Active freelancer banned on Upwork after video verification process | Hacker News Reader

Active freelancer banned on Upwork after video verification process

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96 pointsgnufreex31 comments

I think with fraud detection, there is sort of this ingrained idea that you can't tell the person in question what the suspected fraud is with the hypothesis that it will allow fraudsters to figure out a way around your detection.

I don't know that this hypothesis is true though and it certainly harms your real users when there are false positives. Fraud is certainly a big problem for platforms, so it's not like they can just ignore, but at the same time surely can do better than treating your long-time users to a ban with no explanation and no warning.

Feels somewhat like security through obfuscation and I think fraudsters will find a way around anyway.

I am confused, maybe I misread something but it seems like you did get banned for unknown reasons (which very sadly seems to becoming a common occurrence) but has nothing to do with how you looked like that morning? Are you sure you did not violate any ToS even if accidentally?

Well I was never warned over 3 years. I never accepted payment away from Upwork, i maybe couple of times got off site communication on client request, but nobody gave me infraction for that. I think that should come before the ban.

I figure there is two possible reasons they banned me. Facial recognition software decided that my profile pic (when I was younger and clean shaven) is not sufficiently similar to my pic taken during video call.

Other reason might be that they think my services are not being needed, as I had interviews without hire... except those were ones where I did not want to be hired, it was not like client rejected me. I simply wanted to pick best jobs, while still having time to concentrate on my long running contract with full time employer. In a hindsight, I probably should have set my profile to private in order not to get any invites. And go public only when I want side-job. I did not know they count that metric.

Or maybe this is a big misunderstanding, and your blog post title is clickbait.

I see nothing wrong with that.

The man's livelihood was destroyed, without a provided justification or an apparent means of appeal. The "court of public opinion" is basically his only shot to get it back, and that requires views. Clickbait gets views.

That's not a bad argument, but it isn't a good fit for HN. Clickbait is against the site guidelines, because its strengths—attracting quick attention and generating indignation—are actually weaknesses for intellectual curiosity, the main value of this site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Its not clickbait. They gave him no explanation for the ban. They required a video call. It is reasonable to speculate that his appearance could have been a factor.

Ok, but the title doesn't speculate; it makes the claim outright. People naturally feel rage at the image of someone being banned so arbitrarily and trivially. Generating rage with evidenceless claims is definitely clickbait.

Maybe clients you turned down gave you 1 stars or what ever.

Do you think it was chat bots? These automated fraud detection system are a nightmare.

I did some jobs at elance as a student. You could feel how the platform was on the side of the work buyers. I stopped trying making money there after a dispute with a SEO dude over payment for some text where he wanted me to do another one before I got payed ... luckely the money (30 USD) was in escrow for me and I actually got it from elance, but it's a buyers market.

They can't give me one star if I did not start contract with them. I need to accept contract to be able to affect JSS

Maybe the platform thinks you accepted those contracts off the platform.

Two thoughts:

1. Ofalyn really wanted to hurry you off the chat. Seems pretty unprofessional.

2. It's a little painful to see some of those job postings. "Virtual staff needed for long term employment -- $65". Yikes. The gig economy.

That is my first gig for VOIP company for 5$ a day that I described at the start. Just to show how I had to start. And after all that climbing, they do this.

Still, the idea that a even a "starter" freelance DevOps job could ever be $5/day, especially for a "long term" gig, is kind of depressing. It's way, way less than US minimum wage.

One general concern that this report raises is that an unaccountable company can suddenly cut off a person from working for many companies, as well as from the reputation the person built (in the metrics of the company).

Upwork is another technopoly. They have such a dominant position that it is practically a monopoly.

These technology monopolies run by private interests should be replaced by public decentralized protocols and networks. Then cases like this would have public records available. And there would be the possibility of multiple companies operating in the network that would allow for competition.

Want to do something about it?

Well I thought making people aware of the issue was a start.

There are some decentralized alternatives that have been started. For example ethlance.

Hmmm, this is a pretty relevant reversal of roles, when you think about it. Usually we have individual users running around causing mayhem from beyond the boundaries of jurisdictions that might try to seek damages or prosecute crimes. Usually it's individuals from other countries crossing distance to attack organizations.

Here, we have an organization damaging an individual with possible criminal actions, from beyond the individual's reach. Discriminating based on general appearance isn't always an acceptable choice, when it's not relevant to business.

There might be no recourse in situations that cross different borders and jurisdictions...

Is there a problem with this HN post, that would remove it from view? (While I was typing a comment, the HN title changed twice, and then I couldn't find the post anywhere within the first several front pages of HN (searching each page for "upwork" and "medium"), despite the post having 42 points in 58 minutes. The post is still findable on the second page of "new" at the moment, but seems stuck at 42 points from about 7:00..7:15 US Eastern so far, so might end up not being seen by most US HNers.)

Probably flagged (due to the original clickbait title), which penalizes a post pretty drastically in the HN ranking algorithm.

The first title I saw did sound a bit clickbaity, and it looked like someone later rewrote the title, and then tweaked the rewrite (changed "user" to "freelancer").

If the penalty for sounding clickbaity in the submitted title is that the post then won't be seen, that sounds plausibly appropriate, in the context of widespread poor media practices we're trying to improve.

In this particular instance, such strict measures might be unfortunate, if the writer is raising a general industry situation, in which many of us might be involved without knowing it, and which situation should be improved.

Would the writer be permitted to resubmit the post?

You should email that question to the admins using the Contact link in the footer, since they can answer it authoritatively.

The submitted title was "Upwork: Banned me after 3 years and $50k earned, for being unshaven". A moderator changed it to something more neutral, in keeping with the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

In this case, I don't know if it makes sense to resubmit the post. It's obviously very important for the author; anyone can understand that. But it also doesn't contain enough information to gratify intellectual curiosity or feed a substantive discussion, which are the main criteria for whether something is on topic here. I think it would be ok to give it a try, though, and see how the community reacts. The author emailed us, so I'll let him know this by email.

A general point: something I didn't realize before moderating HN, but now know all too well, is that the reasons users give others for why they were banned are usually inaccurate. Sometimes that's because they leave out critical information about what they did. Other times it's because they really have no clue why they were banned. And it can easily be both of these. As a result, these stories tend to be misleadingly one-sided, so the default response should usually be to suspend judgement until more information is available. That's just a general comment—not about this particular story.

Thanks. I will do so. Upwork finally responded to me and said this

Hello Mihajlo,

Maintaining the integrity of our site is of utmost importance to our team and to our community of users. Considering the violations that have occurred. Due to the security of processes, I am unable to provide additional details.

I understand this decision is a difficult one for you, but I am comfortable with my team’s choice to close your account. The decision is final.

I wish you the best in any future business endeavors, even though our working relationship is now effectively ended.

Best,

Cheryl

So basically some rule that I dont know about but they wont tell me.

Unfortunately, US companies tend not to subscribe to US ideals of judicial process.

If you don't know why this company did this, and it's put you in a bad situation, then one option is to contact an organization like `eff.org`, and ask them for ideas. They might be interested in the issue of Internet-enabled "gig economy" middle party accountability. If not, they might be able to point you to the right US government authority, or to a different non-profit organization.

You could also consult a private attorney. In the US, you can get a referral to an attorney through a Bar Association, and ask for a free initial consultation, during which they will give you an idea what they can try, and how expensive that will be. If you're in the US, you can also sometimes go to a free legal clinic operated by a nearby law school.

But, I hate to say it, be cautious about raising a fuss. It sounds like you're already burnt irrevocably at the original company. (Even when someone in an organization realizes a mistake was made, an organization will tend to double-down rather than admit it.) But raising a fuss might also preclude future work at many other companies (which are often paranoid about human resources). It's not fair to the individual, nor good for society when people who feel wronged are afraid to speak up, but it's often the reality.

I'm sorry that you're currently losing income and the reputation that you built up through a company, and I hope that can be straightened out.

Yes, users flagged it. That doesn't always penalize a post drastically; it depends on the ratio of flags to upvotes.

I also tried doing UpWork in my spare time, I had a few gigs with good reviews and made ~$300 over about a month. I only took on jobs that I enjoyed so it wasn't like I was trying to live off it.

They also sent me a similar email and requested a video call to verify my identity. They quized me with some programming questions. I found it very impersonal and insulting honestly. I did not get banned but I stopped using their platform after that.

I also tried Freelancer but never did any work there, it was an awful expereince but for different reasons.

I got that call in 2016. I passed that. This was maybe second or third time they have a call with me, and this one was the shortest. Maybe 3 minutes top.

I think you should consider suing for defamation. They have effectively hurt your relationship with clients by kicking you off the platform. That's tortuous interference and defamation.

This business shouldn't be a star chamber with the power to destroy people's careers. A lawyer might be able to help you. And if the company did it to you, there's a good chance they did it to others and you can get class action status. I would seriously consider legal remedies.

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