What I make of that is 5 + 2 = 7, which of course surprises no one.

lol yeah wtf is OP trying to imply?

How about just stating what you think is wrong about the post rather than trying to be subtle and hinting at something nefarious while pointing out basic facts.

"Last year Abe said he was 15 years old, now he claims to be 16! Which is it Abe? Better keep your stories straight."

I think the thing is that if it's really the same review then the poster is effectively claiming that Freelancer.com closed his account and stole from him twice.

Why?

Well, he said so two years ago, after working with them for 5.

Then what? He opened a new account or got his old one resurrected? We have no idea.

What we do know is that now, 2 years later, he's posting the same story on Trustpilot but now claiming 7 years of working for them.

I'm not saying my interpretation is right but you have to admit that this does seem a bit fishy.

I think the implication is that the poster has continued to work there for two more years despite still having the same complaint.

And what of that? I struggled to find work in software development in spite of claims of worker shortages. It's only due to my being stubborn and having a decent safety net that I could shrug off participating on freelancing sites. Not everyone can hold out for a better offer.

That should surprise no one as well. It’s a large platform that they can’t ignore unilaterally

Thank you for your insight. I consider your comment somewhat cloak and dagger. You know the founder well?, Have him respond here. Please don't imply a poster is lying by selecting a single contradictory statement.

I am confused by your message. Their story checks out with the dates, doesn't it?

I'm downvoting you because this is an punching-down attempt at nitpicking somebody in an overwhelmingly imbalanced power dynamic. Even if it's not true, freelancer dot bleeping com does not need your cape-up. They can hue and cry about how unfair that is on their piles of middleman money, that's fine, but they do not need a rallied defense.

At best--at best--the founder you know can speak for himself.

Thanks for replying with your stance, genuinely.

I genuinely wanted to just add the additional context for the Hacker News community to discuss as it seemed relevant. If you believed the person this was a story from their past. If you are uncertain about the veracity of random posts on TrustPilot (as some commenters are) this was a data point too.

What was initially met with a dozen upvotes as people seemed to appreciate the context then shifted as comments were made about me as the OP and now the point balance is in the negative.

I wasn't intending to "rally a defense" and I was especially not intending a "punch down". I listed my disclosure at the top to ensure everyone knew any potential bias upfront rather than reading and then having to retroactively update their thinking.

I honestly think I'll keep any future knowledge to myself in situations even if I have additional context. I tried my best to remain neutral and upfront and it still faltered. "Make of it what you will" was a literal request and it seems HN decided that I was a shill / defender and reacted that way rather than using the data point or reflecting on it themselves.

Respectfully: there was no way you could have written that post to be "neutral". Regardless of your phrasing, it was going to be "don't believe this poor [in a literal sense] guy, do believe multinational enterprise freelancer dot com."

A "neutral" attempt to "add context" with regards to such a power dynamic is always always always going to be "don't listen to the weaker party." Always. Because such a thing always and, frankly, I expect was designed to delegitimize the claim.

So... it's a re-post of an earlier article, updated to reflect the difference in time. Is that what I'm supposed to make of it?

Well I of course believe every bad thing I hear about one of these sites, although I did do an extra validation layer on SAML one time for 1000 dollars that took 4 hours work all in all so that was good, but I think the thing that is sort of off is that if you update to reflect the difference in time but still keep it in present tense some things, such as the been in the house for a week after losing the money, start to seem unbelievable.

Losing your primary source of income for the last seven years for an apparently bullshit reason doesn't strike you as adequate justification for extreme distress?

It was pointed out upthread that the first version said 5 years and then 7 years and asked people to draw conclusions from it. People were drawing the conclusion that the original poster had updated their posting to keep with the amount of time passed. I just pointed out that if that were the case then they did not just spend a week indoors after 7 years, they did that 2 years ago when they did the original posting.

Probably to clarify they matter they should have said - 2 years ago my life was nearly destroyed by Freelancer.com, et c. etc. but they did not, hence the whole thing seems a bit off, perhaps because they are not very good at constructing a narrative in English.

I had supposed this point very clear from what I posted before, but it appears not, this saddens me as it may mean I am not very good at constructing a narrative in English either.

Of course there are any number of ludicrous ideas one might entertain as to why the posting was updated in the manner it was - perhaps after losing their source of income after 5 years it all ended up well and they continued with that source of income for two more years until the exact same thing happened to them in which case fool me once, fool me twice applies.

n > 5 && n > 7, (where n = years on platform). though clumsy is technically not a contradiction

All publicity is good publicity, as long as they spell your name right.