author's story happen often [1]) who can essentially ban you and erase you (and your reputation/testimonials/positive feedback) anytime.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=upwork+banned+site:www.reddi...
Before places like Upwork you might have to found a consultancy and pay staff to manage the overhead and spend more time sourcing contracts where as Upwork handles that overhead and takes a cut, which is lower than having staff or doing it yourself. That's why people are driven to these platforms.
I'd argue that as anyone that is skilled labor, like the author, has the option of moving off of Upwork and doing things the old fashioned way even though it is more costly and laborious, whereas a gig worker, as I think of them, does not have the option at all. So while I don't think it's all the way there since a skilled worker has more leverage and optionality I admit that Upwork here still does have much too much power and is partly gigafying/commoditizing this work.
> skilled labor
tangent: i'm curious what you think about this:
https://twitter.com/arne__ness/status/1478805922306744320
https://twitter.com/faithfxl_wyfe/status/1478998605935558657
I had a client stiff me for 6k once and it seemed like the only reasonable options were to go to small claims court and hope for a small portion of that or take the hit and move on, which is what I did :-/
If my entire market was based on getting my freelancers good jobs, I wouldn’t be trying to screw them over.
This could have been an article about how Upwork is awesome and ate 12.5k for this dev. They could write about how they go to bat for their freelancers and are prosecuting the scammer.
That story would still be upvoted and the free advertising would far exceed the cost. Instead, they bought tons of the worst kind of publicity (hitting peoples wallets) and their best outcome is now an apology that nobody will actually believe and eating the cost anyway.
It may appear they’re on the side of the freelancer however that’s not the goal of the company. They make money off the other end and likely think that even if n percent of freelancers drop the platform there will be more in their place
It’s hard to reasonably blame a platform for capping its losses when confronted with a client who chooses the highest risk billing, despite knowing the risks well enough to write about them at length.
I don’t see where you or the writer would have a case. Heck, you can’t just ignore hundreds of warnings, discover they were good things to be cautious about and claim the company was wrong for enforcing the terms it told you about constantly.
Why would you want to continue doing business with someone who will unpredictability charge you large sums of money?
He sold something a few weeks ago and received payment via CashApp. Two days ago he's informed that the customer disputed the charge through his bank, and CashApp is taking the money back from my friend. CashApp says there is nothing they can do, they are simply the middleman.
I just got banned from Twitter for posting the contact details of their VPs :|
Of course! How else would you be able to protect yourself if someone else is handling the payments?
But they still seem to be on good terms with the client. If I understand correctly the problem is that they insist on getting paid through upwork:
"When things were not making sense, I still followed the rules. I could’ve easily gotten paid from Robin outside of Upwork. Heck, he was physically in front of me. "
The key bit is "Let me translate this. Robin has been using someone else’s credit card for two years, and this other person realized that money was being withdrawn in the previous two years on a platform called Upwork without his consent." You'd have to be a pretty massive idiot to still trust someone after realising that...
Yes, because this is reeks of scam.
If you're in the same country and meeting physically... why on earth are you transacting via Upwork? Upwork was collecting 10-20% of the net payments. There's no reason to do that if you're physically meeting.
You use Upwork to facilitate international payments and for proof of work via their spyware when you don't trust the contractor. These two do neither.
You have to be obtuse and believe they just gave Upwork $1k from the goodness of their hearts... or there's some sort of scam. I don't know what the scam is; just this behavior is irrational to the tune of more than $1k if there isn't a scam involved.
You can still move it offline without saying anything but if you have a lot of credibility on either side you are doing what you can to avoid getting on the wrong side of Upwork.
So sometimes it is easier to leave it be. Also past $10k it is a 5% take which isn’t that bad if you’re rate is set to handle it and things are just cruising.
I don't understand why. This isn't how it works with other systems. If I get a ton of chargebacks on Paypal, they'll try to take the money back out of my bank account. And if they can't they'll grab it later the next time someone pays me (what Upwork is doing here). And if even that won't work, they'll just close my account. There's no scenario where PayPal is expected to continue working with me, because I'm now a fraud risk in their eyes.
Ditto on Amazon: get a bunch of returns and you'll need to make that up or be cancelled.
People are not really understanding the situation here. The OP's complaint isn't that Upwork is suing him or otherwise attempting to force payment. It's just that Upwork won't work with him anymore unless they get their losses covered.
And... maybe that's not fair, but that's how life works on the internet of payments. Upwork's behavior is very typical here, and no one should be surprised.
There are two separate agreements in play here.
1. The freelancer made an agreement with Upwork. In exchange for the freelancer performing work for a client, the freelancer will receive payment by Upwork.
2. The client made an agreement with Upwork. In exchange for arranging for a freelancer to perform work for them, the client will send payment to Upwork.
If the client fails to adhere to agreement #2, that doesn't give Upwork grounds to unilaterally cancel agreement #1. Upwork has been scammed, and unless they are claiming that the freelancer was part of the scam, they have no moral right to cancel agreement #1.
Edit: In support of this interpretation, Upwork's tax requirements indicate that freelancers must file a W-9 with Upwork, not with the client. This indicates that Upwork is the entity paying the freelancer, not merely acting as a payment facilitator between the client and the freelancer.
[0] https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211067918-Tax-R...
This is not the same as Upwork refusing to continue working with the freelancer. This is Upwork attempting to modify the terms for previous work done by the freelancer.
its like arguing that homeopathy shitheads that 'helps with cancer' are not scammers because of placebo effect
One form of actual piece-of-plastic physical card that's popular here in Finland is the combination debit-credit card. When I insert it into the checkout payment terminal it first gives me a selection of "Debit / Credit?", then I tap in my PIN, and then it either charges my bank account or my credit card, depending on which I selected in the first step.
These same cards work in ATMs, and abroad too. I lifted cash in Turkey ten years ago, I think from Visa (IIRC my bank switched to MasterCard after that). In Sweden, supermarket payment terminals have one or two steps more: you need to confirm the amount, and if you want you can tap in an additional amount and have the cashier hand you cash in stead of going to an ATM. (Can't recall the order for sure; I think confirming the amount came first, before even selecting credit/debit, and the additional withdrawal last.) Never seen the amount confirmation in Finland; I suppose here it's taken for granted that it'll be the same as what the cashier just told you (and what you can see on the customer-facing display of their register, usually right next to the payment terminal). The additional cash withdrawal does exist (or at least did, can't recall when I last saw it) in some shops, but it's rare.
I don't think chargeback policies are a major influence either way.
It is a chargeback because of fraudulent card misuse which should have been vetted by Upwork OR the payment provider. It is not the freelancers responsibility to do the payment or vetting. If it was their responsibility, you could cut Upwork out after the first transaction, but you can’t.
One of two people should be missing out here: Upwork for failing to verify the credit card or the actual persons bank for kit identifying fraudulent transactions.
I do wonder why the author is still on Upwork, their rating & exposure on there must be worth more to them than working several weeks for free, but personally I'd walk. I also don't understand why the pay back is not pro-rata instead of full time, allowing freelancers in this position to earn some money to pay the bills whilst paying back the chargeback (although they shouldn't be paying it at all). If the author is in the same country as the client then they should also be taking legal action to reclaim the money (which again, Upwork should be doing).