My experience with a freelancer from unity forum

Hello,

So i hired a guy from the forum who seems to have enough experience to make what im looking for, he said he will do it in 1 week, now more than 2 months and he didint finish it and even start to ignore my messages.. every time i "had the chance" to have a conversation with him he always come up with excuses, some are like he is working on multiple projects and bugs appear (same bugs/errors every time, mean he dont even fix them) and he always give delays and never respect them, like he will send me a version after 2 hours and take 5 days to even replay/contact me etc.. the delay on paypal to open a dispute is already over (not much $150 but it still money, god knows how hard i worked to get them).


And he even posted a WIP image from my project without my permission lol what a nightmare person !!
Guess what he told me last time ? he said his lawyer will make sure he will get the rest of the money even if the project is canceled, really pff!!

It was really a big mistake and i want to make sure no one else will experience this with him so i writed everything..

 

Dont expect too much for that kind of money, in freelance terms its about one day pay max.

I suggest to take your losses and look for someone else.

 

Its not the full payement, its what i paid so far, also its more like a warning messages for other people who think to hire him, tried to post a feedback on his thread but wasent able "(Please see reply restrictions that apply here.)"

 

They make it tough for competent freelancers who follow through on what they say they will do and are capable of. They screw the pooch for themselves, make those wishing to hire wary of freelancers and cause competent freelancers to have to jump through too many hoops and put themselves in the precarious position of getting ripped off by the stricture to perform first, send them the work to adjudicate and then the contracting party just absconding with the work.

 

It could be more than one day, depending on freelancer's country.

Those kind of threads usually get closed because unity does not deal with freelancing disputes.

To avoid those situations it is usually the best to handle payments through freelancing website with escrow/arbitration service and terminate contract as soon as anything goes wrong.

I would cut the losses and terminate contact with the freelancer in this particular case. And speaking of "lawyers"... you do have a contract with a deadline, right? (right?) Because it is possible to the dude is trying to scare you into paying.

 

I even went too far.. i asked him to send me the project with the current errors and i will deal with it myself, but like usual he didint even bother to replay.

 

There is no contracts at all..

I edited the title and some of the info to be more like a personal experience.

 

He'll have a very hard time getting any money out of you, lawyer or not.

On another hand it means he might be legally allowed to post WIP pictures of your project, because you don't have any sort of agreement or NDA.

Basically, both of you messed up in this case.

You need agreements, ndas, etc, and you need them signed. You also need an escrow service. Without all that, you cut your losses at the first sign that the person is not trustworthy.

 

Yes i noticed that late lol, i usually work with people that i know (friends, friends of a friend etc) and never thought about a contract since a minimum of trust is already exist, but yeah we both messed up, its an experience in the end

 

Yep. At least now you know how not to do it.

Basically.... escrow protection, contracts, ndas, and assume that the other guy might decide to screw you over unless you worked with them for a while and they've proven to be trustworthy.

 

Yep, thank you !

 

There's always a chance you'll run into people that are not capable of doing the job that you need done.
This is especially the case if you need someone to get on board with a project in mid development.

So even if he did send you that project with bugs you would still be better off starting from scratch.

Next time you need help better message all of the active freelancers on the forum. You're guaranteed to find a capable person and you'll get to know the price ranges.

 

The project is done from scratch by him, i hired him from the start, tried to help him by providing some UI assets thats it.

 

that kind of dispute could be solved with a system similar to the one used in freelancer, ie ...
freelance people would apply , post skills, get contacted and rated/commented by employers.
notice that it also happens that employers are complete c..ts.

 

I can relate. If I wouldn't trust someone enough to do work without a contract that usually means I wouldn't want to work with them at all. But it's easy for me to say since ~95% of my jobs are for clients I've know for years and the other ~5% are people I know personally.

 

Yeah, we should be more careful.

 

Well it does sound like you are exaggerating just a bit although I agree that if you get a finished project it will take longer than you wanting with a good chance they won't finish the project.. I refuse to take pay when I say I'll help someone out. I either do or I don't.

Why haven't you posted a complaint in that person's thread? What I don't understand is why Unity forums doesn't allow you a dispute to that person in the for hire in that thread. It's protecting the guilty at the expense of the innocent. If the thread turns into a hissy fit then it serves as a warning to other about hiring the involved or the taking contract from the involved depending on the evidence and civility of the exchange. That said, politicians are very, very civil in behavior but... - evidence first and foremost.

 

It's not all roses on the freelancer side. I have a client that owes me about 2k I'll probably never see.

Your best bet with these relationships is to start small, get a feel for how they operate and then ramp things up. Though even then things might not work out. The client that ended in payment failure mode was someone I had worked with for a couple years.

This type of stuff is real common in business circles and most W-2 style employees never have to interface with all the crap that happens in business to business relationships.

 

I think it stemmed from people posting fake accounts on threads to pad themselves or lambasting the contracting party for asking for the whole golf course for the price of a drink at the watering hole. One is bogus and phony and the other a justified cowboy boot up their arse. As you said about politicians. In the immortal words of Stan Lee 'nuff said

 

Well, I still don't understand you the OP is not complaining in the thread of the offending freelancer what than a thread in the Discussion section where mainly a few dozen regular gossipers hang out.

Is Unity forums not allowing that? Makes no sense in that case then for them to allow people to actively solicit for paid work. I can understand the need to be civil in those threads but potential consumers should be informed in the original thread posting the solicitation not the discussion section.

 

If you want to do game development seriously and use freelancers, get involved in some skype groups or other semi-organized group where you can easily get personal references for contract work. Otherwise stick to your own country and have contracts that are enforceable.

Sending someone $150 who responded to an add on some forum somewhere is nonsense.

 

Well I've yet to hear why the OP doesn't post to the offending developer's for hire thread directly about the lack of fulfillment of their agreement.

The OP should post what the game was about here and the image that they say the freelancer posted since it's public already and maybe we can recommend to them the cheapest way to achieve getting a game that approximates what they hired the freelancer to do.

Bet they can get very close to their goal by judiciously shopping in the asset store and for less than $150. That's the nature of Unity & the asset store now.

 

I forgot to mention that also. Even if you cannot find exactly what you want from the asset store, find a quality and highly rated product that is as similar as possible to what you need done and contact that developer about doing custom work.

 

Hello SIV,

Explain me exactly what you need, maybe I could help you for free.

 

Probably because it is impossible to actually respond in the freelancer's thread, or any thread on that forum. It's spelled out in the sticky at the top of that forum.

November 21, 2014:

 

Unity doesn't allow replies in the commercial forum. Moderating disputes between users becomes problematic. And rather then deal with any legal fall out, Unity simply blocks replies.

 

Well honestly thanks I thought I had read what you two have said before but couldn't remember.

In circumstances like that, it's pretty duplicitous for the Unity forums to allow any solicitation for paid work in a thread but not critique of that paid work. It's like saying Unity trusts the people to solicit for paid work to be honest but Unity doesn't trust the people paying for that work to be honest in their appraisal of that paid work.

Several times a year someone comes complaining about some attempt to pay for work in the Unity threads. Dealing with such negative reviews without a basis or with a basis is something that many games in the app publisher's sites have to contend with and most of those games are free but someone that has paid for work can't review the paid work? Either one attempt to arrange the situation to be equatable by allowing for review by the people that have paid for those services or you don't allow the solicitation to begin with.

Really they should remove the 'Commercial' from that forum heading as it implies the posters there are looking for paid work. They maybe but the way Unity is treating the situation is hypocritical.

Maybe they can require a one of those polls at the top of each commercial threats to rate the work on a scale of 1 - 10. True it wouldn't stop the poster or trolls from rating negatively or positively without cause for the rating but you publish a game you must submit to reviews. You work for a business with regular salary you must submit to reviews.

Really, with the Made for Unity site the Commercial sections of the forum should be closed and that solicitation for work moved to the Made with Unity site and the ability to review at least via a simple star rating system should be possible there. They can expand the MWU to include business solicitation section on the MWU business profile where they solicit work and specifically list what types of work they can do and give examples of their portfolio.

LOL, although Unity has yet to fix their MWU site to even accept my domain name even though the domain is legitimate, active, and functioning.

 

Or people should just realize you are dealing with anonymous people on the internet and not send them money, or do work for them until you have proof that the transaction will be completed to your satisfaction. In the case of hiring someone, break the project down into the small parts and pay the person at milestones rather than one big payment.

This is internet 101, do not trust anyone you just met on the internet.

 

Well it's true they should be cautious but it's not natural to treat people you meet as suspicious so such warnings fall on sheltered ears that aren't experienced.

They should also be cautious about sending money because they don't know what that money is going to be used for ultimately but there comes a time when if it's legal and authorities are allowing the interaction that you should trust the people you are dealing with and if the person you were dealing with isn't being honest then those same authorities that are giving the dishonest person the ability to swindle people should expect that the swindled people deserve being given a more direct voice to inform other people that they were swindled in the swindler's own thread. That's not law enforcement but regular business practice and Unity should allow that.

It's common sense and respect for everybody, not just people that are capable of using Unity in a commercial capacity. I thought Unity was about democratizing game development but it seems there are two sets of rules - providers of technical skills (or at least if they can claim to be) are allowed to deceive and abuse those that aren't capable of providing technical skills otherwise why would those that are swindled not be given a voice to warn about the swindlers?

And those legal authorities allowing the monetary transactions need to make is easy and possible to enforce the law. Ultimately Unity is not a law enforcement agency but the person that was swindled should be able to easily and quickly file a criminial complaint in the appropriate jurisdiction in Hungary and in the OP's home jurisdiction as both places have interests in disallowing criminals to get access to money via misrepresentation. Nothing might even come of that particular charge but if people file the complaints a career criminal will start to build a criminal complaint log. I once received a refund of a tow charge I was forced to pay for after the criminal business perpetrating the crimes accumulated a criminal complaint log with the local police department even though I never filed a complaint about having my car illegally towed away to begin with. That is the power of filing criminal complaints. A business that accumulates enough of them will be investigated.

The police forces of the world need to get the business of criminal complaints internationalized and as easy as filing as calling 911, 111 or the local version of the police in whatever jurisdiction.

 

Sorry to hear about your issue, I've had my fair share of bad contractors I've had to deal with.

First, this is your biggest mistake, having no contract in place.

A contract should define exactly what work is being delivered and for what price. Broken down into milestones and payments.

This document should be converted to PDF and signed by both of you before any money is paid or work is done. The company name, address and contact number should be specified on the contract for each party, so you know which legal entity you are dealing with.

It is a pity you left the work too long, and are over Paypal's dispute limit. Unfortunately, without a contract to show them either, your hands are tied.

You should also keep ALL communications in email. I tend to avoid Skype for comms with contractors I don't know. Having everything in email gives you one single source of truth as to what was discussed and agreed upon, to back up anything that is not outlined in the contract. But your contract should really be the single source of truth.

The more stuff you have in a contract, the better the expectations are on both sides.

Also with a new contractor, work in very small milestones to begin with, say $50 each even. As your trust grows, you can increase this amount.

 

Because you can't reply to threads in the commercial work section.

 

I already explaiened that in one of the replayes
"tried to post a feedback on his thread but wasent able "(Please see reply restrictions that apply here.)""

I did sent him when he showed me some good progress not from the start !

Yeah, this "fail" about not having a contract, and actually kinda "blindly" trust him since in his thread he stats he is good and have good experience, also i wasent checking his thread after i hired him, but after "waking up" i came back to it and found that he "bumped" many times to get projects during the time he was supposed to work on mine !

What happened to me is more like an experience than a loose of money since there is no legal way here in unity forum to deal with it, however i would recommend to add a start review system that can be worked like this :
1/ First after agreeing to start a work, the client "request" to be able to add a review in a new kinda of workstream
2/ The freelancer accept this if its true (mean they start a project)
3/ Set and confirm by both parties a start time and estimating time to finish in the worksteam
4/ Client will be able to set a review AFTER the estimating time is passed with several days
5/ Like in paypal, both can have a comment board regarding the delays in case its natural
6/ both can set a reviews

I think this gives me an idea to make a worksteam web app for this lol!
What do you think ? Can be approved for sure.

 

Unity is working on their own freelancer type of service. Don't waste your time.

 

Its even better, since they will take care more of the security and maybe add escrow system

 

Yep, I contract at $125 / hr. for all development work which up until now has been 100% outside of Unity. I can understand the reservations though... this week I was contacted by a company from another country asking me to do some freelance contract work for them to parse some json. I think it's a much smaller job than they anticipated it to be. Based on requirements it will take me 2 to 3 hours most likely, but it does make me nervous working with an overseas company as far as payments. I stipulated 50% up front and they're perfectly ok with it, so that eases my concerns and it's a small project.

I was also up front and told them it's something a junior developer likely could do much cheaper but they said they'd rather I do it because I could do it faster and they'd be less concerned about bugs. The point of this being though, I wonder if they've been burned in the same way in the past. It seems to be a fairly common thread among people that use freelancers, and it's certainly not limited to the Unity community. Web developers are especially bad about abandoning projects mid-way.

 

I meant that depending on freelancer's region $125 might buy you few days of freelancer's time and not just one.

 

I don't think so. Maybe the unity certification thing would be useful though. After all, it's real names, and you get to check people's skill, and in the case of abuse, at least their cert can get revoked.

 

Don't get certified... the Unity certification is only a certified waste of money... or a certified scam... not sure.

 

You reckon? I'm considering taking the certification when it comes round to Melbourne. Figure it can't hurt anything.

 

Still better than nothing anyway

 

Better yet, you should teach yourself the certification. I'm so long in the tooth with programming experience and not looking for work so it won't do me much good, but if you've plans to look for a job with Unity as a technical qualification you can bet it's worth the training and certification test fees even if you are long in the tooth.

 

This is strange as someone like @Exeneva recommended him in the thread ?
Are you sure you didn't over pass the initital agreement between both of you ?
Ignoring your messages is not professionnal behaviour, but was you not beginning to annoy him ?

Anyway, it's up to you to be aware, because there is tons of people you could have a hard experience with them.
If a guy can't deliver within a week that was an agreement between both of you, there is no escuses, the guy is not reliable , not enought serious.Working on multiple projects is not an escuse and it's a pretty bad way to work.
You should have cancelled the work with him long before.

Next time , ask a small work instead and see how it goes, if it is delivered within delays, in good quality and the guy behave pro, than make a second contract or agreement and ask for bigger work

 

He recommended him 2 years ago (also its a reason why i hired him in first place he had good reviews), its enough time to make someone become greedy and do whatever he want no ?
Maybe i "annoy" him with my messages but just because he dont even replay, so you want me to send him 1 message and want a week or so for him to replay ? i send max 3 short messages per day, however its not a thing called annoy because its just something normal when someone dont replay to you, and yes i should've canceled the work long time ago but i prefered to give him another chance, but it was a big mistake! some people dont even deserve first chance !

 

Next time ask a first small job, if it is not done within time and as good as expected than ask another bigger for bigger price. This way you should avoid all these issues.

 

Uh, when I lived in Europe we got 5 weeks vacation a year not this sad 1 or 2 weeks vacation a year like in USA. Maybe the guy is on vacation. You can, but I don't take work with me on vacation or expect others to.

 

Uh, people change.

If someone worked with you in the past and it went well, they can always change for the worse.

 

Vacation doesn't count as a independent freelancer. You are expected to not schedule work, or to inform clients that work will be delayed.

 

That's true. I forget people actually expect to hire people from the forums in an official capacity. Myself I wouldn't count the average person in the forums as someone to hire in an official capacity unless it was taken to one of those freelancer sites.

 

Delays will be accepted if its informed BEFORE the hire, at least the client will know it !

 

I think unity is working on something called "Connect", I think this will be something to facilitate hiring freelancers from the Asset Store's publisher's pool. Now how that will work, no idea. Don't have any details. Just heard of it.