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Comment by jrs95 | Hacker News Reader

Wow. This has to be some of the worst customer support I’ve ever seen. The only thing I experienced that was worse was American Express cancelling my account, telling the credit bureaus I was dead, not allowing me to pay them, and hanging up on me when I called them. Eventually I managed to find out that they sold the account and got ahold of who had it now, but they wouldn’t accept my payment because I wasn’t really dead, and had to transfer my account back to American Express. After finally resolving this and paying them in full, they report to the bureaus that I was late several months on my payments, and any attempt to appeal this has just been ignored. So I just have to wait for it to fall off my report. Until then, I’m paying over 12% interest on a fucking auto loan.

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> This has to be some of the worst customer support I’ve ever seen.

Actually, the OP is not a customer. A customer is someone who delivers money. Upwork treated their actual customer quite well: they refunded him and talked to him like human beings - even told him the reason why the OP was suspended.

This is a really good point and it is the reason why Upwork is good for one group of people, people who need to find workers, and bad for the workers.

I do not think that is very sustainable long-term... I think you'll be able to find much better quality workers in system that is more equitable.

However, systems like that don't exist.

I've been wanting to create a system that is more equitable but concluded that humans would rather take advantage of one another than be fair when it comes to paying.

I think freelancers are a major part of the problem, especially those who are very desperate for work. For an equitable system to exist you must be someone who is ready to say no at any point of the getting to know the project phase.

As a designer i find it easier to close deals on the phone and imagine other experienced freelancers operate the same way. Unfortunately a call based system is inherently wrong for an online platform that aims to earn profit on project fees. The reason upwork has been successful is because it charges fee on a project vs charging the customer or freelancer a flat fee and sadly such setup is not ideal for a freelancer who may be looking at projects in the tens of thousands range.

I think you might have tried to solve the wrong problem. The problem you actually seem to want to solve is a way for clients to get connected with people who can solve their problems.

The problem is not, as you seem to be hinting at, some mediation or escrow for freelancers, which is what the majority of Upwork is.

I think you could have a great system that "puts people in touch with each other" in a professional way. Maybe invite-only? Hmm.

Actually OP IS a customer. Upwork gets 20% out of his pay for being a glorified invoice generator.

Employees of a temp agency are not customers, even though the agency takes XY% of 'their' pay.

If you do enough mental gymnastics to argue that they are... Well, then the word has lost all meaning.

I'm pretty sure Upwork doesn't seem it that way, as their actions clearly show.

Bureaucracy makes absolutely no provision for the correction of mistakes. I dread ever having to talk to large companies. They're much too eager to blame the customer for any problem regardless of reason, just so long as they're no longer their problem.

Perhaps a small-claims lawsuit could recompense your suffering? There might be some law that absolves them from liability, but they would have to show up to argue the point, and they can’t send in the lawyers.

I have considered this, but it seemed not worth the risk given the expense of a lawyer. I’m not an expert on this at all though, so I could be wrong. I had mostly assumed the odds of winning something like that were low because what they did seems to be legitimate even though it sucks.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/small-claims-court-f...

Lawyers are not typically allowed in small claims court. Individuals represent themselves, and businesses send a representative who is not a lawyer. Often, larger businesses fail to send a representative. The plaintiff still has to convince the judge they have a case, but it's easier without opposition.

It's my opinion that I would sue AmEx if this happened. I'd contact the CPFB and file a complaint (https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ ). Don't use phones. Send certified mail. It's my opinion if this happened to me I'd be injured for the extra interest due to their mistake.

Dispute it with each of the credit bureaus.

Unfortunately I’ve done this and it goes nowhere.

Can you try sueing them?

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