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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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This is one of the most disingenious and bent takes i have seen in my life.

its like arguing that homeopathy shitheads that 'helps with cancer' are not scammers because of placebo effect

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.

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?

As others have replied, debit cards. Credit cards, too; I've had at least one or two for over a decade. And have, uh, at least four; more probably five or six, at the moment. Only ever used... Three or four, in total, and I think only ever two in the same year.

One form of actual piece-of-plastic physical card that's popular here in Finland is the combination debit-credit card. When I insert it into the checkout payment terminal it first gives me a selection of "Debit / Credit?", then I tap in my PIN, and then it either charges my bank account or my credit card, depending on which I selected in the first step.

These same cards work in ATMs, and abroad too. I lifted cash in Turkey ten years ago, I think from Visa (IIRC my bank switched to MasterCard after that). In Sweden, supermarket payment terminals have one or two steps more: you need to confirm the amount, and if you want you can tap in an additional amount and have the cashier hand you cash in stead of going to an ATM. (Can't recall the order for sure; I think confirming the amount came first, before even selecting credit/debit, and the additional withdrawal last.) Never seen the amount confirmation in Finland; I suppose here it's taken for granted that it'll be the same as what the cashier just told you (and what you can see on the customer-facing display of their register, usually right next to the payment terminal). The additional cash withdrawal does exist (or at least did, can't recall when I last saw it) in some shops, but it's rare.

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.

Bunq is another alternative. I use both revolte and bunq

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.

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-...

Right, it is one of the reasons not the only one.

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?

I don't think Paypal would be the correct comparison here. Something more like eBay or Etsy.

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.

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.

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.