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A comment on Upwork asking me for a $12.5k refund as the client was using someone else’s card. Parent comment

Re:Upwork asking me for a $12.5k refund as the client was us... by danenania on Sunday January 09, 2022 @09:26AM (#29863470)
12.5k seems like a difficult amount to recover. Would the time/legal costs involved really justify it, considering that Upwork presumably employs many lawyers who will make it as painful as possible?

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 :-/

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Re:Upwork asking me for a $12.5k refund as the client was us... by hajile on Sunday January 09, 2022 @10:04AM (#29863800)
They should file consecutive small claims cases (one for each charge). If they file concurrently, the lawyers will get them consolidated.

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.

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Re:Upwork asking me for a $12.5k refund as the client was us... by no_wizard on Sunday January 09, 2022 @10:28AM (#29864041)
This is because the customer for Upwork is not the freelancer it’s the entity hiring the freelancer.

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

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Re:Upwork asking me for a $12.5k refund as the client was us... by ianbutler on Sunday January 09, 2022 @10:40AM (#29864159)
That's the calculation they'd be doing too though. Paying an army of lawyers to defend against my 12.5k claim sounds more expensive than eating it for me.
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