$139.50 cash out requested on the 19th of May; request not even acknowledged, let alone fulfilled, more than 7 weeks later #1591
Description
Over the past year, I earned $155 from three open bounties, all on the MATE Desktop project:
- https://app.bountysource.com/issues/32817997-feature-request-sticky-center-property-for-panel-items/
- https://app.bountysource.com/issues/41100594-please-add-an-option-to-set-the-max-volume-above-100/
- https://app.bountysource.com/issues/37931764-clock-doesn-t-get-updated-when-opening-notebook-display-lid/
On the 19th of May (admittedly a Friday), I finally decided I needed my money and submitted a cash out request for all $155 I had accumulated. I knew BountySource was going to skim 10% off that figure and that I would only get $139.50, but I was willing to accept that as just a nuisance. I also expected that, since I submitted the claim on a Friday, that BountySource's "volunteers" would not get around to processing the claim for an entire week -- they claim to generally only process claims on Friday (assuming their FAQs are up-to-date).
In reality, though, I've been waiting for seven weeks now (week seven just passed on the 7th of July), with no response: No money, no rejection, no closure, not even a mere acknowledgement of anything:
On the 13th of June, I sent BountySource a very polite support request email asking for a status update on my cash out request. The email's verbatim contents follows:
[quote]
Dear Sir or Madam,
On Friday, May 19 (2023), I requested to cash out my whole BountySource credit,
amounting to $155.00 (with BountySource's cash-out fee factored in, I
understand that I actually would be getting $139.50). Since that date, three-
and-a-half weeks have passed, while I would have generally expected the
cash-out to be complete within a week or two from my initial request. Could
you please tell me what is taking the extra time, and if nothing is, please do
what you can to make sure my request is fulfilled in a timely manner? I am
depending on that money to be available as soon as possible.
I appreciate anything and everything you can do for me regarding this issue.
Thank you very much in advance.
Regards,
Gordon
[/quote]
I promptly received a cryptic automated reply to my email, in broken English, but no human ever replied despite waiting weeks:
[quote]
Your request (859) has successfully been received by our Bountysource support team. We get back to you within the next 48 hours.
To add some comments, please respond to that e-mail.
[/quote]
About a week later, I went BountySource's home page at bountysource.com, and used the "Get in touch" feedback form at the bottom of that page to send another message, this time explaining that their support request system was lousy and that I wanted my money, but had gotten not even a reply from a human after so long. I would quote my exact words here, but unfortunately I wasn't smart enough to copy them down before I hit the Send button that time.
Then on the 28th of June, I replied to my original BountySource email and sent this message, hoping someone would notice:
[quote]
Okay, it's been nearly a full six weeks now since I asked for the last cash-out,
and I have received neither my money nor any support reply whatsoever. You
are disregarding your customers and violating better business practices.
I demand my money right now.
[/quote]
I still have not heard any reply.
This is absurd. Small developers are trying to make ends meet by monetizing real work that they put into open-source projects, and all they get is -- well, I hate to say it, but fiat "money" that they can't cash out for real money to keep a roof over their heads. They can only use it to post bounties on other open issues, so that another developer can get a bunch of these tokens that they can't use for anything useful.
In other words, BountySource takes people's real money, and then everybody is forever after stuck transacting in this pseudo-economy of value-devoid (presumably Blockchain-based) tokens as "payment" for doing real work. BountySource rakes in the douch, and developers fail to be compensated for their time and effort. And if you complain, they won't snub you off; they simply won't reply.
And who are these "volunteers" as mentioned in the FAQs? I don't see any "Help Wanted" page that lists a job for anybody outside the company, so these people must be inside BountySource. And BountySource gets a 10% cut from each payout, which must add up to millions of dollars by now, so how these people inside BountySource can be considered volunteers is beyond me. If the cash out processors aren't getting paid, who else is collecting all that money? Unless there are no volunteers processing cash outs, and all that money is going into a shell account on some Caribbean paradise island nation, or lining the pockets of some high-level official in the Blockchain Group.
I guess you can't really expect much else from a company called the Blockchain Group, can you?
It seems like everybody who tries to cash out is getting ignored just like me (#1586, for example). I will give BountySource a chance to be defended here, though: If somebody did succeed in getting a cash out, please post here. That way, we can see how many people BountySource is actually serving. If I get a hundred replies, then BountySource is probably just congested with cash out requests. If I get nothing, they're probably up to embezzlement, and I'd suggest bounty posters (users who put their money into getting issues solved) do what they can to get their money back and that everybody on BountySource leave the platform. I know I'm leaving once I have an answer to what's going on here, even if I can't get my cash.
BountySource, show yourselves to be reasonable people, stop harming your reputation, and just pay people their money!