Upwork, or Downwork?
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Upwork maybe the biggest Freelancer community on the planet, but boy does it have some issues going on. Poor customer service being top of the list.
Written By: Geovian
Date: 20 August 2023
At the Beginning
I had been a longtime Elance member prior to the 2016 merger with fellow Freelance community O Desk, This arrangement caused great anxiety because the combining of two tech resources into one was not seamless.
Numerous bad experiences were encountered along the way. These were being racked up much like wild deer trophies on a mountain cabin's log wall.
By the end I had to give up and close my account down, though I took some of my clients into external arrangements outside of Upwork. There were just too many obstacles along the way.
In A Nutshell
When you bring on a job broker like Upwork to act as your intermediary for job opportunities, you don't expect to be mucked about from pillar to post.
I've since learned that Upwork has jumped in the deep end with bots and AI. It is hard to tell what is or who is real with this lot anymore.
I recently created a new account, only to find to my bemusement that things have been taken to a whole level of incompetency, far worse than from five years ago.
The support forum is awash with customer complaints on just about every topic imaginable. Here's a brief list:
- very shady clients who scam for work.
- accounts suspended for no reason.
- the 'Connects' system, which is essentially a token system to apply for jobs doesn't work because the Upwork interbank and debit card function used to fund 'Connects' is broken.
- the cost to use Upwork is becoming prohibitive.
- As mentioned, it's hard to tell whether you are dealing with a real person or a chat bot using AI. The comment responses to user queries are all cut/paste and generic.
- the delays to resolution must be off the charts. I wonder what the KPI's look like for unresolved tickets?
Since Then..
The feedback on Reddit is off the charts. They are far more cruel over there than I am.
It's unfortunate, but as a small business owner myself, I and many others are going to look at other freelance marketplaces. I've quickly assessed about 20 so far. I'll talk about those in another post soon.