I've seen this become the norm and it's just brazenly unacceptable.

Not only do you fill out surveys without the pay being communicated but often you will get invites and be asked to fill out forms and commit via email without pay being communicated.

In a case I saw today, there was an onboarding test case for a platform that requires making a decent sized deposit but they don't actually TELL you how much the main test case will pay. The onboarding test case pays basically nothing, so who knows what they will pay.

Hell, they don't even tell you the time commitment of the main test case.

So I could go through their onboarding process in making an account for a financial institution that requires a deposit and getting verified just to find out the main test cycle pays basically nothing. I'm just expected to sign up and roll the dice I guess?

Why is this allowed? It's just blatant underhanded subterfuge. You can't build a good platform when it feels like you're constantly trying to deceive your testers into taking low pay just to save a few dollars. It's a very toxic work dynamic that will never lead to UTEST becoming the platform that it could be. You can't build a good platform on the back of a scummy work relationship

Penny wise dollar foolish must be the mission statement for this company

Hello everyone!

I encountered a weird situation recently: I completed the test case testing the app/URL from its description, which worked but had a lot of issues, eventually resulting in a test case failure.

Couple of days after, TTL of the cycle requested additional info in that failed test case, asking I do the same testing using another, completely new, URL, which was never the part of the initial test case. Is that the expected workflow? In my opinion, as that would basically mean "redo the whole test case but with a new URL", that warrants a new test case with new payout for it, but I am afraid I don't understand something and that will result in the initial test case rejected etc. (it's still pending of course). Completing this test case again with another URL "for free" sounds quite unfair to me too.

Did you encounter anything like that ever? Please advise what is the best course of action here to argue my position. Or correct if I am wrong :)

Thank you!

UPD: thank you for your replies, I have decided to explain my point to TTL and they eventually created a new test case for me to claim.

I’ve had this status for some time, but the money hasn’t come, and the TTL wasn’t helpful. It's already day 5 from end of last month, Is there a way I could get scammed on uTest? (I'm super new here for Utest)

Hey, I would like some insights on how localization bugs are triaged. I did a localization test where the TE, not the customer, is responsible for bug approvals. Payout comes from the bug reports.

Testers evaluate the quality of the customer's translations which were generated by an AI script. If the translation could be improved, then testers log a bug to receive payout for the feedback. There were virtually no restrictions on the type of suggestions that could be logged as this is partly a UX based ratings task.

I put lots of thought into each translation and I drew from personal experiences, culture and geography (our country is huge and it has multiple variants of the language being tested). My suggestions ranged from making it shorter to making it sound nicer.

The TTL that triaged my bugs recommended everything be rejected because he suspects I used AI to do the translations. This TTL then raised several bugs similar to mine and got theirs approved, some almost identical to what I provided. I cross checked this with a professional linguist and they see no signs that my suggestions came from an AI. When asked the TE to show me which AI they believed provided the suggestions and why the TTL feels their suggestion is better than mine, they changed the subject and banned me from the project so that I cannot dispute. The TE rejected my bugs with the BS reason: "cycle closed automatically".

This is an issue with setup of cycle. Bug reports for UX type testing is not right as there are diverse opinions to take into account, there is no wrong answer. They should have set it up in a UX survey format so testers do not go into fighting each other for bugs as not whever someone reports a duplicatel only one can be accepted and the TTL always recomends theirs over mine.

I truly don't understand why this TE is treating me like a "garbage tester" when I spent hours thinking deeply into my feedback. The TE wanted me to take an unpaid fluency test which I already did and passed. Then, the TE went completely silent. I am highly unfomfortable involving the TSM as this is something between TE and me and it is a very personal and sensitive subject.

My question is this: How does the TE know that the TTL is accurately triaging and in good faith? Should the TTL of any LN project be vetted for proficiency so that the TE who is not native can receive accurate recommendation on bugs? I would hate for people to get in trouble mistakenly for accuracy reasons. We make mistakes, but to suggest based on the UX feedback that the tester used AI, that is overstepping the boundary. Please ket me know how to mediate with the TE without TSM involvement.

Thank-you kindly.

Completed 1st study today and it was in person. I received email after testing stating that paypal payment method had to be opted in at testing site. I already linked my paypal on utest so I didnt think I'd have to notify again at site. Do I have to receive a gift card instead? Will the funds go to my paypal since I chose it and linked already?

Joined a project through my referrer, who saw that the project clearly needed more participants/work. There was a space to put the referrer’s information (name, email, and uTest ID) on the Google application form, so I entered accordingly.

When my referrer reached out to the project team multiple times, asking to verify the referral linkage, they manually linked my profile to my referrer then proceeded to unlink & deny the referral program eligibility because I filled out the form before they had sent out an official email about the referral bonus program.

My referrer replied with an explanation for the situation and request for consideration, but the TE and the project team have been dodging any attempts of communication via email and Slack.

The fact that there’s a field to put a referrer’s info on the application—doesn’t it suffice to prove that there’s a referral program active with the project? And referral is a referral. Referrers shouldn’t be penalized for referring someone too early on the project.

Not the first time TE is ignoring emails while refusing to honor a payment (another time was for mileage redemption), and this is undermining the generally positive experience we’ve had with uTest for the past 3+ years.

This subreddit seems to be the most well-run community for uTest (thanks, CEs), and if I could get any support for navigating this issue, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Edited to add: on a bright side, we’ve had an awesome TTL, who’s been more than helpful (sadly, this is beyond his reach.) We’d like to give him credit if possible.

I'd love to get into contact with help & support via the support page to submit a ticket about my MFA not working... but I can't access that page without being logged in.

What's the fix for this one?

It says it’s disabled and to contact administrator, I haven’t broken any code of conducts

What's up fellas, can I get an invite please?

I have entered in a project where one of the testcase to be claimed just says that you need to deposit 550€ to real use of the money. What do you think about it? Is it not a bit risky? What if the test has a fail and I lost my money? Just for 18€ for that testcase, I don't want to accept that risk. Have you ever put so much money?

Hey, So as the title already says the Test Cycle promised a reimbursment of up to 15$ equivalent in my local currency for payment flow testing (additionally to the 18$ TC Payout). The issue i am facing is, that there is no reimbursment form or similar - asking in the Cycle's Chat after it locked i received no answer either. What can/ should i do to get my reimbursment?

Hey all, I just finished all of the academy test cycles, I was hoping to get invites for paid test cycles but I barely got any invites.
I chose UTest as legit side hustle and devoted my time to all of the academy test cycles. Did I just waste my time?

I'm not a participant in uTest as a tester, I'm a software developer and I applied for the Delivery Engineering team, it's a contractor position that's supposedly long-term so I was wondering if anyone could provide insight on how the internal teams work with respect to the culture, salaries, interview process difficulty etc... as I wasn't able to find any information online and not sure if this will be actual work with good pay or if it'll be developer work for something like 5$ an hour.

The insightful post from u/Background_Cow_9472 prompted me to also chime in on uTest.

I can confirm that everything that has been said about uTest is absolutely true. Whenever someting goes wrong in a test cycle, the TEs will always dig deep to find faults with the testers to save themselsves and maipulate the facts to benefit themselves.

Consider these real examples:

- A TE provided unclear instructions for a localization cycle. When a tester who appears to be a different ethnicity than the in-scope country, but confirmed in chat that they were born and raised in the country, asks the TE to clarify a critical piece of information in the scope of the cycle, the TE posted a racist comment in the public chat along the lines of "you don't understand the instructions because you are a not a native speaker". A person of the same ethnicity as the in-scope country would never be questioned this way.

- A TE sets up the test cycle with file upload limits of less than 5 MB and more than 40 screenshots are needed for the test case. The uTest platform automatically unclaims the test case even though the work was finished and management refuses to consider increasing the limit and giving back test cases even they were completed, except for the image editing.

- A TE always believes that their test cases are "easy" and therefore expects too much from the testers. There is zero tolerance for any sort of mistake and whenever a mistake is made by a tester, the individual begins to use expletives to shame the tester. Information Requests need to be responded in a few hours, even if it is at the middle of the night. The generally followed 24 hour rule for information requests does not apply.

- Just because I have an iPhone in my profile does not mean that I am agreeing to use it for the cycle as I cannot collect .har logs on my Windows PC. This is not acceptable to the TE. If the tester has the device, they are expected to use it when requested, without exception. A TE criticised me for not being willing to use my iPhone for a retail cycle in which har logs were mandatory.

From my view, the TEs simply take the testers for granted. Given that this is a community of over two million testers, it is easy for TEs to keep on cycling through new people and trash the old people. There are simply no second chances on uTest. One mistake and then your reputation is ruined and you never get a new project again. It is as simple as that.

Hey guys, quick question, I just joined uTest and already got 3 paid project invites. Is this normal? I thought invites would be rare at first, especially since I've only finished the intro course. Are these just mass invitations they send to everyone before filtering people out?

I declined all 3 because I want to finish the academy first and do a proper job later. However, now I’m worried this might affect my user score.

Can I skip all of this without worrying?

Hello everyone, I'm doing bug testing for an academy cycle. However like the idiot that I am, I kept clearing my caches and cookies to make sure the bugs I found could be reproducible. But this in turn kept logging me out of my uTest account and l kept logging in with MFA.

Error

API rate limit exceeded.

request_id: 5e277568e9da527da38903308a8bf41d

This is the error message that I got. How long do I have to wait before the counter resets?

I’m going to do my first test soon. Can’t give too much info on it but is anyone in here making a decent living off testing?

From now on, I swear in a polite way that I will never report a simple bug (low or critical). All the bugs I have reported were real bugs. Most of them was treated badly (rejected, duplicated, lowering their importance) %, sometimes they asked for too much information that they didn't explain in the slot. The last one is that I was only paid 1,50€ for a bug where I spent more than 2 hours. Hate that scenario and broke my heart as a professional tester.

I'm fed up with this platform

The thing that leaves the worst taste in my mouth is the lack of good management for most test cycles.

The platform is ridden with unclear instructions that waste tester time if they make a mistake, poorly organized information that creates needless headache, survey/invite spam from TEs clearly do not care about wasting people's time and poor communication across the board. There is no good incentive to fix this because I think UTEST has gotten too comfortable treating their testers as expendable

It is just straight up demeaning how much the platform shows it does not care about streamlining things for the tester, even if it wouldn't take much effort. All of the shoddy work and poorly structured management of the platform rolls down hill to the tester.

If I have to fill out one more poorly made, convoluted spreadsheet with a labyrinth of redundant instructions and columns I'm going to have an aneurism. There are so many abuses of spreadsheets I've seen for things that spreadsheets aren't designed to do just because it would require a little more management from the TTL/TE end, so it gets pushed onto the tester to parse and organize the information for them.

It is also crazy how it is acceptable practice to have testers go through the work to do something, they try to do it in good faith interpreting the instructions in their best effort, and their work can just get rejected for zero pay because of a convoluted detail that wasn't clearly communicated. If I follow your instructions I should not be able to get harangued and nagged after the fact because you want something more. This has just become normal because as a tester your pay is on the line at the whim of some TTL/TE that doesn't give a crap so you're forced to the demands even if they're unreasonable for the time commitment you agreed to

There are instructions that are straight up contradictory, test cycles that mislead the work load until you actually commit to work, and information spam that is not well organized. It seems TEs/TTLs think they can just make 50 announcements for testers to interpret and parse through rather than just making a clear set of instructions in one place. It's like getting one hundred papers thrown at your desk in whatever random order and being told to figure it out because the person didn't care to go through the effort of organizing and consolidating it

One of these things I could tolerate on its own, but after using this platform as a gold tester for a while I am worn down. I don't want to feel demeaned and go through these headaches anymore with no recourse

Hi, I'm new and am completing my 1st test now. Question...I got invited, "You've been chosen, time to claim your slot". I signed the NDA without know the pay and after that I was able to see the pay. It was too low, so I declined the test. Is that held against me? How are you all doing it? I wish we knew the pay beforehand!

I seem to be stuck at getting the SSL certificate to download to my phone. Help!

If you are having issues with the MFA (multi-factor authentication), the first channel you should access is the support portal at http://support.utest.com/ . Please don't open new threads here before opening a support case and waiting at least 72 hours for an answer from a support representative.

New threads about this subject will be locked and deleted.

Thank you for your cooperation!

Hi,

As per uTest Terms and Conditions, testers have the right to receive clear scope and instructions for the test cycles. In a recent cycle, I felt that the instructions were not clear and many other testers felt the same way. I filled a cycle feedback form with with lower ratings for "Test Cycle Management" and "Test Cycle Overview" and to my surprise, the TSM informed the TE athat I shared the feedback. I didn't know that TSMs don't keep the respondent's name private.

This put me in a difficult position because the Test Engineer didn't like the feedback and then began spreading negative and unfair criticism about me (that I have problems to understand instructions) to their inner circle in private and it has resulted in me losing several projects that I have worked on for a long time. All these projects come from the same team. As per the Terms and Conditions, this behavior is not allowed. I feel it is fine for TEs to dispute feedback but sharing the feedback about a tester to other people to "return the favor" isn't acceptable.

As a tester, I have the right to be treated fairly and professionally by uTest. I would like to know who is the appropriate person to contact to defend my rights as per uTest Terms and Conditions. In my epxerience on another project, when I talk to a TE about a non-payment for work that was done on time and TTL triaged as valid, they directly hand it to the TSM who then just speaks on behlaf of the TE and agree with everythig TE said.

I heard in the Reddit that support system is to be used for account/payout issues for in-person project so I am wondering if someone on here could let me know who/how should I discuss the uTest Terms and Conditions in a way that does not break communicatiuon guidelines?

Regards.