[ratww]

If the freelancer had taken a credit card directly, they would have been in the position to check with the card holder for proper authorisation beforehand, or to deny in case it looked shady.

Plus, the freelancer would be able to just sue the person they were working for directly, rather than having to sue Upwork, risking his ability to continue working there. If the freelancer didn't know client personally, it would have been impossible.

Back when people used checks, it was common for companies to either deny third-party checks or ask for the buyer sign the check over to someone else. This would put the buyer on the hook in case anything bad happened.

Marketplaces just removed all those protections that sellers could implement, while taking none of the risk.

[wpietri]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I recently purchased by-the-hour services via credit card over Zoom. They never checked the physical card; they just took the numbers and punched them in, with the charge instantly being made (Amex notified me within seconds). There's no reason to suspect that this guy would have done any more verification.

Are we sure the freelancer can't sue the person directly? And if we believe they can't, why could they do it in the case of the credit card company? In both cases, there's a chain of intermediaries; the chain's just one hop longer.

[ratww]

Were you also using a third party credit card like in this case? Are you really 100% sure this freelancer would do the same that the person in your example did? Were you also doing months-long transactions totalling 12k? If this were with me, it would definitely raise red flags.

If the client is really speaking in good faith ("there was someone else's card in my UpWork account"), all this wouldn't have even happened in the first place, and the client would have noticed it himself.

And even if the same thing happened with Upwork, in this case the choice of verifying was completely taken out of the freelancer's hand entirely. There was zero possibility of him checking a name on a credit card.

If it were a direct transaction, the credit card company would be entirely out of the picture in case of fraud. A credit card company is not an intermediate in the same way Upwork is. Also, are we 100% sure Upwork is not trying to collect the amount from the client at the same time? Have them forfeited the fees?

> If the freelancer had taken a credit card directly, he would be in the same situation as now

Point is: it is impossible to claim that one thing or the other would have happened if the situation were different.

EDIT: Added quote.

[wpietri]

> Point is: it is impossible to claim that one thing or the other would have happened if the situation were different.

Then I guess it's a good thing I didn't claim that. If somebody else did, maybe reply to them?

[ratww]

I'm talking about your first post: "If the freelancer had taken a credit card directly, he would be in the same situation as now." part.

It is impossible to claim that.

[wpietri]

I'm not claiming it as a 100% certainty. It's impossible to make any claim in almost any situation with 100% certainty. I'm somewhere in this neighborhood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law)#Preponde...