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Comment by msadowski | Hacker News Reader

I've been using UpWork for over a year now and never had a dispute so far.

The author is right in saying that UpWork only guarantees payment when time tracking using their app. Where he is mistaken though is where he says that the app requires camera to be on at all times. There is such an option but personally I'd never go for a project like this. And yes, the app will take the screenshot of the stuff you are working on.

I don't get why author's customer would launch a dispute over not completing a 10 minute survey. Given that it was an hourly project I bet there were issues with communication and perhaps the author should have double checked with the client before closing the job.

UpWork is far from being flawless but for me it has been working quite ok.

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Yeah, I've been working on Upwork for about 1.5 years now and it has been such a vast improvement over other freelancing sites - both in terms of the size and scope of the projects and in terms of the types of clients available. Not one of my hourly clients has ever insisted that I use the monitoring app; yet I do it anyway because then I don't underbill and the payments are guaranteed.

In my mind, the screenshot every 10 minutes is no more invasive than sitting next to a colleague in an office and if you want to do something private, simply pause the timer and do it on your own time. Upwork is a pretty great site if you're a freelancer.

> I don't get why author's customer would launch a dispute over not completing a 10 minute survey.

... so they don't have to pay for the work?

I’ve spent a sizable amount of money hiring people on upwork and never have disputed a payment. If something isn’t being done correctly, the contract gets terminated and that individual never gets any more work from me. Early on it was very difficult to spot potential problems before the contract began. With experience it became much easier.

It is an imperfect system in an environment rife with problems from both employers and works attempting to cheat their way through. Now they are a public company now and have an incentive to squeeze fees from all ends. For that reason, I rarely hire new workers from upwork any more.

Workers or clients who get screwed on the first job will never come back and they will tell everyone else not to use it. In the long run that will add up.

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