weakest employment relationship?

[Kevinweng99]

What is the name of your state? CA

I am working on a business model similar to uship.com. In their case, the shipping provider and the requester are directly responsible for each other's actions. uship is a neutral venue so there is no liability what so ever on uship.com's part.

My model is a bit different in the sense that money will have to go through my business. In another word, I pay the shipping provider and I charge the requester shipping fee. (Don't ask why because it is the business model). That is almost the only difference. Even though I pay the provider, I may not know who they are, every transaction is online and I am just the middle man. I pay them through paypal or credit account.

Here are the questions:

1. Since I will pay the provider, what kind of relationship it is between my business and the provider? Note the provider may only provide service when he deem profitable so it is not a regular 40 hours/week job. Typically it is only one hour a week.


2. Other than compensation, any other minimum benefit I have to provide? Note this is online transaction so it is not like I go out and recruit someone.


3. What if the shipping provider gets into a car accident? Do I have to have insurance to cover that?

4. What if the shipping provider commits a crime during the delivery? e.g. attacks the receiver? Is my business liable?

5. Both the service provider and the requester are informed of the risk involved. But is the following user agreement legal at all?

"Requester or provider will not hold the model responsible for any action or inaction, either intentional or unintentional, on the part of the buyer or worker."


6. Can provider receive compensation from his service. Can the form of compensation be store credit if the provider prefer? Will store credit avoid any income tax income therefore giving the provider better profit?


Thanks!

Kevin

 

[Country Living]

Are these school assignments?

All three postings sound like homework questions.
https://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=328836
https://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=328837
https://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=328838

 

[Kevinweng99]

Country Living, it is very wrong of you to post remark like this on all of my questions to discourage others from replying.

To tell you the truth, these are real world problems that puzzled me for a while until I find this forum. After viewing several threads, I believe this forum has the expertise to all my questions.

No they are not homework questions; don't know what give you that. I am an entrepreneur to be and trying different things so I've encounter real world legal problem. Of course they are mocked up a bit not to disclosure confidential information and at the same time reflect the essence of the question. If you take words by words, then you are too stupid to be on a public forum.

So stop posting remarks like this or find a job as a detective somewhere else! But I wonder if you can find anything as you just did a lousy job!

Sorry I have to blast you publicly as I don't know how to turn on the PM. You deserve it anyway.

Kevin

 

[ecmst12]

If you are actually starting a business, then you should have a lawyer to answer these types of questions. These questions require individual review of your proposal and go way beyond the type of advice that this forum is designed to provide.

People post homework questions on here all the time. It was not an unreasonable question based on your posts.

 

[Kevinweng99]

ok I will hire someone if I can't get any clue here.

It might be reasonable to assume it is home work question for once. It is not reasonable for him to post those remarks on all of my questions. He even took the effort to do that, I am starting to wonder what agenda he has.

 

[Country Living]

ok I will hire someone if I can't get any clue here.

It might be reasonable to assume it is home work question for once. It is not reasonable for him to post those remarks on all of my questions. He even took the effort to do that, I am starting to wonder what agenda he has.

I have no energy for agendas. In light of the tone of your remark to me - I still think it's homework. The best defense is a good offense.

In answer to your question - you posted three separate scenarios in three separate sections of this forum. It's easy to make the supposition this is a school assignment. We get those all the time. School assignments will get answered differently in that the poster is provided some guidance as to where to begin the research. If I hadn't connected your three postings, someone else would have done it.

BTW, in order to be an entrepreneur you have to be focused and funded.

 

[Kevinweng99]

I have no energy for agendas. In light of the tone of your remark to me - I still think it's homework. The best defense is a good offense.

This is definitely taking more time than I wanted to response to you. I am not sure you just want to demonstrate you have the 6th sense, or insist being stupid.

In answer to your question - you posted three separate scenarios in three separate sections of this forum. It's easy to make the supposition this is a school assignment. We get those all the time. School assignments will get answered differently in that the poster is provided some guidance as to where to begin the research. If I hadn't connected your three postings, someone else would have done it.

Again it is ok to make assumption. But it is not ok to label all my questions out. As you said school questions get different treatment. I want my questions getting some fair answers.

Two of the three questions have inherent relationships. You just didn't figure it out.

BTW, in order to be an entrepreneur you have to be focused and funded.

Again what it is with you to assume "need to be focused and funded". I don't have to explain how I am "focused and funded". I now have to assume you indeed have the 7th sense.

All I did here is asking some questions and hoping to get some answers. I don't need distraction like your remark.

Kevin

 

[tranquility]

While I didn't think the questions were homework, I did think they were too numerous and unfocused to be worth answering. It's fascinating to me how someone thinks he can choose how to mock up the facts in order to get a valid response, without really challenging his premises or even knowing the issue.

For example, the answer to #1 is to be based on your assumption of the similarity to a business which is *entirely* different. Do you disclose this difference to others? What makes you think the amount of time the provider works for you to be determative of your relationship? (The common law test has at least 20 questions for employee/independant contractor.)

In #2, the simple answer is none. Except that, because of your dearth of facts of what is happening, it is impossible to determine what you mean. "Benefits"? Are they an employee or IC? Do they have worker's comp or no? Are you paying minimum wage? Are you paying mileage? The answer gets to #1 and you cannot tell anything about what you envision from that.

In #3, it depends on your relationship. But, your facts are worthless to determine that so we'll pass again.

In #4, I can give you the general answer, but it depends on your status. Which we don't know because of the big secret of what is happening.

In #5, "informed of the risk involved", says who? What risk? By whom? What are you talking about? How does the user agreement get communicated to the user? What do they do to agree? While I assume you are the model, I could twist the words around many ways. That bodes ill for it protecting you.

In #6, The first part is meaningless to all but you. I thought your "business model" handled that. As to the second, sure, why not. If you can get people to accept a percentage of what they are owed--more power to you. (If you need me to explain this idea, let me know.) And finally, one where I have enough facts to answer. You need to pay taxes on all your income. The income made from barter needs to be included. I don't understand how paying by barter can increase your income (other than the percentage profit on the barterd item) I don't know. Usually, tax cheats try to barter to *reduce* income--not increase it.

I'm sorry you're getting no joy from the forum and I'm "sorry-er" I wasted enough of my time to let you know why.

 

[Kevinweng99]

After reading your reply, I do feel sorry about you wasting your time on this. I get no help from the reply.

I guess I learned it already that I have to hire someone to tackle these issues. I feel sorry about wasting my time and others.

 

[Kevinweng99]

While I didn't think the questions were homework, I did think they were too numerous and unfocused to be worth answering. It's fascinating to me how someone thinks he can choose how to mock up the facts in order to get a valid response, without really challenging his premises or even knowing the issue.

My 2nd thought on this is that I did provide a well defined context, which is a uship.com business model with the one modification of money going through the website. There is a reason to the modification which I can't disclose here.

Even the above context is short, it has all the detail required. I don't want to repeat what exactly uship.com does because you can find out easily from the website.

If you don't have time to sink your teeth into what exactly uship.com does, that is ok. You don't have to answer my questions. But you can't dismiss the question as worthless either just because you are not interested or does not have the time.

In fact, uship.com is one of most innovative business models out there. So if you are interested how new business model challenge traditional courier service, you should study them. I will throw out another one licketyship.com.

Once you miss the initial context, there is no point for you to go down the list to educate me how worthless each question it is. All subsequent questions are based on the initial context which you already missed. If you feel more specific info is needed, I will be more than happy to supply it if I can.

So this is one unpleasant online forum experience. It does not have to be.

 

[tranquility]

My 2nd thought on this is that I did provide a well defined context, which is a uship.com business model with the one modification of money going through the website. There is a reason to the modification which I can't disclose here.

"John, this is my friend, Steve. He mows lawns. I hear you need your lawn mowed, I think he charges $20."

"John, if you give me $20, I'll make sure your lawn is mowed." (With the intent to call Steve and have him mow the lawn.)

Are the two things the same? I can continue to slice the pie, but at the bottom line, there is a *big* difference when money flows differently. Contract, tort, criminal, tax, employment and insurance issues (as well as others) are impacted. Without specific facts you cannot, *cannot*, determine where the issues will lie. That you insist you have provided a well-defined context, shows the importance of you seeing a professional who can wrestle the material facts from your tightly-gripped mind.

But you can't dismiss the question as worthless either just because you are not interested or does not have the time.

The question is worthless because you have not provided enough facts. My interest or amount of time does not make the question worthless.

As to the unpleasantness of the forum, why don't you take on the same task you assign us--that is, do your homework. (I'm supposed to go to the website to find out a business model of an entirely different business to compare and contrast with your secret business model. You could look up my prior posts on the forum.) Form the opinion as to whether I treat posters with respect, even if I think their ideas are dumb. Here, I don't know if it's dumb or not. I only know that you don't provide enough facts for anyone to give a useful answer to you.

 

[Kevinweng99]

But you can't dismiss the question as worthless either just because you are not interested or does not have the time.

The question is worthless because you have not provided enough facts. My interest or amount of time does not make the question worthless.

As to the unpleasantness of the forum, why don't you take on the same task you assign us--that is, do your homework. (I'm supposed to go to the website to find out a business model of an entirely different business to compare and contrast with your secret business model. You could look up my prior posts on the forum.)

The facts is well presented on uship.com. You just don't have the interest or time to look into it. So be it, you can pass the question. That is why there will always be more views than posts on any thread. As of now this thread has 123 views, 10 posts. Do all 123(not really 123 as there is repeating view. Just to be correct, now that I am paranoid of being accused for everything) visitors have to say anything just because they are not interseted or do not have the time to read uship.com?

The reason I was not "doing my homework" by describing what they do is their website does a superior job of that. No matter how long a description I put up here it can't compare to just one visit to their site. You get the business model right away. I don't want to spam this board either. I could've spelled out the url http://www.uship.com. So you can accuse me being lazy on that.

I trust you are a reasonal person, but I don't think that prove you are right or fair in every occasion. I have something to say toward your initial answers, so I spent the time to response even I wish I didn't.

 

[cbg]

You're right. We don't have the interest to go to another website to look at your secret model so that we can give you, for free, answers that no one will pay us for providing. If you want volunteers to provide you with free information, it behooves you to provide us the information in a way that is convenient for us. We are doing a favor for you, not the other way around, and we have no obligation to do you that favor if it is not convenient.

 

[Kevinweng99]

You're right. We don't have the interest to go to another website to look at your secret model so that we can give you, for free, answers that no one will pay us for providing. If you want volunteers to provide you with free information, it behooves you to provide us the information in a way that is convenient for us. We are doing a favor for you, not the other way around, and we have no obligation to do you that favor if it is not convenient.

Agreed. That is well understood and I respect that. The point I am making here is that it can be convenient to you, but it is not effective. I don't want you to get an incomplete picture because the deficiency of my description.

Spending time answering question for free is inconvenient by nature already, so that is a given. I want to get serious answers; therefore I encourage anyone who is kind enough to offer free answer to my questions to pay uship.com a visit to get the complete idea. If it is not convenient to you, that is ok. These are not jokes, nor homework, as someone already suggested.

 

[ecmst12]

Hire. A. Lawyer.

I promise you that the people who answer questions here do not get paid enough (nothing!) to go to this web site and read about this business in order to answer your vague and unfocused questions. Clearly you can't be bothered to post all the facts. So go pay someone $150 an hour to look at your secret business model and do all the research for you and tell you if your plan is feasible and what your issues are.