[HN Gopher] Upwork asking me for a $12.5k refund as the client w...
___________________________________________________________________
Upwork asking me for a $12.5k refund as the client was using
someone else's card
Author : DarrenDev
Score : 980 points
Date : 2022-01-09 13:05 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (alanany.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (alanany.com)
| DannyBee wrote:
| As a lawyer - contact a lawyer. This is enough money that i would
| not eat it. You cannot, in fact, be forced to work for free and
| forced to eat the cost of fraud. This kind of case will be taken
| on contingency
| 55555 wrote:
| This post makes no sense to me. You seem to really be a lawyer,
| and yet you think it would somehow make sense for this guy to
| fight an international case with potentially two third-parties
| over 12.5k? Most good lawyers charge $400+ per hour and want a
| $10k retainer.
|
| How is this making sense to you? Is it because in the event of
| a win the loser would likely pay all legal fees as well? Seems
| to me that hiring a lawyer in this case only makes sense for
| the lawyer.
|
| Unrelated, but I think two very likely possibilities here are
| that the guys business is failing so he decided to chargeback
| 12.5k worth of work to save money or that he is part of a
| bigger company that made a similar decision. Look up Saks 5th
| avenue chargeback situation. They did ~35 million USD in
| fraudulent chargebacks to make some free money, apparently.
| gjs278 wrote:
| JackFr wrote:
| Indeed contact the police as well. The 'client' is quite simply
| a thief.
|
| Using someone else's credit card without permission to obtain
| thousands of dollars of services is criminal fraud. Ultimately
| he should be the one forced to make restitution under court
| order.
| u801e wrote:
| This may be difficult due to the fact that the defendant and
| plaintiff are in different countries. The costs for pursuing
| this action may well exceed the actual loss.
| bjornsing wrote:
| I thought they were both in Zurich... no?
| DannyBee wrote:
| That was my understanding as well. If they are in
| different countries, it would definitely be time
| consuming and costly.
| disiplus wrote:
| on his website it said zurich, seeing rates of 40usd for
| a freelancer based in zurich does not make any sense.
| zurich is to expensive for him to charge so little.
| u801e wrote:
| I think the author was in Zurich temporarily, but resides
| in another country based on what he wrote here:
|
| >> Why would a bank take my side (a freelancer from
| another country) instead of his own actual client who
| never actually requested those services?
|
| It's definitely possible that the author resides in the
| same country, but he doesn't go into detail in the
| article.
| nikanj wrote:
| You can easily be forced to work for free:
|
| 1) Draft unfair contract / agreement. Remember to include
| arbitration clauses.
|
| 2) If you want to work on our platform, you gotta sign the
| contract
|
| 3) Sucks to be you
|
| I'm not pretending a small-time freelancer from the other side
| of the planet has any hope of prevailing against Upwork in
| court.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| > You can easily be forced to work for free:
|
| You can easilly be tricked into thinking you have to work for
| free. But you'll find many courts have laws againist it. Some
| countries literally have a mechanism for voiding "unfair
| contracts" and many clauses in unfair contracts aren't
| actually valid. Just because it's in a contract doesn't mean
| it's valid. For example, my rental contract says I am not
| allowed to have pets. The German courts have said that clause
| is not valid. People keep it in their contracts to stop
| people who don't know their rights getting pets. While people
| such as myself get pets, there are 4-6 dogs in my building.
|
| The US for example has also voided debt that was linked to
| people's future earnings because it would result in them
| working for free and that would be slavery.
| DannyBee wrote:
| This is not a common reality, this is an internet meme view
| of the world. Even in arbitration, arbitrators are not
| mustache twirling corporate villians.
|
| In almost all cases you would succeed in getting a judgement
| for the value of the work you did. You may not be able to
| successfully enforce it against folks.
| lostdog wrote:
| > Even in arbitration, arbitrators are not mustache
| twirling corporate villians.
|
| Arbitration is secret, and arbitrators are chosen by the
| corporation, so I'm very curious how you could prove this
| not to be true.
| nikanj wrote:
| I assure you, the man we've hand-picked (and paid) is
| wholly impartial. Obviously his employment will end rather
| shortly if he keeps finding against us, but that doesn't
| mean he's biased. No sir, his incentives are perfectly
| aligned for finding the truth
| dqpb wrote:
| Post this to Twitter and @mention Hayden Brown. Let it be her
| problem too.
| z3t4 wrote:
| This is great. You can now charge the client again as he has got
| his money back he still owns you $12.5k Then you can walk away
| from Upwork with 12.5+12.5=$25k ... or take the Upwork deal.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Did Upwork send a message confirming that "Robin" used another
| person card, or that is just what "Robin" said?
| xivzgrev wrote:
| Yea I don't see how this is the freelancers fault. If anything
| Upwork should be going after Robin to collect - charging
| alternative credit cards, suing him, etc. Robin authorized the
| work and should be the responsible payer
|
| My guess is that Robin was uncollectable for whatever reason, and
| Upwork is now going after the freelancer. They don't want to left
| holding the bag on the fraud, even though it's their
| responsibility to prevent fraud
| tlogan wrote:
| I believe the problem here is that upwork thinks Robin and him
| are the same person. They probably have proof that both Robin and
| you login from same IP (since you met each other).
|
| If robin is not cooperating (not wanting to pay for your work -
| which then you give money for charge back), then you can go after
| Robin. You got scammed.
| freemint wrote:
| If UpWork thinks they are the same they should sue Robin in
| court not take money away without a court order. (At least in
| Germany) if you rent some parking space but don't pay the
| parking space owner is not allowed to tow your car to force
| payment.
| tlogan wrote:
| I think that upwork will first try hard to recover money from
| the client (and they will get the client into collection if
| the chargeback is fraudulent). Then, upwork will dispute
| chargebacks if chargebacks do not seem to be valid (so-called
| friendly fraud).
|
| But if the chargeback is valid and the client is really using
| a stolen CC, they will check if there is some suspicious
| activity in the relationship between the client and the
| contractor. If there is no clear proof (no screenshot
| logging) and similar login locations + VPN, then they will
| assume this is orchestrated CC fraud.
|
| So Robin committed fraud and scammed the contractor. Sadly,
| Upwork will not protect a contractor if the contract and the
| scammer had a "trusting" relationship (no screenshots, etc.).
| freemint wrote:
| So what if it is inconvenient, unless UpWork proves in a
| court of law that robin is the contractor it shouldn't be
| able to garnish the contractors income for scam Robin done
| against UpWork.
| FL410 wrote:
| But surely the owner is allowed to tow the car to regain use
| of his parking spot?
| [deleted]
| kergonath wrote:
| Not sure about Germany, but in a couple of other European
| countries I am familiar with, they aren't. They are only
| allowed to ask the police to tow the car.
| freemint wrote:
| You wouldn't even be allowed to clamp the car or interfere
| with their property on your property. The police won't help
| you either. It is the task of the civil court system to
| liquidate damages until then they will have to be
| tolerated. See somewhere in this podcast by a public radio
| by a lawyer.
| https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/podcast/rechthaber/audio-
| stro...
|
| You would be able to tow after contract is terminated
| usually after two months without payment but until then you
| are not allowed to touch their car.
| 300bps wrote:
| My initial reaction was incredulity against Upwork because this
| story as described doesn't seem to make sense.
|
| You reminded me though that freelancer sites are one of the
| easiest ways to turn stolen credit cards into cash.
|
| It does sound like OP flagged for this at Upwork.
| piaste wrote:
| However, OP claimed to have sent Upwork proof of two years of
| actual projects completed.
|
| While Upwork doubtlessly asked for them to verify that OP had
| not been scamming the client, it also shows that two years of
| real work had been done. A credit card launderer would not
| have had such material at hand.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| tlogan wrote:
| So he got scammed by Robin. And Robin was smart to meet the
| guy so Upwork has reason to believe that contractor is also
| a scammer (the account is not closed because they want to
| recover the money first).
|
| Without cooperation from Robin this is a hard case for the
| contractor. If he had logging by screenshots it might be
| easier but with manual logging of hours there is very
| little reason to believe.
|
| In short, Robin scammed the contractor using "contractor
| friendly" tactics: manual logging, let's meet, etc. Upwork
| does warn about that, but scammers will tell something like
| "I trust you", "upwork invides your privacy", etc.
| piaste wrote:
| > If he had logging by screenshots it might be easier but
| with manual logging of hours there is very little reason
| to believe.
|
| OP wrote "I sent Upwork two years' worth of projects". I
| assume that meant he showed them the actual work, rather
| than simple activity logs.
|
| With any luck, the content of the projects should be
| sufficiently specific to "Robin"'s business that it could
| show it was not unrelated work being passed off as Upwork
| activity. And if I were in OP's place, I would have sent
| any chat logs I had had with Robin.
|
| At some point the effort required to fake all that
| evidence should be high enough to make it exceedingly
| unlikely for OP to be a simple credit card fraudster.
|
| I should note that none of the above is my key reason for
| siding with OP. The key reason for siding with OP is that
| Upwork, if I understand the system correctly, process the
| payments themselves and does not give its freelancers any
| way to actually prevent credit card fraud, so it cannot
| demand that they take on that responsibility.
|
| If I buy products on Amazon Marketplace with a stolen CC,
| does Amazon demand money from the sellers? I sure hope
| not.
| tlogan wrote:
| > If I buy products on Amazon Marketplace with a stolen
| CC,
|
| > does Amazon demand money from the sellers? I sure hope
| not.
|
| Of course - if the seller says "I do not have FedEx
| tracking number, but here is the picture of me walking to
| the post office". Or the seller says: "I trusted this
| buyer and I just drop it at his house".
|
| The key here is that there is no verifiable way for
| Upwork to know that this hours really happen.
| 300bps wrote:
| I understand what you're saying.
|
| What I don't understand though is OP said that two years of
| charges were charged back. My understanding is that is not
| possible.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Isn't this the eBay problem in a nutshell? In that, it's the
| coordinating party's job to combat this as best they can,
| because they're in the most information privileged seat?
|
| If Upwork thinks Robin and the freelancer are the same person,
| they're the ones best able to sort that out, no?
|
| Presumably the freelancer doesn't have access to the full
| activity history and profile details of Robin, but Upwork does.
|
| And if they do believe that, this seems a bizarre outcome. Why
| would you allow someone you believe to be a scammer to remain
| on your platform?
| [deleted]
| yua_mikami wrote:
| Can't you just do nothing then manually submit the 230 hours? How
| will they actually verify it?
| imdsm wrote:
| I'd be looking to get "Robin" to put in writing that he used the
| wrong card. Surely it is Robin who owes Upwork, not OP who owes
| Upwork. I'd also want Upwork to answer a few questions:
|
| 1. Did the cardholder receive their money back?
|
| 2. If so, how much exactly?
|
| 3. How much of that amount did you receive, after fees?
|
| 4. Is "Robin" still active on the Upwork platform?
|
| 5. Do Upwork have the contact details of "Robin"?
|
| 6. What actions have they taken to recover these costs from
| "Robin"?
|
| 7. Who was the person whose card "Robin" had access to?
|
| 8. Why did it take them so long to spot the charges?
|
| There are so many questions here. They can't just close the case.
| It's not a support ticket. This is a legal matter. If OP stops
| working right now, then he does pay the costs, but he does then
| have to find another income.
|
| For anyone wants to try and help OP, consider liking/retweeting
| this: https://twitter.com/imdsm/status/1480176898600845312
| pirate787 wrote:
| Agree -- particularly #8. Credit cards generally have a 120 day
| time limit for disputing charges for fraud.
| wpietri wrote:
| Do they? Mine is 6 months. And probably not coincidentally,
| it's 6 months worth of payments that he has had pulled back.
| TheSocialAndrew wrote:
| It is the same with Airbnb. The platform does not allow you to
| perform your own guest verification, there isn't any fraud
| detection score that you can see (like Stripe Atlas would have),
| and worst of all the full name on the account can be changed at
| any time without additional verification. So as a guest you could
| create an account on someone else's name and book using their
| card, then change the name to match your ID before checking in
| (in case the host does ask for an ID) and you're all set.
|
| When this happens and typically some time after the guest
| completed their stay, you receive an email from Airbnb saying
| "Problem collecting payment for reservation [XXX]" that explains
| how Airbnb will do their best to collect payment but they are not
| obligated to.
|
| Basically these are platforms that will give you no choice in
| payment processing, but will also take no responsibility when it
| comes to fraud, nor give you any tools to fight fraud.
| [deleted]
| capybara_2020 wrote:
| Isn't the whole point of Upwork to safe guard both sides and why
| people pay them?
|
| What is the benefit here. This is as good as directly working
| with a client. Atleast then you keep all the money without having
| to pay Upwork a cut.
|
| Why continue working on Upwork? They are clearly not providing
| any value if they did not even do a basic verification to see if
| the card belonged to the client.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Smells fishy.
|
| > I could've easily gotten paid from Robin outside of Upwork.
|
| So why doesnt he get the money from Robin _who hasn 't paid yet_
| and pay Upwork back?
|
| Barring that, just leave Upwork and don't return the money they
| asked for. Anyone can ask you for money, and you can say no.
| jappwilson wrote:
| throwaway14356 wrote:
| lets pretend this was cli foss with a protocol using bank
| transfers or even crypto.
| ishanjain28 wrote:
| Exact same thing happened with me couple of years back on
| Freelancer. They take a 10-20% cut and don't do anything to
| protect you against frauds. If the client used someone else's
| card to pay your fees, It's you who has to return it back to
| freelancer when the payment is reverted by the CC company.
| NickHirras wrote:
| Section 6.5 discusses non-payment by client, and charge backs.
|
| https://www.upwork.com/legal#clientpayments
|
| I think just to preserve brands goodwill, Upwork should absorb
| the cost (which they have to this point), pursue legal action
| against the client, and not punish the freelancer.
|
| I don't know the legality of withholding payments for future work
| due to the freelancer. I don't believe they have a right under
| the terms to do that, but I would not do any future work for
| free. That could be a breach of contract on Upwork's part,
| although haven't read through these terms enough to know that.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >We continued working via Upwork while locating in Zurich, as to
| not violate any Upwork terms.
|
| This is my major problem with all these "platforms" Follow our
| rules under the guise of protection yet when the poop hits the
| fan they will still try to shaft the expense onto you rather than
| fix their mistake while they rake in money. I bet upwork are not
| giving back their commisson/fee.
|
| Also this is totally on them. They took on the burden of handleng
| the transactions they should have caught this a long time ago.
| Idk poland laws but i doubt they have any legal recourse against
| op. Though of course they will ban him for anothet client
| commiting fraud while he jumped through their hoops....
| sovietmudkipz wrote:
| I'm surprised upwork is willing to take the reputation hit of a
| scandalous story for a measly $12,500. I'm surprised OP is
| working for free. Strange...
|
| Ideally, upwork works with the client to get the money owed. If
| it is a mistake and the client is willing to make all parties
| whole, great. If not and the client is unwilling to come up with
| a solution then I consider the client a scammer.
|
| Strange story.
| TheChaplain wrote:
| Search HN for "upwork" and it shows soo many reasons to avoid
| them.
| jwithington wrote:
| what's the point of upwork being a middle man in the transaction
| if they don't assume any risk?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Not sure about Upwork, but not having to setup sole
| proprietorship or LLC. Possibly simpler taxation and so on.
| anizan wrote:
| this is the entire point of business model innovation that you
| then sell to your investors so that they can have a good nights
| sleep knowing they will be richer in the morning.
| Jansen312 wrote:
| Lawyer up.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Deadbeat clients are everywhere - it's the Contractors' Lament.
| Did Upwork promise to shield Contractors from that? No? Nothing
| new here. Move on.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| This blogpost does not make sense.
|
| > Is Robin really asking for a chargeback? That's impossible. I
| start investigating by calling Robin. He apologized and said he
| never called any bank, additionally, he said this is a bit of a
| mess-up as he forgot that there is "a credit card connected in
| his account that wasn't actually his".
|
| And that's the last we hear about Robin in this story. Why is
| that? Did Robin vanish, or otherwise fail to rectify the "mess-
| up"? And why doesn't the OP seem upset at the fact that Robin was
| very clearly a con artist?
| alibarber wrote:
| "A bit of a mess up where he forgot it was someone else's
| card", yeah, and I bet not actually paying any bills for 12K of
| labour helped make it very easy to forget too...
| replwoacause wrote:
| Exactly. This whole story seems odd to me. Not necessarily
| saying the OP is in on the fraud, but I'm in agreement that
| this "Robin" seems to have gotten off pretty easily here. Too
| easily.
| gajus wrote:
| Any freelancers reading this should research Contra. Zero
| commission, platform absorbs fees, dispute process friendly to
| freelancers, open communication with clients, built in social
| network.
|
| Days of closed-door marketplaces are over.
| kuzee wrote:
| Taking the author's post at face value, I think the solution
| should be:
|
| Upwork action item: Robin needs to add a new payment instrument
| to cover the $12000 debt. Freeze Robin's account until then. Any
| fraud being perpetrated requires Robins involvement, so lean in
| there.
|
| Upwork action item: tell author that if author hires a lawyer
| they'll share information necessary for author to pursue a case
| against Robin.
|
| Author action item: have a lawyer take a look at case vs Upwork
| and Robin as joint defendants. Make the defendants sort it out.
|
| Kind of am aside, but if Upwork takes zero responsibility and
| provides no value for the manual payments, seems like all
| manually tracked work ought to be billed directly between
| freelancer and buyer. They won't even pursue Robin, the holder of
| the wrong credit card it seems even when Upwork knows who Robin
| is.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Upwork is charging to connect clients to freelancers. They're
| taking a very significant commission to process payments +
| provide a platform. 10x more than a typical payment processor.
| And they don't have insurance to cover fraud? No way to uncover
| fraud in a timely manner? Payment processors do better... Stripe
| for example charges 0.4% for chargeback protection. WTF is Upwork
| doing here?
| pipitura wrote:
| Isn't it purpose for Upwork to verify all added cards and
| accounts? If they are money processor and they have problem with
| this, they should be more strict and just ask for a passport or
| ID. Or biometric verification, whatever.
|
| But that would mean more costs and loosing some people, right
| Upwork?
| irjustin wrote:
| I hope this gets the visibility it needs and some lawyers get
| involved.
|
| As many others have mentioned, if this is a fair world (i really
| want it to be), this is Upwork's problem and them eating the
| cost.
|
| Funds not being "good" is not the freelancer's problem. It's
| literally why you use/pay a platform like Upwork. So you don't
| have to deal with wether the bank transfer happened.
|
| i.e. How does the freelancer have any knowledge, power or ability
| to know whether the credit card being used is legit?
| irjustin wrote:
| I've since learned from other threads that this exists because
| otherwise creditcard fraud would be very easy to perform.
| piaste wrote:
| How does passing the cost to the freelancer (who has ZERO
| ability to verify credit card ownership) make CC fraud any
| harder?
|
| If anything it's the opposite. If I were a fraudster, this
| blog post would encourage me to use stolen CCs on Upwork,
| knowing that the platform will simply steal from the
| freelancer instead of coming after me.
| ffhhj wrote:
| Upwork must have been insured on credit card fraud, if so they
| are deceiving the freelancer to get x2 compensation.
| czbond wrote:
| Their problem, not yours. Their argument won't hold up in court.
| mianos wrote:
| As much as this may not be a good example as there are so many
| red flags. A lot of these disruption startups are taking a
| standard business and pretending they don't have to have the same
| risks and control processes in place that traditional business
| have had to pay for, as a participant.
|
| It reminds me of Paypal. When they first started, it was simple,
| not too expensive, but often ignored the consumer protection laws
| in the countries, and states, they operated in. Over time they
| have been forced to provide the same rights and implement the
| same regulation local market participants have to. In doing so
| they have had to raise price to the point where they are just
| another, now more expensive, player, with a good marketing name.
|
| The bad part is, if you got on the wrong side of them in the
| early days, you lost your money and rights. These subcontracting
| companies are the same. By avoiding rights and regulation they
| can provide cheaper service. They can't do this forever.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Not your mom, not your milk. Not your platform, not your problem.
| pingsl wrote:
| Why didn't Upwork ask Robin to pay this refund in the first
| place?
|
| I think Upwork treats freelancers as their employees. So Upwork
| believes it can manipulate them.
| tlogan wrote:
| I do not understand this part:
|
| > "I'm on very good terms with Robin."
|
| So why Robin does not want to pay and help with Upwork if he is
| on very good terms with him? If you are in very good terms with
| Robin, then just ask him to pay for work. If he refuses (and he
| is not scammer), you can open a case in Upwork and then you will
| go in arbitration. The arbitration is quite reasonable and works
| well (I had to run one).
|
| But if Robin is a scammer - then I'm really really sorry for you.
| There is very little you can do without lawyers and law
| enforcements.
| ec109685 wrote:
| At the point before everything went south, he was on good terms
| with Robin. It talks about that ending when he was informed
| about the credit card issue.
| nickdothutton wrote:
| Part of the job of the platform provider is to make sure that
| both parties are genuine. That the buyer is who they say they are
| and is not using stolen money, and that the seller (in this case
| you) actually delivered what has been contracted. Upwork has
| failed at job 1, and one presumes continues to fail at it unless
| they have introduced all-new sign-up/diligence processes since
| then.
| stanrivers wrote:
| I would call Robin again and put this all back on them. In short,
| they stole money from someone else. They are the one that needs
| to payback Upwork or the card owner...
| account-5 wrote:
| Taking the article at face value my take is:
|
| 1. Upwork connected the client and freelancer. 2. The client used
| someone else's money/credit to pay the freelancer. 3. The fraud
| was found out and the money refunded.
|
| This, then, IMO is between the client, Upwork, and the police.
| Nothing to do with the freelancer. They are a victim in this
| fraud as well. Upwork have no right to demand money from the
| freelancer, their platform allowed the fraud, they're liable.
| NoblePublius wrote:
| You used Upwork as your credit card processor. Then the processor
| told you that your customer was basically using a stolen credit
| card. It's completely reasonable for Upwork to take these funds
| back from you. And it's completely reasonable for you to call
| "Robin" and demand he pay you back directly.
| eganist wrote:
| Quit the platform if the platform isn't eating the loss as a
| matter of failing with their own diligence work.
|
| And if they come after you, hire an attorney and manage it away
| from.... the internet...
| leveraction wrote:
| The freelancer's story seems a little suspicious to me.
|
| "Let me translate this. Robin has been using someone else's
| credit card for two years..." followed by "I'm on very good terms
| with Robin."
|
| Clearly, 'Robin' is a thief and it is entirely possible that
| Robin and the freelancer are one and the same. That the
| freelancer is not asking Robin for the money even though he knows
| him personally is telling. Does the freelancer wonder what his
| good client Robin thinks about the fact that Robin ran up a 12K
| credit card bill(payable to the freelancer, ultimately) that
| Robin never paid?(And we know the bill was never paid or there
| would be no need for the claw-back)
|
| And I did not see any mention of where Upwork contacted Robin.
| Strange considering he was the one with "a credit card connected
| in his account that wasn't actually his". Is he still on the
| platform?
|
| And then he sent two years worth of work to Upwork to
| substantiate his claim to the money. But how could Upwork know
| that the work he sent was legitimately related to the
| transaction? Could he not have created a project request for
| something he had already built?
|
| Then he apparently logs ALL of his 'time' outside of the system.
| He said that this time was for "a brainstorming session and a few
| meetings" with Robin. 230 hours worth!? I notice that dates of
| the charge-back transactions were not provided. Was this 230
| hours the entirety of the project or just a very small slice. He
| wrote that he had made more that 100K on Upwork and that he had
| other clients. That leads me to think that this 12K represented
| all or most of the billing on Robin's project. Was there any
| billing for actual implementation, or is it all brainstorming and
| meetings?
|
| This story does not add up to me.
|
| edit: I see in the graphic that apparently the work on Robin's
| project was for 1533 hours, so the 230 hours would have been just
| a portion. It makes me wonder what/how many other credit cards
| were used to pay for those other hours. Hard to believe Robin was
| above board for the first 1303 hours and then started paying with
| a stolen credit card.
| hajile wrote:
| If they did 90k of good business and are charging $50 per hour,
| the risk in scamming for such small rewards seems weird.
|
| If you've got a good client who's paid on time, never caused
| issues, and you've met in person (and seems nice), then you
| don't think too much when they explain away a small change in
| procedure.
|
| This is so common that most corporate training on fraud will
| mention this scenario one way or another. Its the natural
| confidence scheme that predators have used for millennia.
| awillen wrote:
| I agree - what I don't get is that you can generally only
| reverse charges for a limited period of time, even for fraud.
| He said he worked with Robin for two years, but probably only
| 120 days worth could have been charged back. So yeah, like you
| said, based on total earnings, the amount of work charged back
| and the time he says he worked with Robin, it seems like the
| vast majority of his work on the platform would've been with
| Robin.
|
| And yeah, where's the righteous anger at Robin? All OP says
| about him is positive things, even though the situation is
| unambiguously one in which Robin is a scumbag and a thief if we
| accept the facts.
|
| Just a lot that seems sketchy here, and especially the way his
| profile has stuff like "84.2% of the businesses I worked with,
| got an investment & provided their investors with an ROI of
| more than 6X." - that kind of very specific stat about a
| particular return for a particular percent of people just feels
| very dubious to me.
| mizzao wrote:
| I see... although I feel empathy for the author if he was
| scammed, it's important to make sure this isn't just an
| instance of laundering stolen a credit card through Upwork.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| Then why draw attention by blogging about it?
| tlogan wrote:
| Scammers are not really bright. We get even angry support
| emails from users using trying different stolen CC - go
| figure...
| n4bz0r wrote:
| To speculate on a scam scenario a bit:
|
| I think the entire plan would be built on attracting those
| who'd jump on the bandwagon without thinking critically
| about the situation much, creating as much resonance in the
| Upwork community as possible, and thus "bullying" Upwork
| into paying the money before they'd have a chance to
| properly investigate.
|
| Given the attention the post has already received, I can't
| imagine how the "scammers" would be getting away with all
| this. But criminals aren't generally known to be very
| bright so I'd incline towards a risk assessment error on
| their part as, at this point, the situation seems be
| creating resonance not only among Upwork community, but
| probably among legal entities as well (which is quite
| ironic).
| Operyl wrote:
| At the same time, the post clearly states that the
| investigation is over. Nobody is rushing Upwork here,
| they've already finished.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| It's incomprehensible to me why "Robin" isn't at the absolute
| center of the shit-storm here.
|
| What kinds of slick jedi-mind-tricks is Robin using to keep the
| OP from going after him and instead pleading with Upwork
| conflict resolution drones?
|
| Getting lawyers involved is always a nightmare scenario and a
| last resort, but in this case it certainly seems like that's a
| valid course of action.
| m12k wrote:
| Maybe lawyers are just super expensive where I live, but I
| honestly wouldn't expect to be able to find one that could
| see this kind of case through to completion for less than
| $12560.
| altacc wrote:
| Depends on jurisdiction but some countries have a court
| claims system for small debts, which costs a few percentage
| of the amount being claimed. The claim is reviewed by the
| process and a court judgement passed. Really useful when
| you need it.
| jVinc wrote:
| > What kinds of slick jedi-mind-tricks is Robin using to keep
| the OP from going after him and instead pleading with Upwork
| conflict resolution drones?
|
| The absolute center of the problem here seems to be that
| Upwork has engineered a system where Robin is not in any way
| involved with this case. This is a case of a credit card
| owner creating a chargeback request against a developer. The
| fact that the developer can prove that the payments where
| given for delivered work doesn't matter to Upwork, because
| when they took that proof to the bank of the credit card
| owner and said "See there is proof services where provided
| for the payments" the owner said "I did not request that
| work".
|
| Back in reality, this is absolutely a problem for Upwork, and
| a problem that really should be at the very core of their
| business. If people can successfully chargeback any amount of
| money at any time scale because they payed with a creditcard
| they don't own, every single start-up should start making
| borrowing circles of credit cards for their first 10 years of
| development so they can claw it all back if they go bust and
| need to pivot. The very core of upworks business is to
| establish a truth worthy process for payment for services,
| and in this case where the process fails they are simply
| going "Oh, to bad for you, now go do the dishes until you've
| payed for the bill of the dinner dashers who just sprinted
| out after legally agreeing to pay your dinner as payment for
| 2 years work".
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The question is whether Upwork actually _did_ what this
| person is accusing them of. The most likely reason that the
| author isn't mad at Robin, in my view, is that the author
| is not being entirely honest about what happened here.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| People are commenting here with 0 idea of how Upwork
| actually works.
|
| You have no client on Upwork. It doesn't matter how long
| you've spoken to them, you have no client on Upwork.
|
| Upwork is the client, and Upwork has a million and one
| contractors, so Upwork does not care if it messes with
| you.
|
| And I say "messes with you" because the ways Upwork is
| willing to short a contractor are truly an open ended
| collection of actions. Revise hours because of a vague
| complaint, erase deliverable payments, randomly withhold
| money. Upwork does not care.
|
| -
|
| You also have 0 recourse against someone who hired you
| through Upwork. None. Upwork will almost _always_ side
| against you, and Upwork will not expose someone to
| liabilty for hiring with it.
|
| You could have a signed notarized statement from the
| client saying "Haha I sure scammed you good on Upwork!"
| and Upwork would close your account for disparaging a
| client.
|
| (Ok some light hyperbole... but that's the mentality to
| take when reading OP's article)
|
| -
|
| Now you might be thinking "well that sounds so comically
| terrible there's no way these people would be in
| business, who exactly is keeping them alive?"... the
| clients are.
|
| Treating contractors horribly is their raison detre: it
| allows people to hire from a pool of freelancers with
| absolutely 0 stress about if they'll ever be cheated.
|
| _You cannot be cheated by a freelancer on Upwork._
|
| By becoming _the_ way to casually hire freelancers (since
| you never get cheated) they stay alive, but at a great
| cost to the freelancers who market there. It 's similar
| to what eBay was (?) like when it came to seller rights.
|
| And remember Upwork is extremely accessible from
| countries where wages are very low, lower than minimum
| wage in the US for example: so you have a steady stream
| of freelancers who will replace anyone who leaves after
| being mistreated, since even the worst jobs on the site
| are comparable to solid work in their home countries.
| lobocinza wrote:
| I log my hours "outside the system" because I have a better
| system (timewarrior) and I don't want to install a spyware on
| my computer. I don't fraud my clients and never had an issue in
| getting paid.
|
| It's not outside the system but just manually reported and you
| have till Monday 12:00 GMT to log past week work. What worries
| me is the lack of due time from Upwork and the bank. Fraud
| happens and is the cost of doing business and I wouldn't care
| about losing a week of work but two years is just surreal.
| usefulcat wrote:
| Exactly. Author seems to go out of his way to point out what an
| upstanding person "Robin" is, yet never even mentions the
| possibility that Robin maybe ought to pay the freelancer what
| he's owed for services already rendered?
| yashap wrote:
| Looking at the "Who's Al" page of the blog:
|
| > Each string of the violin possesses the power of coherent
| control. Call me a business violinist. Hi, I'm Al. In the
| business world, there's talent, there's hard work, and there's
| the synchronization of these two "strings".
|
| > I'm the merger of an investment consultant, a tech
| specialist, and a fintech enthusiast.
|
| > ...
|
| > I specialize in investments related to Blockchain,
| Cryptocurrency, Fintech, Artificial Intelligence, among other
| tech ventures.
|
| Thick BS language, and operating in a space that is chock full
| of fraud and criminal activity, I think you're right to be
| suspicious. Clearly the client was a fraudster, using a stolen
| credit card, and re: the consultant being a fraudster, the
| chance of someone describing themselves as a "blockchain
| cryptocurrency investment consultant" being involved in fraud
| seems significant to me.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| It might not be a stolen card. Note that it simply says
| "someone else's card".
|
| Maybe it's a corporate card, somebody in accounting decided to
| cause trouble. That goes along with why he's not mad at Robin--
| he realizes Robin was acting in good faith and the card owner
| is causing the trouble.
| jackatttack wrote:
| I don't understand why that matters. If Robin was acting in
| good faith, he would pay the owed amount. Then the contractor
| would pay Upwork and everyone would be back where they
| started--the contractor would be made whole, Upwork would no
| longer have a 'lien' on the contractor's account, and Robin
| would be back in good standing.
| bjornsing wrote:
| > This story does not add up to me.
|
| Agree. It's weird that there's no mention of either Upwork or
| the OP trying to get "Robin" to pay what he owes... But it
| could be benign. In a complex and emotionally charged situation
| it's all too easy to focus on the wrong things.
| saalweachter wrote:
| ... is "Robin" a pseudonymous reference to "Robin Hood"?
| ipython wrote:
| I'm surprised the credit card company acted in this manner. I
| "hired" a lawyer - later I realize how scummy and potentially
| illegal their services were - for about $3,000. They proceeded to
| perform about what I would consider next to no work on my behalf.
|
| I contacted my cc company to perform a chargeback and was denied.
| Upon further reflection I should have sued the lawyer in small
| claims court but I was somewhat embarrassed by the whole affair
| and just let it drop.
|
| Unfortunately in this case I feel like upwork is worse than not
| as you're not directly negotiating and proving your case to the
| cc company. I would imagine upwork put about zero effort into
| defending this guy, because hey, he'll just work for free for the
| next two months! No risk here!
| wayanon wrote:
| Isn't it Robin's debt to repay to the genuine cardholder?
| bradleyjg wrote:
| The blog post went pretty easy Robin. It sounds like he is a
| criminal that stole money and the question now is who is going to
| end up being the victim. Maybe that should be upwork or the
| credit card bank, but they aren't the main bad actor here.
|
| Why hasn't Al filed a criminal complaint?
| miga wrote:
| It seems like UpWork failed to do due dilligence, and now wants
| to get somebody to pay for it. They frequently delay payments
| just because they await your validation after all. So the fault
| is on their side, but they may try to twist your hand, since they
| are big company and you are dependent on them.
| baskethead wrote:
| I used to work in fintech.
|
| Getting a chargeback from 2 years ago is unheard of. Even 6
| months is stretching it from the most generous credit card
| provider, AMEX.
|
| I would just ignore it and close my upwork account and change
| bank accounts. It sounds like bullshit to me.
| timmit wrote:
| I can't believe it, it doesn't make any sense to me, can u have a
| dispute with all these emails?
| moonbug wrote:
| and this is why insurance exists.
| __debugger__ wrote:
| What baffles me is that in the US banking system one can claim
| refund for a payment made two years ago without a proper legal
| process! This should significantly reduce trust in the system.
|
| As a business, the money in my bank account can be taken back at
| any point and the onus of fighting back for it is on me. How is
| that reasonable?
| someonehere wrote:
| Is it me or is it obvious Robin might be a fraud? Like "Catch me
| If You Can" kind of fraud.
|
| Seeing that they worked on investment presentations tells me
| Robin might be a fraud out the gate.
|
| Grifters grift you by being your buddy and not some sketchy
| person selling you a used Rolex hanging on the inside of a trench
| coat.
| nulbyte wrote:
| As someone who works for a bank, I can shed some light on this.
|
| > ... he said this is a bit of a mess-up as he forgot that there
| is "a credit card connected in his account that wasn't actually
| his".
|
| The typical chargeback is for a billing dispute, but this does
| not describe a billing dispute. If the client was authorized by
| the cardholder to use the card (ever, not just for these
| charges), the bank considers the charges authorized. The bank
| isn't going to get involved in a conflict with the cardholder and
| an authorized third-party. However, if authorization was never
| provided and the charges are reported timely, the bank will take
| liability and pursue their collection. In case of fraud, the bank
| might charge back to the merchant, but only if the merchant
| failed follow their contractual obligations in accepting the
| payment. In any case, I presume you have no way to knowing that
| the card was not your client's card, since you did not actually
| process the payment. This should be enough to get you off the
| hook, but only if you were truthful about your interactions with
| your client.
|
| > Why would a bank take my side (a freelancer from another
| country) instead of his own actual client who never actually
| requested those services?
|
| Because their business model depends on it: They make money when
| their clients get charged. If the cardholder ever get the client
| permission to use the card, the charges are valid, and the bank
| makes money.
|
| > Let me get this straight -- Upwork, a billion-dollar company,
| wants me, a freelancer, to work for free on their platform for
| approximately 230 hours (with my hourly rate) because a client on
| their platform was using someone else's credit card?
|
| This sounds generous. Often, payment processors want immediate
| repayment of chargebacks, especially ones as larges as these.
|
| > How in god's name is that my fault?
|
| That depends. If you tried to protect your client by hiding from
| Upwork the fact that your client acknowledged using someone
| else's card, then that's how. If you were honest with Upwork,
| then I don't see they can recoup these charges from you, unless
| the contract you have with them says so.
| jessaustin wrote:
| The "light" you've "shed" might be relevant in some idealized
| scenario. How does anyone (issuing bank, acquiring bank,
| Upwork, or contractor) figure out whether "the client was
| authorized by the cardholder to use the card"? Do they just ask
| the client? Do they just ask the cardholder? Of course neither
| of those parties may be trusted at this point. A court could
| render an opinion, if the case ever got to that point. However,
| it won't get to that point, because of the actions of the
| acquiring bank. They have just decided it's the contractor's
| fault with minimal investigation, and have charged Upwork the
| maximum. Please note: this what banks usually do, regardless of
| the lies you might tell your customers.
| nulbyte wrote:
| > How does anyone (issuing bank, acquiring bank, Upwork, or
| contractor) figure out whether "the client was authorized by
| the cardholder to use the card"?
|
| This is a reasonable question, but the answer is quite
| simple: The bank asks. You'd be surprised how readily
| cardholders admit to giving their card to someone.
|
| If the cardholder claims charges are unauthorized, that claim
| is investigated as fraud, not as a billing dispute. In either
| case, for the amount of these charges, the bank would do more
| than a minimal investigation. Lying to pursue a chargeback
| for your own charges is just as fraudulent as someone else
| making unauthorized charges.
| tzs wrote:
| My experience on the merchant side of things is that if the
| cardholder claims a charge was unauthorized the bank believes
| the cardholder unless the merchant can prove that the charge
| was authorized.
|
| For proof they want us to to FAX them a copy of the receipt
| signed by the cardholder or a signed copy of our contract with
| the cardholder.
|
| We of course do not have those since we are an online merchant
| selling digital consumer goods.
|
| Even if the cardholder has been a subscriber to one of our
| services for many years, being charged every month without
| complaint, and whenever they have received a new card promptly
| coming to our site to update their account with the new card
| number and/or expiration date--something that a fraudster with
| a stolen card would not be able to do--the bank still accepts
| the cardholders claim that they do not recognize and did not
| authorize the charge they are trying to chargeback and won't
| budge unless we can FAX the signed receipt.
| nulbyte wrote:
| > ...the bank still accepts the cardholders claim that they
| do not recognize and did not authorize the charge they are
| trying to chargeback and won't budge unless we can FAX the
| signed receipt.
|
| This is not true. Of course you won't have a signature for an
| online purchase, but this isn't novel; online purchasing has
| been around for a while. Merchants can and do fight
| chargebacks successfully, or else most merchants wouldn't be
| in a position to accept online payments at all for fear of
| chargebacks. (Not to mention, we'd never hear a consumer
| complain about unresolved disputes if the bank just charged
| them all back routinely!) Banks don't only accept faxed
| copies of signed receipts, because they usually don't exist
| online. Banks want evidence. If a merchant isn't keeping good
| records, that's on the merchant.
|
| In this case, it sounds like the contractor should have
| sufficient evidence, or else how did they come up with
| figures to enter manually for hours worked? Evidence that
| work was performed, combined with Upwork's billing policies
| and the disclosure about the card usage by the contractor's
| client should have been sufficient to address these
| chargebacks. Either not all the evidence was submitted
| (whether by the contractor or Upwork), or story is
| incomplete.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| It's much simpler than most of this thread makes it out to be,
| and I think this is what Judge Judy would ask:
|
| 1) Does the freelancer have the ability to verify the client's
| credit card? For example, can it tell Upwork "assume all
| responsibility for fraud from this point forward" if that is not
| the normal default?
|
| 2) If no, but Upwork does have that ability, then Upwork is
| responsible for fraud.
|
| 3) If Upwork still insists on its current arrangement, does it
| disclose this scenario's possibility to the freelancer? I don't
| mean "implied by the fine print, but _upfront_ , in a way that
| can't be missed"?
|
| 4) If no, then again, Upwork is responsible for the fraud.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| >It was perfect. I even met Robin in real life in Zurich, instead
| of virtually. We continued working via Upwork while locating in
| Zurich, as to not violate any Upwork terms.
|
| At this level of trust, you should establish a direct
| relationship with the client.
|
| However, even if Robin started PayPaling him directly, Robin
| could still file a charge back. Robin knows exactly what he did,
| he just doesn't care.
|
| But at least then you don't have 20% being skimmed off top.
|
| I found all my contractors ( aside from Fiver, but these are 100,
| 200$ gigs) via doing my own research. I've wasted at least a
| thousand on work that wasn't really good. But the stuff that is
| usable, is fantastic.
|
| Anyway, OP is still on Upwork, so why's he complaining. If I
| worked somewhere and then randomly asked me to give 4 months pay
| back, I'm out.
| nhoughto wrote:
| Since when can you chargeback after 2 years? I thought it was
| limited to a couple of months?
| thow16161 wrote:
| My girlfriend is a "camgirl", and this behavior reminds me of the
| behavior of the lower tier, more shady cam / phone-sex sites.
|
| The bigger sites that take a large percentage of the customer's
| money (40-50% goes to the site, not the model) also protect the
| models from chargebacks. Sites that take a lower percentage do
| not. One site she worked for ("cam model directory") has a
| spreadsheet of customers who are known to issue chargebacks that
| the models have to monitor before taking payment.
| asah wrote:
| The counter-attack is people using Upwork as an advertising
| platform, i.e. take a small initial job paid through them, then
| for future work have the client pay directly. By the dollar, it's
| lower fees and lower expectations of Upwork.
|
| Counter-example: for US employers, Upwork is a godsend when
| paying overseas staff, because they handle the legal, tax and
| reporting complexities.
| xibalba wrote:
| This is crazy. As far as I can tell, responsibility for
| payment/refund should fall to: 1) The entity ordering and
| accepting the work 2) The entity coordinating payment
|
| In the case of 1), the work was performed and the output approved
| and received. So it seems pretty obvious that the money is owed
| by them to the freelancer.
|
| In the case of 2), this entity bears responsibility for ensuring
| that payment is done properly. Things like, is the person paying
| the same as the card owner. (Btw, it sure seems like "paying with
| a card for an account that is not yours" is tantamount to fraud.)
|
| In other words, either the client or Upwork should be on the
| hook, but _DEFINITELY_ not the freelancer.
| visarga wrote:
| They think Robin and the freelancer work together secretly or
| are the same person and this is just a credit card fraud.
| otterley wrote:
| The contract with Upwork states quite clearly that this could
| happen:
|
| "In addition, notwithstanding any other provision of the Terms of
| Service or the Escrow Instructions and to the extent permitted by
| applicable law, we reserve the right to seek reimbursement from
| you, and you will reimburse us, if we: (i) suspect fraud or
| criminal activity associated with your payment, withdrawal, or
| Project; (ii) discover erroneous or duplicate transactions; or
| (iii) have supplied our services in accordance with this
| Agreement yet we receive any chargeback from the Payment Method
| used by you, or used by your Client if you are a Freelancer,
| despite our provision of the Site Services in accordance with
| this Agreement. You agree that we have the right to obtain such
| reimbursement by instructing Upwork Escrow to (and Upwork Escrow
| will have the right to) charge the applicable Escrow Account, and
| any other accounts you hold with us, offsetting any amounts
| determined to be owing, deducting amounts from future payments or
| withdrawals, charging your Payment Method, or obtaining
| reimbursement from you by any other lawful means. If we are
| unable to obtain such reimbursement, we may, in addition to any
| other remedies available under applicable law, temporarily or
| permanently revoke your access to the Site and Site Services and
| close your Account."
|
| Upwork is clearly by its own terms not an insurer against payment
| fraud or unauthorized credit card use. And the writer would have
| the same problem if he accepted CC payments directly: His own
| financial institution would debit his account for the chargeback
| and I'm not sure he would have any recourse against his bank.
|
| The anger expressed in the comments here is understandable, and
| demonstrates empathy for the poor fellow. But to increase overall
| trust in the system, generally payment mechanisms are biased
| toward cardholder protection instead of seller protection. As
| consumers I think we prefer things that way -- especially if you
| ever find yourself an unwitting victim of a identify theft or a
| stolen payment card.
| IAmPym wrote:
| Companies need to acknowledge the flow of information is
| limited. We are in a period of humanity where people CANNOT
| know all the little details. You don't get to create a system
| and not take responsibility for the problems it causes using
| law as a safety net and expect it to scale. That is morally
| wrong
|
| Yes people have a responsibility to learn more, but the company
| has a responsibility to protect the people it interacts with
| otterley wrote:
| > You don't get to create a system and not take
| responsibility for the problems it causes using law as a
| safety net and expect it to scale.
|
| But that's exactly what we have achieved. Contracts of
| adhesion, unfair as they seem to some, significantly lower
| transactional costs by eliminating negotiation and have
| allowed us to scale commerce tremendously as a result.
|
| To balance out the bad parts of adhesive contracts, we guard
| against moral hazard by providing fraud protection against
| innocent cardholders. We also make certain particularly
| immoral or unfair terms in contracts unlawful as a matter of
| law, such as disclaiming liability for inherently dangerous
| activities, or using one's child as consideration.
| knorker wrote:
| Apparently he's a blockchain consultant.
|
| A client, presumably doing blockchain shit, committed fraud and
| fucked the freelancer.
|
| I'm shocked, _shocked_ , to see fraud committed by blockchain
| entrepreneurs.
|
| Oh wait, that's the whole racket.
| [deleted]
| throwawayboise wrote:
| This is part of the risk of being a contractor/freelancer.
|
| If you want the maximum legal protections around getting paid for
| your work, you need to be an employee.
|
| Beyond that, ultimately it boils down to Robin has not paid for
| the work performed. The freelancer needs to demand payment from
| Robin directly, and if he won't pay, file a lawsuit against him
| if Upwork is not going to help. Will be difficult with Robin
| apparently being in a different country, and probably not worth
| it for only $12k, the legal fees and time spent will certainly
| exceed that amount.
|
| Charge it off as a lesson learned, and a 12k business loss on
| your taxes.
| natch wrote:
| I don't understand why this person doesn't go back to Robin, who
| apparently is great but got all kinds of work done for free, and
| ask him to either make payment or set up some placeholder tasks
| and pay for those as a way to make up for the reversed payments.
| madballster wrote:
| They are not asking him for a refund, they are informing him of a
| chargeback. That's a fundamental difference.
| tyingq wrote:
| I'm not sure there's a difference, since he's not a merchant.
| While you could implement a marketplace like UpWork in a way
| that made the credit card transaction directly associated with
| the providers, that's not the case here.
| xiaodai wrote:
| upwork should borne the losses
| knodi wrote:
| Tell them to get bent.
| hartator wrote:
| > But that's not the client asking for the money. That's the
| credit card owner, who is another person.
|
| How can you be sure of that? Robin can just be lying.
|
| In both cases, Robin opening the chargeback or Robin using
| someone else's credit card, it's Robin responsibility to pay you!
| Not sure why OP is so adamant to protect Robin.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Sounds like an upwork problem.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Allowing credit card payments through a 3rd party intermediary
| makes this situation very messy.
|
| Non-payment is actually a surprisingly common problem in the
| world of freelancing. You won't see it if you have a handful of
| established, trusted clients. However, it crops up a lot if you
| deal with individuals, entrepreneurs, or startups.
|
| As an individual, you can simply refuse credit card payments
| completely. You can also stop work completely until the client is
| caught up on payments.
|
| With Upwork, can you even choose to reject credit card payments?
| Or are you forced to take the risk of credit card chargebacks?
|
| As for recourse: The amount is high enough to get a lawyer
| involved. Go after Robin, demonstrate non-payment, get a
| judgment. I'm guessing Upwork's legalese and corporate counsel
| aren't worth going after.
| oliwarner wrote:
| Of course they can ask. They can even threaten to garnish your
| earnings through them, or stop you working in the platform but
| that only works if you agree. You don't have to work for them to
| pay off this "debt".
|
| Put your tools down. You're not indentured. Don't work for
| nothing.
|
| The dispute is between them, _their_ customer and a bank. The
| actions they 're taking are just the easiest _for them_. In their
| eyes, you have a livelihood on the line. Of course your going to
| buckle first.
|
| Short of actual legal action, you could contact all your long
| term clients and tell them to seek alternative escrow
| arrangements if they want to keep working with you. That'll
| likely get you banned from Upwork, but freedom has value.
| SPDurkee wrote:
| I'm surprised no one has suggested, split future Upwork income.
| 50% goes to the debt and 50% goes to the developer. He's not
| working for free and they get their money back. It's the only
| solution that is equitable to all parties.
|
| BTW - I have extensive experience in credit card processing. It
| is VERy DIFFICULT to reverse a chargeback. Upwork is at the mercy
| of Visa/MC/Amex, and the developer is at the mercy of Upwork.
| Upwork can choose to not use Visa/MC/Amex but they add enough
| value to accept the chargeback risk. The developer can choose to
| not use Upwork but they add enough value to accept the chargeback
| risk.
|
| He can walk away from this, use a competing platform, and not pay
| a dime. Upwork has already paid back the $12k+ and are stuck,
| which is the primary reason why they should consider the 50/50
| split of future income.
| barkingcat wrote:
| Isn't the solution for this Robin character to provide another
| card, one that this person actually owns, and provide 12,500 from
| that card directly? And if Robin doesn't want to pay, to start
| legal proceedings toward recovering the funds from Robin?
|
| How is the bank or Upwork the bad guy here when it is Robin who
| doesn't want to pay?
| cobby wrote:
| > How is the bank or Upwork the bad guy here when it is Robin
| who doesn't want to pay?
|
| Upwork takes: * 3% fee on each payment on the client side; *
| 20% fee of first $500 earnings with the client; * 10% fee of
| $500-$10k earnings with the client; * 5% fee of earnings over
| $10k with the client.
|
| So in this case Upwork took at least 8% of this $12.5k or 1000
| USD but I think they took even more. If they don't take risks
| of fraudulent payments then why do they continue to take a cut
| in each time?
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| What is the value of Upwork if they are not the middle man
| here? They were taking the payments, they should take the risk
| of fraudulent payments.
| nikanj wrote:
| It's a very common business model nowadays. Turo did the same
| w.r.t car rentals, there's endless stories about people
| getting screwed on the platform (both renters and rentees).
| In every single instance Turo's answer has been "Sounds like
| the two of you have a dispute. Sounds rough. Hope you two can
| figure it out!"
| butlerm wrote:
| Providing an illusion of service for a high price has
| always been a popular business model.
| jlturner wrote:
| Consider contacting your lawyer. You likely have grounds to sue
| "Robin" and/or UpWork for wage theft.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Different time tracking methods shouldn't carry financial risk.
| That's absurd and stupid.
| stevespang wrote:
| anovikov wrote:
| The question is: have they actually refunded Robin? He (his
| friend, in who's name the card was) received the chargeback? If
| not, then this is a scam and you need to call the police. But i
| believe he did.
|
| If so, what is the problem about asking Robin to simply pay
| again?
|
| And the situation is trivial: no platform would survive if they
| allowed freelancers keep the money earned by carding, because it
| would be flooded with carders.
|
| Full disclosure: i made over $2M on Upwork.
| freemint wrote:
| > no platform would survive if they allowed freelancers keep
| the money earned by carding, because it would be flooded with
| carders.
|
| The collary is true too though. No freelancer could survive if
| they don't receive money from carding, because they still
| worked for these hours and deserve to be paid. And since it is
| Upwork, not the freelancer, doing the payment processing. It is
| them who should be held responsible as the freelancer don't
| even get access to the card information so the could check for
| fraudulence themselves
| ajb wrote:
| I see your point, in that if they allowed freelancers to keep
| the money, carders could launder money money via upwork. But
| here's the thing: generally it's a principle of good law for a
| risk to be laid on the party that can mitigate it. How can you,
| as an upwork worker, mitigate the risk of a client using a
| stolen card? Answer: you can't because you are not the one
| processing the card. So there is a moral hazard in that choice
| too.
| notahacker wrote:
| The irony is their policy here seems carder-friendly. Instead
| of pursuing legal action against the person who owes them 12.5k
| (which the freelancer would presumably support) they express no
| interest in legal action and simply don't pay the freelancer.
| If the freelancer got scammed by the carder, the carder wins.
| If a carder sets up a freelancer account to pay himself, that
| freelancer account is going to withdraw the funds ASAP, and
| Upwork informing that account they must do the next 230 hours
| of work on the platform for free isn't going to be an issue
| because they don't have any real reputation to lose or real
| work with pending payments so they can move on to the next
| dummy account.
|
| But yes, the ultimate solution is getting "Robin" to pay.
| Upwork which owns the client relationship and has the resources
| to pursue fraudsters should be leading on that though.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| That sounds like rather a lot of money. If you don't mind my
| asking, doing what and over what kind of timeframe?
| desdiv wrote:
| He has his upwork profile linked in his HN profile. Sounds
| like he has a niche and he's very very good at it.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Actually the rates don't even seem that high (GP would make
| 80% of that right?) The total hours they've listed as
| completed would take me at least 13 years to complete,
| probably longer.
| anovikov wrote:
| My actual lifetime average commission paid to Upwork is
| under 10% actually. People who repeat the claim about 20
| (or 30! in this thread itself!) commission just don't
| read the rules.
|
| I interpret the rules as "commission is 5% plus $550 per
| client", which makes it sound a lot lower. How much does
| it cost to get 1 client "from the internet"? I know the
| answer and it's not pretty at all.
|
| And yes i'm on the platform for precisely 13 years, but
| bulk of money comes from fixed price contracts anyway,
| and effective rates there are ca. $300 an hour. Most of
| money was made in the last 2 years anyway.
| teitoklien wrote:
| The thing is, upwork in this scenario did not vet whether
| client was the actual owner of the card he was using to pay
| creators, this is a fault in upwork's fraud detection
| algorithm, their freelancers should not have to pay the penalty
| for this.
|
| Upwork takes a 30% cut (or lower, depending on your income on
| the platform), they are taking this cut, to create a safe and
| trust-able environment for its users by verifying both clients
| and freelancers. Considering this incident is a lapse on their
| end, the penalty should be paid solely by them.
|
| If doing so means they will go bankrupt, it just shows they
| failed as a company to create a safe enough platform to justify
| taking that 30% cut.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| All roads point to Robin in this case. Gather the demands from
| Upwork and present them with a letter and a bill to Robin. If
| Robin does not pay then its time to lawyer up.
| ajnin wrote:
| I'm puzzled by this. It seems obvious that Robin committed some
| kind of fraud against Upwork by using someone else's credit card.
| Upwork should be asking him to pay his debt, not OP who (says he)
| didn't breach his contract. Is it Upwork becoming big enough that
| it can start to bully people around and make extortionate demands
| knowing that it will be hard to refuse ?
| honkycat wrote:
| You are going to continue working with upwork after costing you
| 10% of your income and doing nothing to help you?? After they
| garnish your wages and make you work for free for two months?!?
| And all because you didn't use their idiotic time entry system?
|
| Why?? Hang it up, dude. Surely they have competition your could
| switch to. Or get a normal 9-5.
| comboy wrote:
| I may be too late to get an answer, but are there decent
| alternatives to upwork? I'm not looking to avoid sharing profit
| and direct cooperation. I like the idea of it. I'm just looking
| for something done better.
| mizzao wrote:
| I think that as a result of writing this and getting upvoted on
| HN, something will happen to resolve it. The pen is indeed
| mightier than the sword.
| option_greek wrote:
| Upwork is a shitty and unethical company. Their website sucks and
| app doubly so. They make a lot money but have the worst product.
|
| So next time, any one on HN thinks about writing yet another todo
| app, think about disrupting freelancing industry and upwork. It
| won't be cool and won't make HN top page most likely but it will
| most likely be a product and monitory success.
| godman_8 wrote:
| That's Upwork's fault for allowing the fraudulent transaction and
| they're trying to steal from you so they don't have to own their
| fuck up.
| SkipperCat wrote:
| Upwork wants to play the game "heads I win, tails you lose".
| The credit card company is doing the same.
|
| Kind of sad that they'd be doing this. I do wonder what
| Upwork's contract with the credit card companies states. How
| long far in the past can a bank claw back payments? Shouldn't
| the bank have liability here?
|
| The whole thing is so interesting because each player has a
| fiduciary duty to validate payments and they all failed. The
| only person who was legit was the freelancer.
| nikanj wrote:
| Which unfortunately means the person getting the shaft is the
| freelancer.
| tyingq wrote:
| As a former merchant, I wouldn't argue that the freelancer owns
| this. But, I also don't think Upwork really "allowed the
| fraudulent transaction". The banks and credit/debit card
| companies allowed it. And they have a lot more contextual
| background information on the buyer, seller, and transaction
| than the merchant does.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Yes, but isn't this _exactly_ what Upwork gets paid to take
| care of?
|
| The only way that Upwork's actions are justified is if the
| author was complicit in this scam. In which case, he wouldn't
| have really been working, and he would have split the money
| back with Robin, the guy who "hired" him on Upwork.
|
| But in that case, Upwork would obviously kick the author off
| of Upwork, not ask them to continue working.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The hierarchy of information and scale here, from most to
| least, seems to obviously be: banks, Upwork, freelancer.
|
| Or, to put it another way, requiring the freelancer to pay
| this begs the question: "What _could_ the freelancer have
| done to avoid this? "
|
| To which the only answer is: everything Upwork is
| abstracting away and doesn't want their freelancers doing.
| Do a background check on the client. Obtain the client's
| actual payment methods and verify them with the bank. Etc.
|
| All of which are literally Upwork's functions in this
| arrangement, because like PayPal, they exist to centralize
| and decrease friction between two semi-trusting parties.
|
| And when that goes bad, it's bullshit for them to transfer
| the consequences of that onto someone _who lacked the
| access to detect or fix it in the first place_ , by
| Upwork's design!
|
| It'd be like Uber requiring a passenger to pay an insurance
| claim, because their driver was involved in an accident and
| didn't have auto insurance.
| tlogan wrote:
| > What could the freelancer have done to avoid this?
|
| If contractors' time is tracked using Upwork tool then
| this problem will not exist.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Per the article, that would have required him opening a
| laptop during their meeting and twiddling the mouse
| around to prevent idle.
|
| Legally, that may impact.
|
| But practically and provably? I can't imagine he wouldn't
| be in the same situation, albeit with Upwork claiming
| they'd detected patterns of abuse during his claimed
| time, and still putting this on him. Or maybe not.
| Futures not taken, etc.
| [deleted]
| freemint wrote:
| Crypto transactions are not irreversible either. The law
| of the land can still force you to send money back.
| tyingq wrote:
| >Yes, but isn't this exactly what Upwork gets paid to take
| care of?
|
| I imagine the big value proposition for sellers is the
| marketplace/customers. But yes, they are being paid
| somewhat for vetting buyers. I'm not saying the freelancer
| should eat the costs.
|
| I am saying, though, that banks dropping 100%+chargeback
| fees on the merchant is pure bullshit. Basically, because
| of the fees, they MAKE money on chargebacks. And as
| mentioned, they know things like past transaction types,
| previous chargebacks, amounts, other current activity, and
| so on that the merchant doesn't. I think they should have
| to eat at least some of the costs when this happens.
| Especially when it's multiple transactions over time, like
| in this case.
|
| I'm pretty sure the technology behind detecting fraudulent
| transactions would be very different if the credit card
| companies and banks had to eat some of it. Current state,
| they don't even ask for an IP address for authorization of
| a payment. How does that make sense?
| murderfs wrote:
| I think you're misunderstanding the structure of the
| credit card system a bit.
|
| > And as mentioned, they know things like past
| transaction types, previous chargebacks, amounts, other
| current activity, and so on that the merchant doesn't.
|
| There's two banks in the flow: the issuing bank that
| issued the card to the customer, and the acquiring bank,
| which provides the merchant account. These are often
| (especially for online businesses) different banks.
|
| > I am saying, though, that banks dropping
| 100%+chargeback fees on the merchant is pure bullshit.
| Basically, because of the fees, they MAKE money on
| chargebacks.
|
| The issuing bank doesn't charge any fees, they just take
| their money back. The acquiring bank absolutely does not
| want to be making money on chargeback fees: they get
| fined by the card network if their chargeback rates are
| too high, and will fire you as a customer if you maintain
| elevated chargeback rates (and they're certainly not
| going to do a 100% fee on $12.5k. It's usually a fixed
| amount that's putatively paying for them to deal with the
| issuing bank.).
|
| > I'm pretty sure the technology behind detecting
| fraudulent transactions would be very different if the
| credit card companies and banks had to eat some of it.
| Current state, they don't even ask for an IP address for
| authorization of a payment.
|
| A lot of the time, they _do_ eat the fraud. Oftentimes,
| the issuing bank won 't actually file an actual
| chargeback when their customer reports fraud, because
| they need to actually arbitrate the case, and if the cost
| of doing so is sufficiently large relative to the actual
| value, they'll just absorb the cost internally.
|
| I do agree with you that the state of online payment
| security is rather bizarre. The card networks have
| basically required chip cards for physical transactions
| by charging extra fees and pushing fraud risk onto the
| merchant if you swipe the magstripe, but they've done
| basically nothing about card not present online
| transactions.
| tyingq wrote:
| I'm lumping both banks and the likes of Visa and
| Mastercard together, yes. Because that is collectively
| who is making the problem solely the merchant's problem,
| I assume deliberately. They all have cross-agreements, so
| they could make this better.
|
| >if their chargeback rates are too high
|
| I've paid a $25 chargeback fee for a $15 transaction.
| It's still bizarre to me that I pay them though. I'm
| already on the hook for the whole transaction amount,
| even after doing AVS, my own pre-shipment fraud checks ,
| etc. And, if I shipped the item, I'm out that cost as
| well. It's just so asymmetrical.
|
| >they've done basically nothing about card not present
| online transactions
|
| That's my main point. And given that the merchants
| (often? usually?) eat the cost, they have no incentive to
| change that.
|
| Edit: A couple of related anecdotes.
|
| I had one customer who just happened to be in the same
| city file a chargeback for "item not received". The item
| in question was a custom item, described in the charge,
| and sitting in their shop window. I challenged the
| chargeback with a picture of said item, with the
| address/name of the business in the foreground. Still
| lost.
|
| Another item the customer claimed it was broken in
| shipping and filed a chargeback for "item not as
| described". It was a fragile item that comes with chains
| to hang it, but the chains come in a little box...you
| attach them yourself. The customer's picture of the
| shipping damage showed the item shattered/broken, but
| with the chains attached. Who attaches chains to a
| shattered item? Lost that chargeback too.
| ec109685 wrote:
| Is there another merchant bank you can switch to that
| might be more friendly / reasonable in the case of fraud
| like this fighting on your behalf?
| tyingq wrote:
| The merchant bank is typically stuck in the middle for a
| charge back dispute. It's the owner of the card's bank,
| or sometimes the card company that's the issue. AMEX, for
| example, is notorious for siding with their customers no
| matter what.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| People on hacker news ask all the time for a use case for
| crypto. This is it. Irreversible transactions. If the client
| was paying with crypto, there would be no danger of reverting
| their transactions.
|
| Also, Upwork should drop their 'cut' of the contractor's work
| if they want them to work to pay back Upwork
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| We've purposefully built the financial system to allow for
| reversible transactions, because it protects consumers and
| reduces crime. If the client had paid with stolen crypto
| (as they paid with a stolen CC), then, yes, the freelancer
| would have been paid, but the person whose money was stolen
| would have been screwed.
|
| If we wanted to build a financial system without those
| safeguards, we could do that, without using as much
| electricity as all the world's datacenters combined.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > If the client had paid with stolen crypto (as they paid
| with a stolen CC), then, yes, the freelancer would have
| been paid, but the person whose money was stolen would
| have been screwed.
|
| Since delivery of products/services isn't reversible, all
| that making transactions reversible accomplishes is
| changing which party gets screwed when there's fraud.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Agreed! But my base assumption is that suppliers are
| generally better-equipped than consumers to absorb
| sudden, unexpected costs.
|
| But I also feel this is all extraneous to the larger
| point, which is that we can set up a fiat-based finance
| system in whatever way we feel, just like we could
| develop a blockchain-based system that allows
| transactions to be reversed under certain conditions. I'd
| like to use the one which releases an order of magnitude
| less carbon.
| tyingq wrote:
| >it protects consumers and reduces crime
|
| I don't think it reduces crime. The merchants bear the
| cost, and have no power or information to go after the
| criminals.
|
| I think it actually encourages crime. The banks and
| credit card companies aren't going after people when the
| merchants bear the costs. The criminals get to keep the
| goods and services they bought with the stolen credit
| cards. This case seems to be a typical example.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Okay, then lets do away with reversible transactions! I
| would have assumed it was the banks who bore the cost in
| the majority of cases (which makes sense, since they have
| the most data to detect fraud and are the ones who are
| supposed to be doing due diligence), but I don't know
| enough about this industry.
|
| But, let's do it without a blockchain that wastes massive
| amounts of carbon.
|
| Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not advocating making
| transactions permanent. It's an "if this, then that".
| tyingq wrote:
| The current system does protect consumers. Just saying it
| does not reduce crime. It just shifts who the victim is.
| kergonath wrote:
| Irreversible transactions won't solve the "send us the
| money back or we'll send the lawyers" problem.
| oblio wrote:
| There are legitimate reasons for reverting transactions,
| they're frequent.
|
| Another lack of use case for crypto :-)
| CPLX wrote:
| As written, this story also includes a part where someone
| was using someone else's credit card without permission.
|
| The magical crypto future we've all been waiting for is
| that the guy who paid $12,500 to a freelancing platform for
| something he had nothing to do with and no knowledge of
| should get stuck with the bill and everyone should move on?
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Which is different/worse than the current situation where
| the author is being stolen from without even having the
| ability to vet their clients the way the intermediary
| does?
| CPLX wrote:
| Yes of course it's worse.
|
| The author is a businessperson who's job it is to make
| decisions about how to get paid for their work.
|
| The person in question _assuming the story is true as
| stated_ is totally uninvolved and innocent and just lost
| $12,500.
|
| I mean in general if people have payment methods others
| can use with absolutely no recourse that's a bad thing.
| This isn't a super complicated concept.
| Dangeranger wrote:
| Irreversible transactions mean irreversible fraud. How does
| crypto solve for that?
|
| The solution here is to go to court, or more likely
| arbitration on this case.
|
| Crime continues to be part of business, you must account
| for it in your use cases, or you will get caught off guard.
| wpietri wrote:
| Exactly. This is a great example of where cryptocurrency
| has a relative advantage. If I'm looking to defraud, I'll
| prefer to do it via cryptocurrency because once I have
| the money, it's hard to get it away from me. That helps
| explain why fraud is so common in that space.
|
| It's easy to see that cryptocurrency is a big reason
| ransomware has spiked in recent years. I suspect the same
| is true for other sorts of financial crime. I'd love to
| know how much. But it's surprisingly hard to do a
| telephone survey where you ask people about their
| criminal choices, so I expect I'll never know.
| hbbio wrote:
| You're both right.
|
| Irreversible transactions by default seem a good thing.
|
| Court/arbitration is the right way when things go wrong.
| pirate787 wrote:
| It is hardly a use case for the original cardholder, who
| had $12,000 stolen from them.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| We have no details about what actually happened, perhaps
| a business relationship gone sour, perhaps the client was
| using their parents' credit card, or perhaps it was in
| fact stolen (though it's questionable that the charges
| would happen for so long if this is the case).
|
| Regardless, irreversible transactions would be more like
| cash payments. People seldom go around with their private
| keys for $13000 on paper in their wallet, (though a
| password protected hardware device would grant similar
| freedom with less risk), and if they did and it got
| stolen, it would be up to them to try to move the funds
| before the thieves do.
|
| I'm not denying that a shit-ton of crypto theft happens,
| but in this case it seems like there's more to the story
| than we're getting. If the client had been paying with
| crypto, it mean they had undeniable access to the funds.
| Again, it doesn't mean the funds weren't stolen, but I
| have yet to hear of a case of a recipient of stolen
| crypto being asked to pay it back.
|
| I'm wondering if there's even precedent for this. As a
| business owner, if someone walks in and pays cash for
| goods, then someone else walks in and says the person who
| just paid you used stolen funds, are you obligated to pay
| it back? If so, haven't you just been stolen from?
| pjc50 wrote:
| This is beyond "complain on HN" level, this is "take legal
| action" level ...
| nikanj wrote:
| The court of public opinion works much faster and has much
| lower costs. I'd absolutely try HN before I try the courts.
| troymc wrote:
| To be fair to the original author/freelancer, they didn't
| "complain on HN." They wrote a blog post, and someone shared it
| on HN.
|
| But yes, this does seem like something for the courts to sort
| out. In Saskatchewan, I'd use Small Claims Court (inexpensive,
| no lawyer needed); I guess there is something similar in the
| freelancer's jurisdiction.
| [deleted]
| frogger8 wrote:
| this user's post needs to be up voted to the top of the front
| page. upwork has millions of contractors throughout the world and
| can afford to cover this cost. Obviously not all users /
| contractors are not active every month. But they take a good
| chunk of the cut.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That is completely ridiculous, they can't pass the risk of them
| not doing their job on to the contractors. They want to be in the
| payment stream, fine, but that comes with a price tag attached.
|
| If you don't do proper KYC and ensure that your 'customer' has
| the ability to pay _and_ you allow them to pay via credit card
| (which is not at the discretion of the contractor, Upwork could
| have insisted on wire transfers instead) then the onus is on you,
| not on the contractor.
|
| This is just a blatant attempt to de-risk the company at the
| expense of the weakest party. I'd tell them to go jump into a
| lake.
| 55555 wrote:
| This was my first thought as well but in actuality almost all
| marketplaces pass chargebacks through to vendors.
| offminded wrote:
| I got off from Upwork quite some time ago now. I hate the way
| they do business and throw developers under the bus at first bump
| on the road. I am looking forward for the day that some Web3
| equivalent is built and become leader in the space.
| wapxmas wrote:
| How could web3 facilitate the issue?
| aneutron wrote:
| If you have Robin's contacts, I would suggest you get a lawyer
| and sue him personally. You have made work for him which hasn't
| been paid (because the money was taken back).
|
| To my untrained eyes that seems pretty much a classic case of
| unpaid dues. Just get a consultation with a lawyer either way,
| it's the surest thing to do.
| gog wrote:
| He has a contract with Upwork, Upwork has a contract with
| Robin, so Upwork is the one that should be on the hook for this
| and they should go after Robin if they want to try and recoup
| their loss.
| implements wrote:
| I have a friend who used to be a commercial lawyer - she said
| one of the things that disillusioned her about the job is
| that regardless of contract it was often the case the party
| most able to be made to bear the loss ended up losing (ie
| whoever had insurance).
|
| It's easier for Upwork to force the contractor to work for
| free than to sue 'Robin' because suing is difficult and
| costly, and the contractor is over a barrel if he wants to
| continue with Upwork.
| mabbo wrote:
| Name both in the lawsuit. Someone has to pay for the work
| done.
| ummonk wrote:
| "I could've easily gotten paid from Robin outside of Upwork.
| Heck, he was physically in front of me." - I don't think that
| would have been relevant. He could have still committed credit
| card or check fraud.
|
| The main issue here seems to be that Upwork isn't meeting its end
| of the bargain in exchange for the cut that they take - given all
| sides agree that the worked hours weren't fraudulent, Upwork
| should do what they would have done had time been tracked in the
| tool, and they should be providing protection to the worker and
| pursuing collections from Robin themselves (and eating the loss
| until they can recover the unpaid balance).
|
| The human rights complaint in the article is rather weird though
| - Upwork isn't forcing him to work any extra - he could quit the
| platform today if he likes.
| sumedh wrote:
| > He could have still committed credit card or check fraud.
|
| but if the freelancer is directly accepting credit card
| payments he will see the name on the card and he can ask
| questions if the name is different.
| digitalsin wrote:
| Upwork is a garbage platform, and if this situation really shocks
| you then you don't know anything about the company or the
| platform. My advice is to stay far away from Upwork. Fiverr is
| nearly as bad.
| 300bps wrote:
| Chargeback periods are typically limited to 120 days. This means
| a cardholder cannot generally dispute charges older than about 4
| months.
|
| https://chargebacks911.com/chargeback-time-limit/
|
| There can be exceptions to this but I have never heard of a
| chargeback over this period and certainly charges a year or two
| old would be crazy.
|
| Maybe what happened is that the cardholder initiated a chargeback
| on the most recent charges and Upwork decided on their own to
| refund them all?
|
| In any case, it is primarily Upwork's job to validate credit
| cards. If their position is that they failed to do that for two
| years and they have no responsibility, that is wrong.
| epa wrote:
| Chargebacks are still a huge issue for internet companies, can
| Web3 solve this?
| altacc wrote:
| Remember, companies will always look after themselves before
| anyone else. If Upwork is the middleman here providing a payment
| platform, then I'd expect them to swallow the cost of card fraud,
| not the freelancer. I suspect individual freelancers have a
| theoretical dollar value in their calculations and it's never
| going to be bigger than the company accepting a financial risk.
|
| 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).
| danlugo92 wrote:
| Reminder to anyone reading this:
|
| 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.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > NEVER EVER give access to your bank account to ANYONE.
|
| 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.
| nojito wrote:
| You should be funneling income into a separate account and
| moving it elsewhere after.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I have a friend that is extremely wealthy. He can pretty
| much buy whatever he wants.
|
| He does this all the time. He has a "cannon fodder" bank
| account that gets just enough for the expected payments.
| 41b696ef1113 wrote:
| I do this as well.
|
| 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.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| To allow someone a direct deposit they should only need
| your name and bank account numbers. You shouldn't be giving
| them access with things like your password.
| gruez wrote:
| Giving them your name/account number is all that's needed
| for someone to withdraw from your account. That's how
| gyms work. They just require your account number and/or a
| void check (which has your account number). They don't
| need you to sign into your bank account.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I don't think any responsible bank would let you withdraw
| using just an account number. What kind of security would
| that be? My bank certainly doesn't - allowing a debit
| requires me to authorise via 2FA - they obviously can't
| just take money.
| sumedh wrote:
| > I don't think any responsible bank would let you
| withdraw using just an account number.
|
| It happens in Australia as, just fill up a direct debit
| form which has the client's name, account number and
| sign.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> I don't think any responsible bank would let you
| withdraw using just an account number.
|
| 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.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| My state prohibits gyms from requiring ACH exactly to
| prevent this sort of abuse. It doesn't stop them from
| trying, or structuring their fees.
|
| 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.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| That's not only a States thing. Direct debit works
| similarly in Europe.
|
| That said I haven't heard of companies or fraudsters
| abusing it
| Symbiote wrote:
| Direct Debit in Europe has strong guarantees in favour of
| the customer, e.g. reversing charges.
|
| "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.
| gruez wrote:
| >I don't think any responsible bank would let you
| withdraw using just an account number
|
| 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.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > What do you think a check is?
|
| 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.
| kylebyproxy wrote:
| Just guessing by "cheque", are you outside the US? The
| checking system & ACH might be more of a US-centric
| phenomenon. It's been busted forever, but it's just how
| we do things around here.
| easton wrote:
| I do that when people send me money for birthdays once a
| year. Stick the check in the atm, i get money and the
| person wasn't asked.
| greenyoda wrote:
| My bank allows me to deposit a check just by
| photographing it with their smartphone app. No more
| visits to ATMs needed.
| kylecordes wrote:
| This is every bank in the United States.
|
| Our payment infrastructure ... has some legacy features.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I presume that this is an US-exclusive thing because it
| sounds fucking crazy.
| emteycz wrote:
| There is a similar thing in EU but it's very regulated
| (though all processes are very lengthy and paper-heavy)
| and used for paying utilities etc, not gym.
| ars wrote:
| It's a carryover from before the internet. It still
| exists because it's still used.
|
| 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.
| lostlogin wrote:
| No, you can do it in New Zealand too. I'm so weirded out
| by it that I just pay these things manually, so have
| never actually filled in the form that allows it.
| jdkenney wrote:
| It's the same in Canada. I had to setup direct withdrawal
| for a strata (condo) fee by visiting my strata's bank
| with a "blank cheque" (print out of a .png from my own
| bank's website, trivially forged). The teller had already
| set up the monthly withdrawal before I reminded her she
| forgot to even check my ID!
|
| 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.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| It is; the US banking system is a mess. Everything clears
| through the fed, believe it or not.
|
| 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.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > fucking crazy
|
| It's true though. This was essentially the plot of "catch
| me if you can".
| midasuni wrote:
| I assume checks in the USA have the equivalent of sort
| code and account number printed on them (as well as name
| of the account holder) like they used to in the U.K.?
| kube-system wrote:
| Checks in the US have two numbers; the number that
| identifies the bank, and the account number. That's all
| you need to transfer money between bank accounts in the
| US.
| runarberg wrote:
| Is this advice really practical. Where I come from my social
| identity number is public and not a secret, and my bank info
| is something we hand out all the time if we want someone to
| transfer to our account (as it is designed for).
|
| 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.
| bserge wrote:
| londons_explore wrote:
| This varies country to country. In the UK, direct bank
| withdrawals (via Direct Debit) are guaranteed _forever_. Ie.
| in 30 years time you can reverse a transaction from a company
| and get all the money instantly, even if the company no
| longer exists.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| My bank doesn't even offer a dispute option in direct debit
| transactions.
| londons_explore wrote:
| you have to call them.
| jdkenney wrote:
| This bank and banking system specific. My bank (Canada)
| doesn't offer any dispute option either.
| brnt wrote:
| How does it work if the account is closed, company out of
| business etc? Does the bank eat the amount? if so, seems
| easy to abuse.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The bank (or transfer provider) eats the amount. And yes,
| it gets quite some abuse. It's especially abused against
| gas and electric providers when they've gone bankrupt
| since people tend to have paid those companies tens of
| thousands over many years, and when the provider has gone
| bankrupt it's unlikely they'll provide any evidence to
| dispute any chargeback.
| Silhouette wrote:
| Though as a point of interest my small UK-based B2C has
| seen significant abuse of card chargebacks (i.e.,
| chargebacks issued against legitimate charges and the
| banks rejecting our dispute) but never a single abusive
| reversal under Direct Debit, even though in theory the
| Direct Debit has that indefinite liability attached. I
| suspect this is because in practice you can issue a
| chargeback because you didn't like the way someone
| sneezed and a lot of banks will uphold it while you
| normally have to give a valid reason to reverse a Direct
| Debit transaction.
| dcomp wrote:
| Probably because you can't dispute for any reason. But if
| there wasn't enough notice. If you don't give 10 working
| days notice (unless initiated by the person). An
| immediate refund can be requested.
|
| 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...
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| > but there's no chargeback for direct-to-bank withdrawals.
|
| 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...
| idiot900 wrote:
| It's easy enough to use one of the various online banks to
| establish a separate bank account for Paypal and the like.
| MWil wrote:
| Not ANY wrongdoing...
|
| 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...
| hedora wrote:
| Odd.
|
| 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.
| chrischen wrote:
| In my experience it's almost too easy to create a
| chargeback and the whole system is grossly inefficient
| and ripe for abuse.
|
| 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.
| tdfx wrote:
| I second this comment. Your chargeback request needs to
| color neatly within the lines of their procedures if you
| want a smooth process. How you phrase your request is
| incredibly important. Do not go crazy on details specific
| to the situation, use a template.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| If Chase was already involved, it seems like Chase denied
| the chargeback request. Banks have an incentive to not
| let bad chargebacks through to major merchants, it would
| reduce the value of the card networks over time, and
| hence incentivize less use of the card networks resulting
| in less profit for the banks.
|
| I would have taken Air Canada to court though, assuming
| all the facts are true. A small claims court would have
| definitely supported them.
| simplestats wrote:
| Not sure where this person is, but in the US chargebacks
| exist because they are required by law. There is also an
| arbitration processs they are required to provide for
| disputes, which is pretty cheap.
| thecolorblue wrote:
| I have had trouble with charge backs with Chase.
| Generally, I think they are pretty good to work with, but
| I would not suggest them for any large purchases.
|
| You are correct about credit card companies, but for
| whatever reason, Chase has different incentives.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Right! This is why I always chuckle when the HN thought-
| leaders always say "just do a chargeback" as if it's easy
| and guaranteed. I've rarely had success doing them.
| silisili wrote:
| Anecdotally, I've never had one fail. I've probably done
| maybe 4 or 5 in 10 years. Though I despise Chase and
| don't use them, so that may be the key. Amex and Discover
| are top notch in that department.
| drewg123 wrote:
| Chase seems to be one of Air Canada's credit card rewards
| program partners[1]. My guess is that this relationship has
| something to do with Chase's refusal to issue a chargeback.
|
| [1]https://www.aircanada.com/us/en/aco/home/aeroplan/credit
| -car...
| futharkshill wrote:
| that seems like a stretch to be honest.
| drewg123 wrote:
| These programs are worth billions for larger airlines
| according to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancillary_revenue When
| there are billions at stake, it does not strike me as a
| stretch that the credit card partners would bend the
| rules to benefit their airline partners.
| mizzao wrote:
| Same experience with an Air Canada ticket here.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Have you thought of going to consumer court? Either that,
| or a class action lawsuit (if multiple people can group
| together) should definitely help you see your money. You
| might also be able to find a lawyer pro-bono as the case is
| clear cut in your favor (and charge for legal fees in the
| compensation).
| ma2rten wrote:
| _If the author is in the same country as the client then they
| should also be taking legal action to reclaim the money_
|
| 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. "
| notahacker wrote:
| I think the OP's point in that sentence is that he was being
| a good Upwork customer and expects Upwork to hold up their
| spirit of the bargain, not that he hasn't realised that
| "Robin" isn't a scammer would have paid him with stolen money
| (which his own bank _might_ have returned if charged back,
| but not if it was cash...) and isn 't the guy who still owes
| Upwork money for the work. The stuff about being on good
| terms is all in the past, when he trusts Robin.
|
| 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...
| x0x0 wrote:
| > _If I understand correctly the problem is that they insist
| on getting paid through upwork_
|
| 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.
| nickphx wrote:
| Because those are Upworks terms?
| Ansil849 wrote:
| The point is that after the initial few contracts, the
| two parties could have very easily conducted all further
| business and contracts without the middleman, Upwork.
| bredren wrote:
| You actually have to buy your way out of these contracts
| ---according to Upwork's TOS.
|
| 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.
| x0x0 wrote:
| Exactly --
|
| 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.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > 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
|
| 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."_
|
| https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley
| ianbutler wrote:
| I think looking at devs contracting as "gigifying" is abusing
| that word and cheapening it for actual gig jobs which is an
| actual issue. Devs have been doing independent contracting
| since it was viable to do so and we can make a lot of money
| doing so. Upwork provides a platform to get contracts but
| it's not quite the same as the auto priced marketplaces like
| Uber, Lyft, Doordash etc.
|
| 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.
| danenania wrote:
| 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 :-/
| hajile wrote:
| 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.
| no_wizard wrote:
| 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
| ianbutler wrote:
| 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.
| hluska wrote:
| If it was the same situation, Upwork would likely ask why
| you added so many hours manually. They warned the writer
| many times they had no chargeback protection if they billed
| manually.
|
| 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.
| ianbutler wrote:
| I mean you can't just not validate the payment method
| when your sole purpose is to act as a payments
| facilitator so you can skim money off the top and then
| lump that onto the freelancer when you fail to catch
| fraud. I consider this a fraud issue between Upwork and
| Robin because they never validated Robin was the correct
| card holder. Whether manual hours or tracked through
| Upwork, Upwork has a duty to validate that the person
| paying isn't a fraudster and they failed to do that over
| a multi year period. That strikes me as strictly
| negligence by Upwork and the burden shouldn't be on the
| contractor.
| lobocinza wrote:
| And they skim 20% of the earnings which is a lot for
| doing almost nothing.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > I think looking at devs contracting as "gigifying" is
| abusing that word and cheapening it for actual gig jobs
| which is an actual issue.
|
| 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...
| ianbutler wrote:
| Forgive me, I read the article but I really didn't look
| at more than that. I checked it again and saw that their
| title is on the left on the menu. That does change my
| thoughts a bit.
|
| 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.
| beckman466 wrote:
| yeah no but i appreciated your take. no need for
| forgiveness. thanks for sharing your perspective.
|
| > skilled labor
|
| tangent: i'm curious what you think about this:
|
| https://twitter.com/arne__ness/status/1478805922306744320
|
| https://twitter.com/faithfxl_wyfe/status/1478998605935558
| 657
| dahfizz wrote:
| > why should they have to walk away? why even suggest such a
| strategy?
|
| Why would you want to continue doing business with someone
| who will unpredictability charge you large sums of money?
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| That's right. It can happen again. And again.
| amelius wrote:
| > If Upwork is the middleman here providing a payment platform,
| then I'd expect them to swallow the cost of card fraud
|
| Of course! How else would you be able to protect yourself if
| someone else is handling the payments?
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| There are a lot of articles out there about how the contracts
| the freelancing platforms impose on contractors are bad. Maybe
| they dont leave freelancers with a lot of options in these
| cases?
| [deleted]
| ajross wrote:
| > If Upwork is the middleman here providing a payment platform,
| then I'd expect them to swallow the cost of card fraud, not the
| freelancer.
|
| 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.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| If someone made a bunch of purchases from you with a stolen
| credit card, Amazon expects you to eat that cost and pursue
| the buyer to be made whole?
| MereInterest wrote:
| That it works that way in other systems is not a defense of
| those systems. Rather, it is indicative that those other
| systems are similarly broken. Upwork has the ability to vet
| clients, which the freelancer does not. Therefore, Upwork
| also has the moral responsibility to perform the vetting of
| clients. If Upwork views a freelancer as a fraud risk, they
| can terminate their ongoing relationship with you. They may
| not require you to return payments for work done in good
| faith.
|
| 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...
| [deleted]
| freemint wrote:
| The contract of sale is between you and the buyer. The
| contract for work is between UpWork and the contractor. Find
| the difference. eBay doesn't take a 30% cut for that reason.
| ajross wrote:
| Upwork isn't in violation of their contract. They paid the
| OP. The question is if they should be required to continue
| working with the OP under new contracts. And obviously
| nothing forces them to do so.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Upwork is asking for return of payment from the OP. From
| the article's title: "Upwork is asking me for a $12,500
| refund". From later in the article, this is not an
| isolated incident: "A day after, a few other freelancers
| whom we were working with, started contacting me saying
| that Upwork is asking all of them for a refund as well."
|
| 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.
| Aeolun wrote:
| They're only modifying the terms for future work done.
| Namely, the freelancer won't get any money for it.
| They're not requesting them to pay back $12500 right now.
| MereInterest wrote:
| I'm not a contact lawyer, but that sounds like it would
| be an invalid contract for lack of consideration. In the
| terms for future work being done, Upwork is requiring the
| freelancer to do more than a month of work without Upwork
| providing any consideration in return. No payment for
| work done, no promise not to extract the same unpaid
| labor again.
| throwaway14356 wrote:
| the credit card is also a party. a significant one in that
| they do the chargeback. this is why credit cards are not
| that popular in europe.
| jessaustin wrote:
| The only time I've been to Europe was an airport layover,
| so hopefully you can answer my dumb question: what sort
| of payment cards _are_ popular in Europe? We periodically
| see threads on HN in which people who claim to be
| Europeans chastise Americans for our use of cash and /or
| checks. I had assumed that was because you thought credit
| cards were great. That may be wrong, but now I don't want
| to just assume you think debit cards are great. Maybe
| there is another sort of payment card?
| Macha wrote:
| Debit cards are certainly the majority in my country.
| Banks offer subaccounts for people who reasonably don't
| want to connect their life savings to their payment card,
| or new vendors like revolut are popular for similar
| reasons.
| freemint wrote:
| Bunq is another alternative. I use both revolte and bunq
| cnorthwood wrote:
| I don't think you can group Europe all as one. For
| example, in the UK credit cards give "section 75"
| protection which means it's often better to use a credit
| card than a debit one. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/
| reclaim/section75-protect-...
| throwaway14356 wrote:
| Right, it is one of the reasons not _the_ only one.
| Macha wrote:
| The reason they're not that popular in europe is
| differing attitudes to short term debt and the fact that
| the cap on interchange fees prevent many of the rewards
| schemes that US credit card companies use to incentivise
| credit card use from being profitable.
|
| I don't think chargeback policies are a major influence
| either way.
| tecleandor wrote:
| I don't think Paypal would be the correct comparison here.
| Something more like eBay or Etsy.
| ajross wrote:
| Paypal, Amazon, eBay and Etsy all behave the same here
| though. If an account is a vector for fraud, they want
| compensation or else they won't work with it anymore.
| Literally no one continues working with an account with
| $12k of chargebacks, that's the point.
| StopHammoTime wrote:
| The account with 12k chargebacks is not the freelancer,
| it is the person who employed them. Their account is the
| one at issue. This is not a normal chargeback from
| fraudulent behaviour on the end of the freelancer.
|
| 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.
| altacc wrote:
| I (naively) think the best comparison would be how we want
| such a company to work, one that protects the actors within
| it's ecosystem, especially de facto employees, and takes
| responsibility for accepting fraudulent transactions.
| moduspol wrote:
| > If Upwork is the middleman here providing a payment platform,
| then I'd expect them to swallow the cost of card fraud, not the
| freelancer.
|
| 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.
| skzv wrote:
| My friend got scammed in a similar way via CashApp.
|
| 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.
| wpietri wrote:
| From the article, it sounds like like they do cover the costs
| of card fraud if the time is tracked using their tool. It's
| only when hours are manually entered that they don't. And
| honestly, I get that. It's very hard for Upwork to tell the
| difference between this and a conspiracy between freelancer and
| client to steal money from a credit card.
|
| 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."
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| >anybody working in the cryptocurrency space should vet
| clients very carefully given the high level of fraud and
| insanity in the space.
|
| 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.
| wpietri wrote:
| How do we know they did chargebacks for two years? I see 6
| items, which I'm guessing is the 6 months that my card
| issuer limits chargebacks.
|
| If that's the case, then the freelancer could still be well
| ahead on his slice of the credit card fraud.
| altacc wrote:
| > 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"
|
| 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.
| earnesti wrote:
| I think it is relevant. If you work for crypto scammers,
| problems are more likely. If you work for normal clients,
| via upwork or some other way, problems are less likely.
| xupybd wrote:
| Upwork handles payment. The freelancer has no ability to
| verify the card used for payment.
| MereInterest wrote:
| > It's very hard for Upwork to tell the difference between
| this and a conspiracy between freelancer and client to steal
| money from a credit card.
|
| 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.
| oneplane wrote:
| > gives Upwork the authority
|
| It is the rules Upwork sets that gives it the authority,
| rules everyone agrees to before entering in a relationship.
| Retric wrote:
| Contracts are constantly litigated and various terms get
| struck all the time. It's not that everyone agreed with
| Upwork that gives them control it's the near
| impossibility of litigating amounts in question without
| losing money. Upwork in the other hand has extreme
| incentives to make these terms stick because they have a
| lot more at stake than just ~12k.
| wpietri wrote:
| > The freelancer made an agreement with Upwork that, in
| exchange for payment from Upwork, the freelancer would
| perform work as directed by the client.
|
| Do you have proof of any of this? I'd bet cash money that
| everything that happened here is entirely covered the
| actual agreement.
| conductr wrote:
| The time tracking is to protect the client from the
| freelancer scamming. Time is not even being disputed here.
| Upwork is handling payments, and taking 20% fee for that risk
| (as I recall), so they need to eat it when they screw up by
| allowing payment with an unauthorized card. There is nothing
| the freelancer could do to know that payments are valid,
| because upwork is supposed to do that.
| kikimora wrote:
| Even if track time with their tool Upwork can take money back
| from you. I've witness the case where client paid $40k with
| Amex card and then chargeback. Poor freelancer lost $40k
| because Upwork took that money from his account as soon as it
| saw chargeback from Amex.
| young_unixer wrote:
| The actual problem is that chargebacks are possible when
| using credit cards, and chargebacks are possible because of
| the legal concept of card fraud (i.e. the person holding the
| credentials could actually not be legally "authorized" to
| realize the transaction), and the legal concept of card fraud
| exists mainly for two reasons:
|
| 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.
| supernovae wrote:
| zero recourse transactions sounds like a nightmare. screw
| everything about that
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Shifting all liability to users ("the user has no one else
| to blame than themselves") is probably one of the most
| anti-consumer moves ever. Especially in the context of
| digital credentials that people do not know how to secure
| and for which good usable security mechanisms do not exist.
|
| 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?
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| So you are saying that cryptocurrencies are better because
| if I get scammed I have zero recourse to get my money back?
| Wow. And I was wondering why this modern marvel hasn't
| taken the payment industry yet.
| hnarn wrote:
| > Banks are bad at security.
|
| 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.
| lobocinza wrote:
| Their tool is a spyware. They eat 20% of all their
| freelancers earnings and it's up to them to verify the client
| credit cart and identity so they should do better and cover
| this. What is worse is that it took then 2 years so the
| freelancer possibly paid taxes and withdrawing fees. Fraud
| sucks but I don't think someone should be able to make a
| refund years past an event. Due time is important.
| simplestats wrote:
| And therefore when there's a chargeback they take 20% of
| the hit.
|
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's utterly ridiculous. If you want to be the 'merchant of
| record' then you absorb the risk, it's that simple. What
| tool gets used has nothing to do with that, then they need
| to improve their KYC work.
| gruez wrote:
| >It's utterly ridiculous. If you want to be the 'merchant
| of record' then you absorb the risk, it's that simple.
|
| 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.
| clintonb wrote:
| Generally, in the payments space, the "merchant of
| record" is who the banks go to with chargebacks and
| disputes. I haven't heard of this as an industry
| standard.
|
| 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.
| TheSocialAndrew wrote:
| There are different types of platforms:
|
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It is the expectation they create, by taking care of the
| drudgery of having customers Upwork puts itself in an
| excellent position to reap a chunk of the turnover of the
| freelancers they put to work, but it _also_ puts the onus
| on them to ensure that customers pay their invoices and
| do so promptly and properly.
|
| 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.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Upwork would presumably say that freelancers who don't
| use the Upwork tool are deciding they'd prefer for Upwork
| to not be part of the transaction. In particular this
| seems unambiguously right for "service not delivered"
| chargebacks, where managing chargeback risk kinda
| requires being able to prove that the services were
| performed.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's a pretty weird reading of the concept of the gig
| economy. Upwork clearly wants to own the customer
| relationship, which is why they do what they can to avoid
| being cut out of the deal. In a world where Upwork would
| be happy to be compensated by freelancers invoicing
| customers directly for work found through Upwork you'd
| have a point, but that is not the world we live in.
| Upwork processes the payments, and both clients _and_
| freelancers are aware of this and that Upwork takes a cut
| for providing the matchmaking and process services they
| offer.
|
| 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.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It's not a one-sided problem. They _could_ do wire
| transfers, but that would be a substantial cost for their
| client side users, since most (American) banks charge
| $20-30 for outgoing wire transfers. It 's not obvious to
| me why avoiding chargeback issues should dominate all
| other concerns, as bad as it is.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Apparently the cost of credit card processing amounts to
| $12.5K, on account of something that the freelancer
| _could not have been aware of_. The thing to watch for is
| whether Upwork improves their processes on account of
| this happening, changes their terms of service (supply
| side) changes their terms of service (demand side) or
| does nothing at all. That will tell you all you need to
| know.
| notahacker wrote:
| I think the point is the insecure payment method was
| Upwork's decision (they don't even allow their freelancer
| to propose an alternative their own payment solution) as
| was accepting the stolen card; risk management of non-
| reversible payments has a cost too, but that's a decision
| Upwork made. The only security decision the freelancer
| made was not to use Upwork's spyware. Which would give
| Upwork valid reason to default to siding with the client
| over the freelancer in the case of a dispute about
| completed work, but not to demand a freelancer reimburse
| them because Upwork had chosen to accept reversible
| payments with a stolen card and couldn't easily recover
| funds from their client after the chargeback.
| Retric wrote:
| Credit cards also have fees. When you start talking
| thousands of dollar transactions CC start being more
| expensive.
| ipaddr wrote:
| At 1000 dollars 4% is $40.
| bsg75 wrote:
| Then Upwork would have no claim to a violation of their
| TOS. Upwork can't choose between protections and risk.
|
| > We continued working via Upwork while locating in
| Zurich, as to not violate any Upwork terms.
| psyfi wrote:
| I don't disagree (nor totally agree) with your opinion
| about the matter. But they don't take a 20% of all their
| freelancers earnings, they take 20% on the first $500 of
| your per-client earnings, then %10 of the next $9500, then
| %5 of any more work with your client. Also, you are free to
| work with any client outside the platform 2 years after you
| start work with them.
| lobocinza wrote:
| True.
| dheera wrote:
| > Have your lawyer contact us
|
| That alone would cost several thousand dollars.
|
| Upwork should provide free lawyers for incidents like this as
| part of their package.
| dtob wrote:
| Upwork is not the only middleman. There is deep network of
| middleman(s) going on Upwork which we have discovered in the
| span of last 8 months. We have also posted this on upwork
| https://community.upwork.com/t5/Coffee-Coconut-Break/Why-com...
|
| 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.
| bogwog wrote:
| > 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?
| dtob wrote:
| pkrotich wrote:
| The Freelancer seems a little too close to the scammer who
| admittedly used someone else card! For a second I wondered if
| they're same person... just tiny bit.
|
| Who eats the cost in this particular case is a gray area - I
| believe Upwork should be suing Robin to try to recover the funds.
|
| I can feel for the freelancer but the real victim is CC owner -
| charge back was the right move.
| jhartr wrote:
| This is it. I'd bet (less than the sum in question) that Al and
| Robin are in cahoots somewhere along the way. Makes me wonder
| whose name was on the card.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| It's crazy how Airbnb, amazon and this company don't care if the
| card holder and the user account holder are the same.
|
| I work in finance and this is often a total no go in many
| industries , even with consent of the card holder.
|
| But going strict on this will cause friction I suppose, just like
| CVV codes aren't mandatory on transactions, so some companies
| leave them out of the payment process. It only helps a bit during
| a charge back defense to have CVV and 2fa enabled.
|
| I have read about other dodgy things that Upwork has done before,
| nasty bunch.
|
| Predictably, this outcry will make them "rethink" their position
| on this one case and they will "apologize" and most likely not
| update the KYC checks and carry on as usual.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| How can a bank initiate a chargeback after 2 years? I thought it
| was 90 days at most.
| lurker616 wrote:
| Is Robin not open to paying $12500 again through a separate
| method? If Robin is a scammer, then Upwork needs to take the loss
| here for not validating the money payment method.
| rubyfan wrote:
| That was my reaction, the $12,500 debt should land on Robin's
| account not the freelancer. Robin needs to make their own
| account whole, especially since it sounds like there were other
| freelancers effected. The freelancer shouldn't need to pay
| anything back.
|
| These platforms claim to be "matchmaking services" so they can
| avoid this sort of issue. But if that's really the case why do
| they handle billing at all? These platforms want to make sure
| they skim their profits from the top but when shit hits the fan
| they provide no protection for the freelancer.
| fundad wrote:
| Since Robin never paid the original bills or he did and they
| were just refunded, can't he pay directly?
| xtracto wrote:
| Exactly my thought... according to the article the freelancer
| and Robin know each other and are in good terms.
|
| If Robin realized he defrauded Upwork by mistake, he should
| just pay up. If he doesn't, then he is actually willingly
| defrauding upwork, who should throw the book at him.
| lobocinza wrote:
| I think so, this story is strange. Working for a client you
| meet on Upwork or negotiating payment outside of Upwork goes
| against their ToS so you would expect them to deal with it at
| least morally if not legally.
|
| If Robin were to pay the client outside Upwork for the $12500
| charged back does the freelancer still owns Upwork 20% of the
| earnings? If Robin isn't paying and Upwork isn't covering the
| fraud is the freelancer still required to pay the 20% fees?
| pictur wrote:
| Please stop relying on this stupid site. These stupid sites that
| make money by ignoring people's efforts should be buried in
| history.
| graderjs wrote:
| You can understand Upwork's idea: they just want to pass on the
| risk and recover their loss. It's a normal business relationship.
|
| But I think many people are not ready for the real world that
| their skills lift them into: being a contractor really is being
| your own business, and despite all the schtick about "platforms
| taking care of their freelancers", it's a business relationship,
| and really you all need to be looking out for yourselves.
|
| At the same time, it comes across as pretty tone deaf of Upwork,
| and the developer attitude is understandable as well: can you
| imagine that if you faced similar risk from your financial /
| payment / banking services (such as, Payoneer or Pay Pal freezing
| your funds) Upwork would agree to cover you into another account
| until it was resolved? Highly doubt it.
|
| Shouldn't Upwork have insurance for these types of fraud cases so
| they specifically don't have to pass the cost onto devs?
|
| You can just refuse to refund Upwork. They are giving you the
| collections treatment, you can tell them to stop harassing you as
| well as report their behavior to the competent authority in your
| jurisdiction or theirs. Tell them to instead chase down the money
| from the payer.
|
| _edit:_ I remember I deeply reviewed a contract for a Russian
| Freelancing platform that was precise and fair -- I 'm quite sure
| it had a clause that was like, once the payment hits your bank,
| it's yours no matter what. But the sensible thing was they had
| enough other precautionary stuff in the contract about how they
| handled payments, disputes and clients and so on, that it looked
| like they could make that work. They basically covered you for
| any clients that tried to abscond, I think.
| [deleted]
| akudha wrote:
| "It is just business" - this kind of thinking is why we have
| shitty situations like this. Upwork is a billion dollar
| company, 12K is a joke to them whereas 12k is a lot of money
| for an individual. The customer paid Upwork using someone
| else's card, he didn't pay the freelancer. So the party that
| got duped is Upwork. They should either eat the loss or recover
| the money from the customer, if that is possible.
|
| Notice the only party that is getting screwed here is the
| little guy? Why is this acceptable?
|
| Maybe this should NOT be "normal business relationship"?
| nothatscool wrote:
| >The customer paid Upwork using someone else's card, he
| didn't pay the freelancer. So the party that got duped is
| Upwork.
|
| For me that is the key here. Upwork is the one accepting
| payment so it's their responsibility to verify that payment.
| It's actually impossible for the freelancer to do that.
| wpietri wrote:
| If the freelancer had taken a credit card directly, he
| would be in the same situation as now.
| Macha wrote:
| This is true, but surely dealing with these issues is
| part of what upwork takes their share of the revenue for?
| wpietri wrote:
| Maybe! An essential element of designing contracts is
| figuring out exactly who's taking what risk. From what
| the freelancer says, it sounds like Upwork is saying, "If
| you track the time directly with our tool, we'll take the
| risk of fraud. But if you track time your own way, the
| risk is on you." I assume that's what the guy actually
| agreed to, as he didn't say otherwise. So in this case,
| it sounds like it's something UpWork isn't taking a share
| of revenue for.
| akudha wrote:
| Can you explain why this matters here? The issue is that
| Upwork was/is responsible for taking payment from the
| customer, keeping their cut and paying the freelancer. If
| they got duped, they should eat the loss. Whether the
| freelancer is or isn't able to collect payments correctly
| on his own, is irrelevant here.
|
| Freelancing websites go to extreme lengths to monitor
| freelancers - including installing monitoring software,
| taking screenshots every minute etc. Why can't they spend
| some of this effort making sure they aren't duped, and
| when they are duped (it will happen at some point) why
| can't they go after the person who cheated them instead
| of the little guy?
| wpietri wrote:
| My point is that Upwork not creating the problem, just
| passing along the problem.
|
| From what the freelancer says, Upwork would have eaten
| the loss if the freelancer had actually used that
| monitoring software. But he chose not to. I get that
| sucks for him, and I get how he got taken in by a serial
| fraudster. But I also get why Upwork only covers fraud
| under specific circumstances.
| tzs wrote:
| All that is actually required to charge a credit card is
| knowing the card number. (Some people think the
| expiration date is required, but it is not. The
| expiration date is only checked at the payment processor,
| and there it is just a simple check that it is in the
| future. You can just make up any future date when
| submitting the card and it will work).
|
| However, when submitting the card you can supply name,
| address, and CSC (and maybe telephone number?) and ask
| the processor to check those. Those will be checked
| against what the card company has on file.
|
| Details vary between payment processors, but all will
| have a way for you to bail out of charging the card if
| you don't get matches on a subset of those fields you
| chose.
|
| Like most things with credit cards, those checks aren't
| free. If you are using a payment processor where you see
| all the little fees it will cost you a tiny amount to do
| the checks, but if you are with one of the processors
| that bundles it all together into tiers the fees for
| checking will almost always not be enough to bump a given
| charge up into the next tier.
|
| The only real downside of doing the checks is that the
| more data you make the customer enter, the higher the
| chance they will not complete the purchase. If you are
| doing something that has an extraordinarily low chance of
| attracting people who are using stolen cards and the
| transaction isn't for a very large amount it _might_ be
| worth it to not do the checks.
|
| For everything else, you should do the checks and if
| things don't check out do not accept the card.
| patrakov wrote:
| > The expiration date is only checked at the payment
| processor, and there it is just a simple check that it is
| in the future
|
| Wrong, at least for Raiffeisen Bank in Russia. Once I
| called their support why the payment didn't go through.
| Their answer: "you made a typo in the expiration date,
| try again" (and it worked).
| nothatscool wrote:
| But he would have had the opportunity to manage the
| payment himself whether that be not accepting credits
| cards, using a payment processor with charge back
| insurance or at the very least trying to verify that the
| credit card actually belongs to the client. As far as I
| know he can't do any of these things because the client
| isn't paying him, they are paying upwork and upwork is
| paying him.
| wpietri wrote:
| Sure. And he always had that opportunity. Both in general
| and specifically with this client when they started
| meeting in person. He chose to bill through Upwork and
| then specifically declined to use the time-tracking
| software under which they would cover fraud.
|
| I get that this was a surprising outcome for him, and I
| feel bad for him. But as a business consultant working
| specifically in fintech, I don't feel very bad for him.
| Looking at the dates, I also suspect he isn't telling us
| about the fraudulent payments he did get to pocket.
| ratww wrote:
| If the freelancer had taken a credit card directly, they
| would have been in the position to check with the card
| holder for proper authorisation beforehand, or to deny in
| case it looked shady.
|
| Plus, the freelancer would be able to just sue the person
| they were working for directly, rather than having to sue
| Upwork, risking his ability to continue working there. If
| the freelancer didn't know client personally, it would
| have been impossible.
|
| Back when people used checks, it was common for companies
| to either deny third-party checks or ask for the buyer
| sign the check over to someone else. This would put the
| buyer on the hook in case anything bad happened.
|
| Marketplaces just removed all those protections that
| sellers could implement, while taking none of the risk.
| wpietri wrote:
| As I mentioned elsewhere, I recently purchased by-the-
| hour services via credit card over Zoom. They never
| checked the physical card; they just took the numbers and
| punched them in, with the charge instantly being made
| (Amex notified me within seconds). There's no reason to
| suspect that this guy would have done any more
| verification.
|
| Are we sure the freelancer can't sue the person directly?
| And if we believe they can't, why could they do it in the
| case of the credit card company? In both cases, there's a
| chain of intermediaries; the chain's just one hop longer.
| ratww wrote:
| Were you also using a third party credit card like in
| this case? Are you really 100% sure this freelancer would
| do the same that the person in your example did? Were you
| also doing months-long transactions totalling 12k? If
| this were with me, it would definitely raise red flags.
|
| If the client is really speaking in good faith ("there
| was someone else's card in my UpWork account"), all this
| wouldn't have even happened in the first place, and the
| client would have noticed it himself.
|
| And even if the same thing happened with Upwork, in this
| case the choice of verifying was completely taken out of
| the freelancer's hand entirely. There was zero
| possibility of him checking a name on a credit card.
|
| If it were a direct transaction, the credit card company
| would be entirely out of the picture in case of fraud. A
| credit card company is not an intermediate in the same
| way Upwork is. Also, are we 100% sure Upwork is not
| trying to collect the amount from the client at the same
| time? Have them forfeited the fees?
|
| _> If the freelancer had taken a credit card directly,
| he would be in the same situation as now_
|
| Point is: it is impossible to claim that one thing or the
| other would have happened if the situation were
| different.
|
| EDIT: Added quote.
| wpietri wrote:
| > Point is: it is impossible to claim that one thing or
| the other would have happened if the situation were
| different.
|
| Then I guess it's a good thing I didn't claim that. If
| somebody else did, maybe reply to them?
| ratww wrote:
| I'm talking about your first post: "If the freelancer had
| taken a credit card directly, he would be in the same
| situation as now." part.
|
| It is impossible to claim that.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Was it literally someone elses name on the credit card?
| Perhaps the freelancer would have rejected the credit
| card as payment for this or other reasons if they had
| taken the card directly. Who knows?
|
| Also they would be fighting with the credit card company
| against the chargeback -- whether and how much they can
| take back in situations like this depends on the nature
| of your agreement with the credit card processor, and
| whether you followed it -- that is, whether Upwork did.
| Perhaps the freelancer would lose if they had directly
| charged, but it would be their fight to have. Instead,
| they are just told by Upwork they owe Upwork money now,
| because it was Upwork that took the card, not them. But
| sure, maybe they'd have ended up in the same place
| anyway, it's true. They would have at least known they
| were responsible for vetting the credit card themselves
| -- which you can't be when you never even see it because
| Upwork is the one charging it.
| wpietri wrote:
| Would the freelancer have even known? Their initial
| contacts were remote. I just purchased some by-the-hour
| services from a sole proprietor a few weeks ago; I just
| gave them the credit card number. They never saw the
| card.
|
| Bringing up the agreement with the credit card processor
| is an important point. I suspect that Upwork's agreement
| like that involves certain protections when freelancers
| use the timekeeping system to create real-time proof of
| work. As the freelancer explains, he's only in this
| pickle because he entered the time later. I get why that
| didn't seem like a big deal to him at the time, and I'd
| be very curious to know how clearly Upwork explained the
| difference. Was it only in their T&C? Did they warn him
| when he first tried manual entry? Does the manual entry
| page warn him every time?
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Just taking a US credit card number without the name, CVD
| code, or zip code, is indeed a dangerous way for the
| person taking a payment to take one, opening them up to
| more possibility of fraud and chargeback.
|
| In this case, it was Upwork and not the freelancer who
| decided whether or not to charge a credit card with only
| the number, if that's what they did.
| wpietri wrote:
| I agree it's dangerous. But this guy clearly liked and
| trusted the client, a client that I'd guess is a fast-
| talking serial fraudster. So in the hypothetical case of
| the freelancer working directly, I think it's likely he
| would not be any better off.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Yes, but in this case it was out of his control entirely,
| he didn't have the option of verifying the name on the
| credit card. It was Upwork who (apparently? we don't even
| know) chose not to do that, not the freelancer. If he was
| taking the card directly he would have the option of
| doing it more responsibly; if a hypothetical freelancer
| read a story like this, they might be more likely to do
| it next time. Upwork, apparently not?
|
| But if your point is that people taken credit cards get
| scammed all the time even when taking them directly, I
| agree, that's a thing that happens.
| wpietri wrote:
| I don't think there's any reason to assume Upwork didn't
| properly verify the credit card.
|
| And my point is not just that people get scammed via
| credit card, but that we don't have much reason to think
| that this particular person would be better off under
| your hypothetical case. Sure, he could have done it. He
| could have also read and taken seriously the requirement
| to use Upwork's time tracking if he wanted more anti-
| fraud protection. He could have detected that the client
| was dodgy and declined to work for him at all. There are
| all sort of possibilities, and we can't just pick one to
| draw lessons from.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| The fact that this is even a matter of discussion...
|
| That's like my mechanic getting scammmed on some spare pieces
| and trying to bill me for them.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > 12K is a joke to them
|
| Not that I disagree, but I got the sense from the post that
| upwork has suddenly detected a lot of this exact same scam
| from a lot of clients. They may be dealing with hundreds or
| even thousands of the same situation.
| akudha wrote:
| Even if that is the case, that is still Upwork's problem.
| Not the freelancer's problem.
| jliptzin wrote:
| Yea exactly. I love how upwork charges upwards of 20% of the
| payment but as soon as they get duped they want to recover
| 100% of the money from the person who can least afford it in.
| Why are they taking such a large fee if not to cover things
| like fraud risk? I think it's time for some laws to regulate
| these shitty companies.
| graderjs wrote:
| Agree, totally.
|
| The only thing I disagree with you with is--
|
| > "It is just business" - this kind of thinking is why we
| have shitty situations like this
|
| I mean I get what you mean, that we sort of normalized it.
| That's one way to take that: lower our expectations, don't
| expect better. But I think that's missing a really important
| piece of the picture: the main other way to take that.
|
| So the statement that, in other words, facing that reality
| calmly and being prepared for it--is causative of that
| reality. I don't agree with that.
|
| That reality is caused by shitty human behavior (what I like
| to call "ape brain shit"), it is not caused by people
| accepting this is the way things go (sometimes, right? not
| always), and taking precautions to protect themselves. Being
| ready to defend yourself doesn't normalize crime, it does the
| opposite, I believe. Because fraud may be enabled
| unfortunately by people not doing that--without at all
| pushing any responsibility for fraud onto victims--the more
| you can protect yourself, the less fraud you risk you will
| face.
|
| But none of this practical preparedness makes it OK, nor does
| it take away from what a shitty situation it is. Very very
| shitty. Most definitely. But that's what we humans still are,
| right now, at this stage of our development. Otherwise we
| would not be so shitty to each other so often.
|
| So...exactly, we got to protect ourselves. But you can't do
| that effectively unless you realize these things go on.
| People will push risk downhill. It's how it works. So you got
| to be prepared to handle that. Unfortunately, that's normal
| business relationship. I agree that it "shouldn't" be that
| way. But then a lot of things in the world "shouldn't" be the
| way that they are.
|
| When it comes to money, why should we expect _that_ to be any
| different? I think we can expect that to be worse. Because of
| how much greed, and obsession and dependency there is on
| money...But I firmly believe the way to deal with that is to
| face it with eyes open and work out ways to handle it. Rather
| than hoping, "Man I wish the system was different." I sure
| would like to tho...Would love to just let my guard down, not
| give a shit about contracts. Not think I need to "protect"
| myself. Would love to do that.
|
| But I'd feel I was being irresponsible to myself if I did
| that--if I expected that somehow someone else was gonna look
| for the little guy--for me--except me. I'm the one's that got
| to do that. And I hope you all do that, too--so you stay safe
| and protect yourselves. Know the world can be crazy out
| there, people can rip you off--so figure out ways to handle
| it, and even avoid it, if you can! More power!
| mucholove wrote:
| Dude, get off Upwork.
|
| Do not do any work for them.
|
| Invest that time and build your name on your own or some other
| platform.
|
| Take your clients off Upwork.
|
| Would love to see what you're doing.
|
| You don't owe them a thing.
| throw8932894 wrote:
| This! Middle man just adds risks and fees! Keep working 2 years
| for the same client via Upwork is not very smart.
| sanguy wrote:
| You are using Upwork as a broker. They get a slice by being the
| middle man. Their job is to ensure stuff like this doesn't
| happen.
|
| Tell them to fuck off and find another platform; and pay them
| nothing.
| JackFr wrote:
| What doesn't add up to me is why is there no criminal prosecution
| or cause of action against the original client?
|
| You can't use someone else's credit card without permission to
| obtain thousands of dollars if services. While the CC bank will
| charge back those purchases because they were fraudulently made,
| according to TFA, there is no dispute about the work actually
| being done and no one seems to be going after the person who
| benefitted from the work.
|
| So I'm beginning to think, as they say, there's more to the
| story.
| l8rpeace wrote:
| I get the concept of a charge back. But upwork and the freelancer
| are both in contact with this 'Robin' person (who I assume won't
| sort out the fraudulent psyment despite admitting to the
| freelancer that an unauthorized card was being used).
|
| So why not have Robin sort out the payment? There's no mention of
| that from the freelancer or the freelancer's account of upwork's
| responses.
| CPLX wrote:
| There's a few different ways to go here and a lot depends on your
| jurisdiction (presumably Europe?) but this feels like wage theft.
|
| I'm sure Upwork has armies of lawyers who would argue that you're
| an actual business and this is a business to business dispute.
| And I'm sure you accepted some 78 page document that says that
| too. But unless you have an incorporated entity and are operating
| like a business I'm not so sure a regulator would see it that
| way.
|
| There's a lot of laws out there involving freelance workers,
| subcontractors, and so on, and I'd figure out which of them apply
| to you.
|
| Also like others have said you don't owe them anything don't do
| more work on Upwork to pay off this "debt" fuck that.
|
| And also chargebacks in the US at least have strict time limits,
| so the amount of delay here in informing you seems relevant. But
| not sure what the rules are where you are.
| dtob wrote:
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| > At the moment of this writing, I'm still on the platform. It's
| a little bit demotivational knowing that the next 230 hours that
| I'll work will go to Upwork instead of me because of this, so I'm
| slowed down on a motivational level.
|
| The fuck is wrong with you. Drop Upwork
| imdsm wrote:
| Agreed. Drop it before you take on any cost. Get in touch with
| all current clients outside of Upwork and offer your services
| direct.
| dtob wrote:
| cjalmeida wrote:
| That's the only possible alternative. You're an expert at a hot
| topic living in Zurich. There are plenty of alternatives to get
| work at even better rate.
|
| Also forget the legal course. There's no upside.
| [deleted]
| xwdv wrote:
| People have trouble leaving abusive relationships. The author
| feels they have no real choice because their confidence in
| finding work outside of Upwork is low. They also are convinced
| Upwork is a good platform and won't do this again, besides they
| believe this whole thing is really their own fault for not
| vetting clients appropriately. They will work obediently to pay
| off their $12.5k debt to make Upwork happy again, and then it
| will be like old times.
| myaccoun90 wrote:
| You're underestimating how hard it is to find paying customers.
| imdsm wrote:
| This is true, but on the other hand, the alternative is to
| work 230 hours for free with no guarantee this won't happen
| again in the future. It's a difficult decision.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| It's a labor issue, not a "difficult decision" that an
| individual should ever have to make. It's a failure of our
| society.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| Clearly, because UpWork can't even find paying customers.
| mromanuk wrote:
| Why would you continue to work with such a crappy company, that
| handled it so badly? As a middleman they at least should absorb
| this type of events. They get a cut for every hour worked by
| the freelancer, this is outrageous.
| ykevinator2 wrote:
| This is why I hate upwork. I left after about $500 and open a
| stripe accountn and get new clients.
| tartoran wrote:
| To avoid this the work delivery should go with an escrow service.
| Work isn't delivered until the payment is fully approved. Etc
| putlake wrote:
| Cozy did the exact same thing, at least before their merger with
| Apartments.com. Tenant pays last month's rent via someone else's
| (ex-spouse's) credit card, then moves out, collects their
| security deposit, then disputes the card. Cozy supposedly tries
| to fight the dispute with the credit card company but landlord is
| not allowed to be a party of that discussion. Cozy fails to
| convince credit card company. Cozy asks landlord to return the
| money.
| yholio wrote:
| From a business strategy perspective, it makes a lot of sense not
| to eat the credit card risk, otherwise you commit yourself to a
| very bad position: scammers will signup on your platform as both
| buyers and sellers and effectively launder stolen credit cards.
|
| From a labor rights perspective, they are clearly not a small
| business that can take contractual risk, they are a de facto
| employee dependent on the revenue the Upwork platform generates.
| Withholding payment for work done is a major abuse.
|
| Each side has their truth and I cannot see how it can be resolved
| in the general case without regulatory intervention in the area
| of platform labor.
| freemint wrote:
| > From a business strategy perspective, it makes a lot of sense
| not to eat the credit card risk, otherwise you commit yourself
| to a very bad position
|
| Well yeah but if they don't they put their contractors in an
| even worse position because it's unlikely they can each build
| their own fraud detection infrastructure.
| rdxm wrote:
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| Upwork hooked up the two parties, expecting to take a cut of the
| payments between them.
|
| One party did their fair share, the other party did not.
|
| Seems pretty cut and dry this is Upwork's problem to solve, not
| the party who did the work.
|
| However upwork allows workers to record their completed work is
| irrelevant.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Maximum period for a valid charge-back is 120 days.
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/chargeback-period.asp
| sjreese wrote:
| This is a known type of visa crime and should be insured against.
| Visa losses 100 million a year by sophisticated visa fraud. At
| Citibank it was part of the job to pay. The crime is setup
| multilayered fake bank in a secure jurisdiction, fake customer
| inside the network (CIA,MOSSAD) and a cardholder 50,000 dollar
| limit so no flags - all is validated via visa including in
| charge. Then no payment and months later an investigation that
| uncovers fraud then visa is the enforcer and based on your
| dependence YOU WILL PAY. Citibank pays!, With 100 million
| accounts at 23% profit the amount paid is a drop in the bucket.
| Upwork paid as well and is now holding the bag for not having the
| insurance
| indymike wrote:
| The problem in this story is that Robin, the buyer/payer has
| committed credit card fraud, and now UpWork has $12,500 in
| uncollected invoices where they've paid the developer already.
| Robin the buyer/client's, "oopsie, I used the wrong card" can
| easily be fixed by using the right card.
|
| As a buyer, I love gig boards. As a developer, I don't.
| educaysean wrote:
| Upwork is a red herring in this case. As frustrating as it may be
| that Upwork wasn't more helpful in resolving this case, the
| current state of affairs is as follows:
|
| 1. The author (freelancer) did $12.5k amount of work that he
| wasn't compensated for
|
| 2. The owner of the CC that was "accidentally" charged $12.5k
| received all their money back through bank dispute
|
| 3. Upwork was able to claim their cut for the $12.5k worth of
| transaction that occurred between the author and Robin
|
| 4. Robin received $12.5k amount of work without paying a dime
|
| Robin needs to pay the author back the $12.5k he is owed. If
| Upwork isn't willing to help reclaim the debt, he needs to sue
| Robin directly for the amount. It's very strange how much good
| will the author is willing to show towards Robin given how Robin
| is the only entity in the story who got away with all the spoils
| without paying a thing.
| paradite wrote:
| For those who are not familiar with the parties involved in a
| credit transaction / chargeback, here is a good illustration of
| the process:
|
| https://www.case.org.sg/consumer_guides_consumeralerts_archi...
|
| Assuming the events described in the blogpost are factual, this
| is what happened:
|
| The card issuer is representing the "someone else" to get back
| the money. The acquiring bank for Upwork complied with the
| request and deducted the money from the Upwork(the merchant)'s
| business account with them.
|
| Then, it is Upwork's decision to recoup their losses in their
| business account with the acquiring bank by asking Al to work for
| free.
| katzgrau wrote:
| Real advice: Use Upwork (or similar for legal, in the US there's
| Upcounsel) to find a lawyer in your country and post your job
| with a link to this article.
|
| Getting a lawyer involved will straighten things out fast. Upwork
| should eat the loss, no question. It'll easily cost Upwork more
| than 12k in time and resources if they try to defend it.
|
| It'll cost you a few hundred USD at minimum but it'll be worth
| it.
| wpietri wrote:
| If I were Upwork, I wouldn't be measuring this against the cost
| to defend this one instance. I'd be measuring it against the
| cost of the next 10 years of instances of credit card fraud
| where there's insufficient evidence of people actually doing
| the work.
|
| If they are seen as soft on this, it opens them up to a class
| of fraud where freelancer and client collude to milk stolen
| credit cards. Or where a fraudster just pretends to be both
| sides.
| notahacker wrote:
| Honestly, if I was a fraudster and I read a description of
| Upwork's actions here I'd be delighted. If I pay myself with
| a stolen card via two accounts through Upwork, their standard
| policy is to ignore the card fraud account and tell the
| freelancer account(s) the transaction was laundered through
| that they'll have to pay Upwork back out of future earnings,
| if any. That's a fraudster's _dream_ antifraud policy,
| because they have no intention of using any freelancer
| accounts they create for real work so there 's nothing lost,
| no police are involved, and Upwork doesn't even care if
| someone is willing to testify that someone admits to using
| someone else's card and knows where they live!
|
| Upwork's behaviour is no deterrent to actual multiple account
| fraudsters at all, and positive encouragement to fraudsters
| with stolen cards that can profit from selling on actual work
| done by actual freelancers.
|
| The only context it makes sense is if they're pretty sure the
| freelancer account is an innocent party they're happy to
| continue to use their platform, but figure it's cheaper and
| easier to squeeze them for the chargeback than chase the
| person who entered the fraudulent cards.
| wpietri wrote:
| I see your point, but you take it too far. Upwork's
| behavior generally seems to include significant anti-fraud
| deterrents. In this narrow case when the fraud has already
| happened, it's true that washing their hands of it doesn't
| act as a further anti-fraud defense. But it's a very narrow
| case where a credit-card owner is not going to notice
| thousands of dollars per month over a multi-month period
| and where the freelancer specifically doesn't use their
| time tracking system.
|
| Where it does help Upwork is helping freelancers see that
| a) they really need to follow the rules, and b) if they
| don't, complaining won't get them any more money.
| notahacker wrote:
| It's a very narrow case, but we're talking about how this
| case appears to fraudsters, not whatever their other
| policies might be. Fraud policies are necessarily
| somewhat opaque and often unfairly penalise innocent
| parties who come under suspicion but "we're so confident
| you didn't actually collude with this individual we're
| not even suspending your account, but we will take the
| $12.5k we lost off your future earnings with us because
| it's easier than attempting to pursue the fraudster"
| isn't even an anti-fraud policy.
|
| If the freelancer is telling the whole truth, it appears
| they did follow the rules, and Upwork's client committed
| a felony, and Upwork's response is to try to recover
| funds from the freelancer. If carders pay any attention
| at all which they probably don't that's a _positive_
| signal.
|
| HN coverage is probably more relevant to freelancers (and
| genuine paying clients). Its possible it'll scare a few
| more into using Upwork's spyware tool, but also likely
| it'll just persuade more to look elsewhere. Not sure the
| PR damage is necessarily less than $12.5k either..
| lobocinza wrote:
| They should also measure the loss of "sales" due to bad
| publicity.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Getting a lawyer involved will straighten things out fast.
| Upwork should eat the loss, no question. It'll easily cost
| Upwork more than 12k in time and resources if they try to
| defend it.
|
| This may work with smaller companies that don't want to have
| in-house counsel to engage in lengthy legal debates, but it's
| not actually very effective against big companies with
| corporate counsel and clear-cut contracts.
|
| Unless you think you have an angle to show the upwork contracts
|
| 1) Don't have any provisions covering this situation (extremely
| unlikely)
|
| 2) Are unenforceable due to specific laws
|
| Then it's a dead-end to sue Upwork. You have to sue Robin, not
| Upwork.
|
| > It'll cost you a few hundred USD at minimum but it'll be
| worth it.
|
| Nope. Suing corporations with corporate counsel and well-tested
| contracts is _not cheap_. You might get a letter from a lawyer
| for a couple hundred, but then you're just going to get a
| letter back from _their_ lawyers. They will likely also
| threaten to collect on the reversed charges to raise the
| stakes.
|
| Don't sue Upwork with a bargain lawyer. Sue Robin, the client,
| to collect payment.
| hajile wrote:
| Writing severely one sided contracts can be cause for a judge
| to throw them out (unconscionable contracts). My
| understanding is that lack of bargaining power and
| understanding is the usual reason for this ruling. Pitting a
| megacorp with loads of lawyers vs a self-employed freelancer
| is definitely the right environment.
|
| The freelancer can't possibly vet clients payment methods. A
| contract holding them financially responsible for the big
| corporation's mistakes that they can't prevent or even review
| seems like a textbook example of this.
|
| The question is if this freelancer (or a reasonable person in
| their position) would sign a contract like that if they knew
| what it could cost. I don't think anything would. Upwork
| certainly would not.
| gruez wrote:
| > Writing severely one sided contracts can be cause for a
| judge to throw them out (unconscionable contracts).
|
| You still need to convince a judge that, which means
| lengthy court trial. Also, I suspect the law is slightly
| more complicated than "it seems pretty unfair to a bunch of
| HN readers so the contract is unconscionable", which means
| tons of billable hours searching up relevant court cases.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I'm surprised you can charge back charges from two _years_ ago.
| To a certain extent, not noticing this fraud does fall on the
| card owner. They were paying fraudulent bills for years and
| they just now noticed? I'd think allowing even a three-month
| old chargeback would be generous.
| generalpf wrote:
| This is a great idea but what prevents Upwork from kicking him
| off the platform for pissing them off? Or maybe there's an
| arbitration clause in the agreement too?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| This is hilariously apropos. Kudos for the suggestion.
| mohanmcgeek wrote:
| The post is from 23rd Dec and on the home page I can see a post
| where the author recommends freelancing using upwork.
|
| If this is true and the debacle had been happening for the last
| 40 days, writing a post recommending upwork is the last thing I
| would be doing.
|
| Secondly, why wouldn't the author get hold of "Robin" and make
| him pay. The post doesn't even discuss him attempting to do it.
| smarx007 wrote:
| Nothing personal, it's just (affiliate) business.
| billyharris wrote:
| Things are getting more strict with upwork and other such
| freelancing platforms. I was also using my friend's paypal but
| then they blocked that particular account and asked me to connect
| with my own account.
| Grimburger wrote:
| Have you considered using your own paypal or bank account to
| work on freelancing platforms? This almost reads as satire.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > I was also using my friend's paypal but then they blocked
| that particular account
|
| can i ask why you were using a friend's account?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-09 23:01 UTC)