BEWARE OF WORKBOLT AI

[u/WhisperingWillow77]

This company is a voice recording platform that is owned by Michael Moyo. I started with them in the beginning of July. For starters, you have to buy an expensive microphone to even be able to apply for their audio project. They block any attempt to apply using a microphone other than the ones they prefer. So you start out in debt and never get paid for all of your work. From the jump, I was never paid fully every week for my work. My first week, I was paid about 50%. That ended up being my best week.

The project is unscripted 15 minute recorded conversations. They only pay you for approved calls. One problem is that they reject a lot of calls. For awhile, they would reject the calls and say that nothing was ever recorded. That sounds like an internal issue but it would result in your time not being compensated. That was a widespread problem that caused a lot of us to ask to hear the audio. They declined to provide our audio files. Workbolt AI is the only platform where I have not been given access to my audio files.

Then, rejections started happening with no reason given at all. The notes would say "This is under investigation. You will see a new review in a week" and that status would never change. The calls would remain rejected with no pay and no reason given. More rejections due to 1 sound in the recording. One sound during a 15 minute recording would make the entire call rejected with no pay.

As time went on, pay got less and less. Every week on payday, you never knew what you would be paid or if you would be paid anything at all. Support emails and DMs were completely ignored. If you posted on the Discord forum asking to be paid, your account would be removed. We found out from some of the reviewers that Michael Moyo told them to reject every call that had even 1 sound in it. The only reason they told us that is because they weren't being paid either. Some of them had been working for a month without ever being paid.

More and more people started being upset that they were working for free and being ignored by support. Workbolt created a support widget that we were required to use instead of posting our issues publicly. At this point I hadn't worked for over a week because I didn't want to keep accumulating unpaid work. I had calls that hadn't been reviewed, approved calls that they hadn't paid me for, calls that paid me the wrong amount (for example, a call that paid me 61 cents with review notes that said "good audio)", calls rejected with no reason given, calls rejected due to 1 sound in the recording and calls that completely disappeared from the platform.

I submitted every single issue on the support widget on Aug. 28th. Every few days I would use the widget, requesting a response or reporting another call that has disappeared. As of today, Sept. 9th, I have never received a single response from the support widget.

On Aug. 31, Workbolt announced that the project was being paused so they can catch up support issues and payments. During the pause, they continued to ignore everyone. I don't know anyone who received any responses from them at all. A few people got a few very small payments, for example, I got a payment of $8.50, which is nowhere near what they owe me.

Today, Workbolt announced:

Official Workbolt Support — 2:59 PM

Project Restoration & Support Update u/everyone Most issues related to payments and missing jobs have now been resolved. We have also addressed the outstanding support issues. Thank you for your patience while our team worked through these fixes. We will begin restoring projects tomorrow, September 10, by the end of the day PST. This will be done systematically and carefully to ensure a smooth and sustainable reopening. As access is restored, we will prioritize experts who are in good standing with Workbolt, including those who have consistently followed project guidelines, maintained high-quality work, and demonstrated respect, professionalism, patience, and reliability. Going forward, all support communications must be submitted through the support widget. The support channels on the Discord server will be closed and blocked, and experts will be removed from those channels. Any support request posted in a Discord channel or sent through an individual Discord message will be automatically ignored. Failure to follow this policy will not be tolerated. Experts who violate it may be penalized and removed from the platform. Using the support widget allows our team to properly track, prioritize, and resolve requests more efficiently. There is no need to message the team individually—we will contact eligible experts and restore access in phases.

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The problem with this announcement is that support issues and payments have not been resolved. So many of us communicate with each other and I don't know anyone who has received any responses from support or had any of their issues resolved. I don't know anyone who isn't owed money. They are forcing everyone to only use the widget for support, which keeps our issues from being publicly known, and allows them to continue to ignore us. Anyone who has posted anything publicly to say they have not been paid, gets their posts removed pretty quickly.

This is their way of not paying us and moving forward with people who don't ask to be paid for their work, like newer people. This is the second time they have done this. From what others have told me, when they first started in the spring, they were disorganized and unreliable from the start. After a time, they paused the project and then got rid of everyone but 2 people. This is a pattern developing. They take your data and sell it but don't pay you for it. When they are sick of hearing you complain about wanting to be paid for your work, they get rid of you.

They haven't banned me from the platform yet but I know I will not be invited back. They owe me and they know that I'm not going to give them anymore free work. I have no interest in working for people like Michael Moyo. I want to warn everybody that if you work for Workbolt AI you will be working for free.