Thread by @MattFnWallace

Hey, who wants to read a story about @Upwork fucking over freelancers in order to upsell their clients on unnecessary services the clients don't want and can't afford? Strap in!

So after my marketing agency closed I started freelancing again. A marketing company that wanted to work with me only hires freelance writers through @Upwork. So I signed up. I wasn't thrilled about it, but that's who they contract with and it's their marketing company.

I've been receiving regular assignments from this company, thru @Upwork, for over a month now. I've written dozens of articles for them. My work has been exemplary. I've been handling repeated rush jobs and delivering. The client was and is very happy. That's coming from them.

While I was wrapping up several assignments this week I was contacted by the marketing company. They asked if I had taken a new full-time job and wasn't available anymore. It seems @Upwork's talent group told them I was no longer available to take assignments.

I was very surprised. Nothing had changed on my end. I still needed the freelance work very much. I told them so. So the marketing company pressed @Upwork and were told there were "compliance" issues that were preventing the marketing company from giving me any more work.

The marketing company, as confused as I was, pressed @Upwork further. @Upwork would NOT tell them, refused to tell them what those supposed compliance issues were. In the meantime, I received ZERO notification about ANY of this. NONE OF IT.

The ONLY reason I found out any of this was happening, that money I need to live was being arbitrarily taken off the table by @Upwork, was that I have a friend at the marketing company I go back with two decades. That's how I got the hook up.

If I hadn't known this guy, I would have simply stopped receiving assignments without ever knowing why. Despite the fact the marketing company WANTS TO HIRE ME. @Upwork is preventing them from doing so.

I've spent all day today trying to unravel the mystery of my compliance with @Upwork's extremely polite but completely oblivious and inept "talent group." I finally got in touch with someone who was willing to talk about the issues of that compliance. Are you ready?

The reason the marketing company can no longer hire me thru @Upwork is because @Upwork's algorithm has determined I am "eligible for employment," i.e. to be an employee at this company.

So for the marketing company to continue assigning me work, they have to enroll in @Upwork's "payroll service" to do it. Otherwise @Upwork will not allow them to give me work via the platform. Are you seeing the scam yet?

So @Upwork is insisting the marketing company make me an employee...VIA A FUCKING FREELANCE SERVICE. The whole goddamn point of their bullshit platform is to connect FREELANCERS with CLIENTS.

IF I WANTED TO BE A FULL-TIME EMPLOYEE I WOULDN'T BE USING YOUR HORSE SHIT SERVICE, @UPWORK. And by this standard, EVERYONE using @Upwork should be an employee and no one should freelance. It is complete nonsense.

Here's the slow and skinny of it, folks: @Upwork is using me to extort their clients into signing up for this payroll service. Pure and simple. They are holding my employment hostage unless this company pays them more money for this unnecessary bullshit.

And the marketing company is locked into a contract with @Upwork. Whether they should've signed that or not is irrelevant to me. The marketing company wants to hire me with their money, and @Upwork won't allow them to because they're trying to upsell them.

Once again, the ONLY reason I know about ANY of this is because I have an in at the company. If I didn't know my friend, I wouldn't have been notified about any of it. Think about ALL the freelancers who don't have personal contacts that @Upwork has leveraged like poker chips.

This is the definition of exploiting freelancers. @Upwork are LIARS. They lied to their client. They've been lying to me all week. They're taking money out of my pocket. And all the while pushing their bullshit PR about being a service *for* freelancers.

And it is so fucking unnecessary. It is so greedy and duplicitous and unethical. Again, it's a freak accident that I know about ANY of this. I can't imagine how many freelancers they've fucked over who never had a clue they were being used as professional hostages.

I had a steady stream of freelance marketing work on which I could depend. I worked very hard to deliver quality work to that client on schedule. The client was happy. I DID MY FUCKING JOB. Now I have shit. Square fucking one. Because @Upwork are greedy assholes who DON'T CARE.

I am so sick of this shit, folks. I am so fucking literally sick to my stomach and disgusted by this shit. Every industry I work in....EVERY FUCKING ONE...publishing, entertainment, marketing...they treat writers like fucking dogs. They couldn't exist without us. Could not exist.

I'm not taking it this time. I'm not. I'm not going to watch @Upwork, another bullshit content mill dressed up in fancy clothes, exploit skilled, DESPERATELY NEEDED laborers just trying to make a living. I'm done.

I am begging y'all...I AM FUCKING BEGGING YOU...please share this thread. Tell your friends. If you know people working at BuzzFeed-esque websites or whatever, tell them. This needs to be covered and exposed. Somebody has to hold outfits like @Upwork accountable and no one is.

I just want somebody to give a shit, you know? I want somebody to care. I know that sounds hokey or whatever, but it's the truth. You expect corporations to fuck you over. But it just feels like NOBODY cares about writers.

PS: If you're a freelancer who has been similarly or otherwise screwed over, or reading this thread just realized you've been screwed over by @Upwork, I'd like to hear from you to discuss our collective options. I'm not letting this stand.

I legit just received an email from @Upwork's "Executive Escalations" (I swear to god) department. I've been trying ALL DAY to get these people to answer me. Two minutes after I rant on social media? Personal email. Public shame is all they understand. They don't care otherwise.

So. I'm feeling pretty tired and defeated right now, but I promised y'all an update on the @Upwork situation and I owe you at least that much for how great you were about sharing/boosting this story and being there for me when I needed it. Thank you again.

Last night, after my Twitter rant and you sharing it, @Upwork's social team reached out to me several times here and via email and I ignored them, mostly because I was pissed I couldn't get anyone to tell me anything useful all day and they only gave a crap after I made noise.

And I want to make VERY clear. There is not a single doubt in my mind @Upwork was never going to give a crap until/unless I made them look bad on Twitter. I have *just* enough reach to be a problem. They were done with me otherwise. That's not okay.

So finally, after blowing off their social media efforts, I received both a call/voicemail AND an email from @Upwork senior HR director. I talked it over with Nikki and decided to call her back and hear what she had to say.

The HR director was extremely nice. Not contentious at all. Deferential and apologetic. She had ZERO defense for @Upwork's complete and utter lack of communication with me. Didn't even try to double talk that one.

She apologized for that and admitted they communicated with me poorly and need to do better. I still think she drastically understated the case and its impact, but at least she didn't deny anything related to how they fucked that one up.

As far as my worker classification and @Upwork insisting the client had to put me on payroll as an employee to continue working with me, she laid that off on California's stringent independent contractor laws and the fact the client subscribes to @Upwork's compliance service.

She said because the client opts to be part of that service, whether they want to use the payroll portion or not, @Upwork is forced to mandate that freelancers who receive too much work from any one client be upgraded to employee status.

Sounds perfectly reasonable, right? But, in the words of John Mulaney, here's the thing...

Those stringent CA laws governing freelancers? They exist. However, they don't have any monetary/hourly guidelines for what constitutes "too much" freelance work. It is ENTIRELY up to @Upwork to interpret and apply those laws to each situation. The HR director told me as much.

So @Upwork unilaterally and arbitrarily decided I'd exceeded the amount of contracts to continue classifying me as a freelancer and allowing me to work with this client. And when I asked what THEIR limits are for money and hours and contracts, she told me they don't have any.

They just...play it by ear, I guess? Go by feel? SUPER professional and scientific, especially when you're fucking around with people's livelihoods and the work on which they depend and especially when you're NOT TELLING THEM ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING.

So. I asked her, since again it's ENTIRELY within @Upwork's discretion to make this decision, and since I'd only been receiving work from this client for a little over a month, would @Upwork reconsider their decision about my classification?

This question seemed to STAGGER her. She sounded as if she neither expected it nor had she ever had anyone raise the issue. She finally said no, they couldn't reconsider it. When I asked y'know, WHY they couldn't, she stumbled a little and then said it wouldn't be "appropriate."

"Appropriate" sounded vague as hell to me and I told her so. She could not adequately explain why @Upwork couldn't even possibly consider reversing a subjective decision that she admitted they have total and final control over, even after she also admitted they screwed me.

(The HR director was on speaker phone in our car, and listening to this part in particular, my wife Nikki's head was about to explode she found it so asinine and ridiculous.)

I told the HR director that at the VERY least, I expect to be monetarily compensated for the work I lost during the time the client was trying to assign me work, wasn't able to, and @Upwork was willfully misleading them about why and not even bothering to tell me anything.

She told me she would have to get back to me on that. What she offered me on the phone was for @Upwork to connect me with new clients to help me get more work (through @Upwork, of course). I didn't want to hear anything that didn't start with money or reconsidering my status.

So, that was last night. That brings us to today...

The same HR director called me this morning to tell me she was working hard to offer me the best resolution possible and didn't want me to think she'd forgotten. I want to add that to be fair, but I would also point out I only got to talk to her because I publicly shamed @Upwork.

She finally got back to me a little while ago here. No money. No monetary compensation from @Upwork for the work I lost. She said the concept of lost wages only applies to full-time employees and they won't even consider it.

No reconsidering my classification so I can continue working with the client thru @Upwork. It's clear the possibility was never discussed after our initial conversation. I'm done working with that client thru @Upwork, which means I'm done working with them unless i incorporate.

(Those are the client's current policies, which are a whole other discussion.)

What @Upwork is willing to offer me to make up for this shit show is a year's free upgrade to their premium level service or whatever and to connect me with a "talent agent" who will then hook me up with some of their top clients. That's it.

Basically, to compensate me for arbitrarily taking away a regular revenue stream from me and souring my relationship with a satisfied client, @Upwork is offering me the chance to make @Upwork more money, they just won't charge me extra to do it. At least, that's the way I see it.

I have declined @Upwork's offer, mostly because no matter what they'd offered me, I was never going to use their service again anyway. I still have money pending in my account, and I'm GOING to collect that, but that's it.

Annnnnnd that's where we are. I'm discussing my options for legal recourse with Nikki and weighing those. I was just contacted by a writer from @WIRED who wants to talk to me about my experiences with @Upwork. So we're not done. But that's where we're at for now.

I do want to add a few things to this right now, though...

Despite how polite and deferential and reassuring their HR director was, my opinion of @Upwork remains unchanged. I thoroughly believe they willfully misrepresented the situation to both the client and to me. They were NEVER going to tell me any of this happened or was happening.

When I initially called them on it, they did nothing but stall and gaslight me. I was referred up the chain two or three times and each person I dealt with was less helpful than the one before. That ONLY changed when I put @Upwork on blast on social media.

Also, the HR director flat-out told me that @Upwork makes less money when freelancers become employees and go on payroll. That creates a total conflict of interest for them and explains why they didn't want me to know my classification had changed with the client.

If I knew my status had changed with the client and I couldn't continue to work with them through @Upwork, I might've gone outside @Upwork to try and work for the client myself. @Upwork doesn't want that. I thoroughly believe that's the reason they didn't tell me.

Again, @Upwork didn't know I had a personal contact at the client company and was in direct contact with them. I'm sure 9 out of 10 times when this happens, the freelancers on their platform just move on without investigating. It was a safe bet I would too.

That's my theory, anyway. I can't confirm that, but it's the only thing that makes sense. Literally the only other option is @Upwork is just completely incompetent. In either case, it's not okay and it fucked me over in a big way and they won't do anything real to fix it.

I'm tired, folks. You know? I was furious yesterday. Today I'm just tired. I've been doing this 12 years. I provide a necessary, needed service for a variety of industries, I do it well, and all I or most freelancers get is shit on by these industries and companies like @Upwork.

And no one cares. There's no public outcry. There's no regulation, especially for online services/markets. Our existing guilds, however well intentioned, are completely powerless. Companies like @Upwork make millions exploiting freelancers and they will continue to do so.

I can only battle these fuckers so long and so much on my own. I can only make so much noise. I can only do so many vlogs and podcasts and tweets saying the same shit. Y'all need to get mad and do something or nothing will ever change, in any of these industries.

I think that's all for now. Thank you for reading. Thank you for sharing and making noise on my behalf. It's the ONLY reason I got even this far with @Upwork. I'm sorry for all the freelancers who don't have even the middling presence I do and have no tools to fight back.

So, yeah. Wallace out.